"Rog Phillips - Rat in the Skull" - читать интересную книгу автора (Phillips Rog)

hamsters and guinea pigs. When it was done they stood arm in arm viewing their new
possession.
To Alice MacNare, just the presence of the animals in her husband's study brought
the research project into reality. As the days passed that romantic feeling became
fact.
"We're going to have to do together," Joe MacNare told her at the end of the first
week, "what a team of a dozen specialists in separate fields should be doing. Our
first job, before we can do anything else, is to study the natural movements of each
species and translate them into patterns of robot directives."
"Robot directives?"
"I visualize it this way," Dr. MacNare said. "The animal will be strapped comfortably
in a frame so that its body can't move but its legs can. Its legs will be attached to
four separate, free-moving levers which make a different electrical contact for every
position. Each electrical contact, or control switch, will cause the robot body to do
one specific thing, such as move a leg, utter some particular sound through its voice
box, or move just one finger. Can you visualize that, Alice?"
Alice nodded.
"Okay. Now, one leg has to be used for nothing but voice sounds. That leaves three
legs for control of the movements of the robot body. In body movement there will
be simultaneous movements and sequences. A simple sequence can be controlled by
one leg. All movements of the robot will have to be reduced to not more than three
concurrent sequences of movement of the animal's legs. Our problem, then, is to
make the unlearned and the most natural movements of the legs of the animal control
the robot body's movements in a functional manner."
Endless hours were consumed in this initial study and mapping. Alice worked at it
while her husband was at the university and Paul was at school. Dr. MacNare rushed
home each day to go over what she had done and continue the work himself.
He grew more and more grudging of the time his classes took. In December he
finally wrote to the three technical journals that had been expecting papers from him
for publication during the year that he would be too busy to do them.
By January the initial phase of research was well enough along so that Dr. MacNare
could begin planning the robot. For this he set up a workshop in the garage.
In early February he finished what he called the "test frame." After Paul had gone to
bed, Dr. MacNare brought the test frame into the study from the garage. To Alice it
looked very much like the insides of a radio.
She watched while he placed a husky-looking male white rate in the body harness
fastened to the framework of aluminum and tied its legs to small metal rods.
Nothing happened except that the rat kept trying to get free, and the small metal rods
tied to its feet kept moving in pivot sockets.
"Now!" Dr. MacNare said excitedly, flicking a small toggle switch on the side of the
assembly.
Immediately a succession of vocal sounds erupted from the speaker. They followed
one another, making no sensible word.
"He'sdoing that," Dr. MacNare said triumphantly.
"If we left him in that, do you think he'd eventually associate his movements with the
sounds?"
"It's possible. But that would be more on the order of what we do when we drive a
car. To some extent a car becomes an extension of the body, but you're always
aware that your hands are on the steering wheel, your foot on the gas pedal or brake.
You extend your awareness consciously. You interpret a slight tremble in the