Few people have heard of it, yet many consider John Blankenbaker's KENBAK-1 to be the first commercial personal computer.
Lost in Space B9 Robot
By bohus
Wired magazine's recent cover story on the 50 best robots of all time left out two crucial examples: Daleks and the Lost In Space robot (though it did my Czech heart good when the article cited the word "robot" as coming from a Czech play. You can all thank me later).
The friendly beer keg shaped robot from LIS was my earliest introduction to the robot-as-you-best-friend cliche of sci-fi, as I'm sure it was for countless others. Who among us hasn't dreamed of owning one? Now B9 Creations makes it possible. The robot is a mechanized prop (sadly you can't climb inside and befriend the Billy Mumy's of your neighborhood), with all the impressive things you'd expect a $20,000 robot replica to do.
You can operate various mechanics of the robot using a wireless controller, position the arms, trigger any of 500 phrases recorded by Dick Tufeld (the original voice artist whom you can contract to do custom recording for your robot), and you can control the 240 watt stereo built in. Yep, this is yet another device that you can plug your iPod into that is much cooler than the iPod Hifi.
