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Are Mechanical Music Instruments "Robots"?
By Don Cox

If you read Karel Capek's play "RUR" ("Rossum's Universal Robots"),
where the word "robot" was invented, you will see that robots are
artificial human beings that look exactly like real human beings.

Old Rossum discovered a substance which behaved exactly like living
matter, although its chemical composition was different.  Note that
his robots are neither digital nor electronic.

Rossum's nephew, an engineer, set up the big factory to manufacture
robots by the tens of thousands.  By the end of the play, the robots
have killed off all the human race except one.

The nearest thing to robots in more recent fiction are the replicants
in "Bladerunner".

So I don't think a mechanical musical instrument is anything like
a robot.  But is a mechanical musical instrument a computer?

Regards

Don Cox
doncox@enterprise.net


(Message sent Wed 10 Sep 2003, 21:37:37 GMT, from time zone GMT.)

Key Words in Subject:  Are, Instruments, Mechanical, Music, Robots

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