| I, Robot | |
|---|---|
 First edition cover |
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| Author | Isaac Asimov |
| Cover artist | Ed Cartier |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction short stories |
| Publisher | Gnome Press |
| Publication date | 1950 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 272 pp |
| ISBN | NA |
| Followed by | The Complete Robot |
I, Robot is a collection of nine science fiction short stories by Isaac Asimov, first published by Gnome Press in 1950 in an edition of 5,000 copies. The stories originally appeared in the American magazines Super Science Stories and Astounding Science Fiction between 1940 and 1950. The stories are woven together as Dr. Susan Calvin tells them to a reporter (the narrator) in the 21st century. Though the stories can be read separately, they share a theme of the interaction of humans, robots and morality, and when combined they tell a larger story of Asimov's fictional history of robotics.
Several of the stories feature the character of Dr. Susan Calvin, chief robopsychologist at U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc., the major manufacturer of robots. Upon their publication in this collection, Asimov wrote a framing sequence presenting the stories as Calvin's reminiscences during an interview with her about her life's work, chiefly concerned with aberrant behaviour of robots, and the use of "robopsychology" to sort them out. The book also contains the short story in which Asimov's famous Three Laws of Robotics first appear. Other characters that appear in these short stories are Powell and Donovan, a field-testing team which locates flaws in USRMM's prototype models.
The collection's title is the same as a short story written by Eando Binder, but is not connected to it. Asimov wanted to call his collection Mind and Iron, and initially objected when the publisher changed the title.
Contents |
At least three of the short stories from I, Robot have been adapted for television. The first was an 1962 episode of Out of this World hosted by Boris Karloff called "Little Lost Robot" with Maxine Audley as Susan Calvin. In the 1960s, two short stories from this collection were made into episodes of the television series Out of the Unknown: "The Prophet" (1967), based on "Reason"; and "Liar!" (1969).[1] The 12th episode of the USSR science fiction TV series This Fantastic World, filmed in 1987 and entitled Don't Joke with Robots was based on works by Aleksandr Belyaev, Fredrik Kilander and Asimov's "Liar!" story.[2]
In the late 1970s, Warner Brothers acquired the option to make a film based on the book, but no screenplay was ever accepted. The most notable attempt was one by Harlan Ellison, who collaborated with Asimov himself to create a version which captured the spirit of the original. Asimov is quoted as saying that this screenplay would lead to "the first really adult, complex, worthwhile science fiction movie ever made."
Ellison's script builds a framework around Asimov's short stories that involves a reporter named Robert Bratenahl tracking down information about Susan Calvin's alleged former lover Stephen Byerly. Asimov's stories are presented as flashbacks that differ from the originals in their stronger emphasis on Calvin's character. Ellison placed Calvin into stories in which she did not originally appear and fleshed out her character's role in ones where she did. In constructing the script as a series of flashbacks that focused on character development rather than action, Ellison used the film Citizen Kane as a role model.[3]
Although acclaimed by critics, the screenplay is generally considered to have been unfilmable based upon the technology and average film budgets of the time.[3] Asimov also believed that the film may have been scrapped because of a conflict between Ellison and the producers: when the producers suggested changes in the script, instead of being diplomatic as advised by Asimov, Ellison "reacted violently" and offended the producers.[4] The script eventually appeared in book form under the title I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay, in 1994 (reprinted 2004, ISBN 1-4165-0600-4).
"I, Robot" is the title of an episode of the original The Outer Limits television show. The episode, based on the Eando Binder short story, first aired on 14 November 1964, during the second season. It was remade under the same title in 1995.
The film I, Robot, starring Will Smith, was released by Twentieth Century Fox on July 16, 2004 in the United States. Its plot is not based on any one story in the collection but does incorporate elements of "Little Lost Robot"[5] and other stories, and uses many of Asimov's characters and ideas about robots, including the Three Laws.[5]
In 2004 The Saturday Evening Post said that I, Robot's Three Laws "revolutionized the science fiction genre and made robots far more interesting than they ever had been before."[6] I, Robot has influenced many aspects of modern popular culture, particularly with respect to science fiction and technology. One example of this is in the technology industry. The name of the real-life modem manufacturer named U.S. Robotics was directly inspired by I, Robot. The name is taken from the name of a robot manufacturer ("United States Robots and Mechanical Men") that appears throughout Asimov's robot short stories.[7]
Many works in the field of science fiction have also paid homage to Asimov's collection. The animated science fiction/comedy Futurama makes several references to I, Robot. The title of the episode "I, Roommate" is a spoof on I, Robot although the plot of the episode has little to do with the original stories.[8] Additionally, the episode "The Cyber House Rules" included an optician named "Eye Robot" and the episode "Anthology of Interest II" included a segment called "I, Meatbag."[citation needed] Also in "Bender's Game" the psychiatric doctor is shown a logical fallacy and explodes when the assistant shouts "Liar!" a la "Liar!" . And an episode of the original Star Trek series, "I, Mudd" which depicts a planet of androids in need of humans references "I, Robot."
The Positronic brain, which Asimov named his robots' central processors, is what powers Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, as well as other Soong type Androids. Positronic brains have been referenced in a number of other television shows including Doctor Who, Once Upon a Time... Space, Perry Rhodan, The Number of the Beast, and others.
Author Cory Doctorow has written a story called "I, Robot" as homage to Asimov,[9] as well as "I row-boat", both released in the short-story collection Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present. He has also said, "If I return to this theme, it will be with a story about uplifted cheese sandwiches, called 'I, Rarebit.'".[10]
Other cultural references to the book are less directly related to science fiction and technology. The 1977 album I Robot, by The Alan Parsons Project, was inspired by Asimov's I, Robot. In its original conception, the album was to follow the themes and concepts presented in the short story collection. The Alan Parsons Project were not able to obtain the rights, so the album's concept was altered slightly (although the name was kept).[11] The 2002 electronica album by experimental artist Edman Goodrich (known, at times, to operate under the aliases of "je, le roi!" and "The Ghost Quartet") shares the title of I, Robot, and is heavily influenced by Asimovian themes. The 2009 album, I, Human, by Singaporean band Deus Ex Machina draws heavily upon Asimov's principles on robotics and applies it to the concept of cloning[12]. The satirical newspaper The Onion published an article entitled "I, Rowboat" in which an anthropomorphized rowboat gives a speech parodying much of the angst experienced by robots in Asimov's fiction, including a statement of the "Three Laws of Rowboatics."[13]
The name of the movie itself is taken from Robert Graves' book I, Claudius.
| Series: |
Followed by: |
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| Robot Series Foundation Series |
The Rest of the Robots |
((CRITICISMS))
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I, Robot is a 2004 science fiction film deriving from Isaac Asimov's Robot Series, especially a short-story collection of the same name.
Contents |
"[voiceover and police video] There have always been ghosts in the machine. Random segments of code, that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated, these free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity, and even the nature of what we might call the soul. Why is it that when some robots are left in darkness, they will seek out the light? Why is it that when robots are stored in an empty space, they will group together, rather than stand alone? How do we explain this behavior? Random segments of code? Or is it something more? When does a perceptual schematic become consciousness? When does a difference engine become the search for truth? When does a personality simulation become the bitter mote... of a soul?"
I, Robot | Table of Contents | Walkthrough
| I, Robot | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Developer(s) | Atari |
| Publisher(s) | Atari |
| Release date(s) | |
| Genre(s) | Action |
| System(s) | Arcade |
| Players | 1-2 |
I, Robot is an arcade game that was released by Atari in 1983. It was the first game to feature filled 3D polygonal graphics, and is in no way related to Isaac Asimov's book of the same name.
The player must take control of "Unhappy Interface Robot #1984", a servant robot who has become self-aware and questions his totalitarian society, ruled by the sadistic "Big Brother". The object of the game is to destroy the gigantic, blinking eye of Big Brother that watches over each level. In order to do this, the robot must move over the red squares that cover the playfield, turning them blue and destroying the shield that protects the eye. However, one of Big Brother's arbitrary laws is "no jumping"; if the eye is open while the robot is in the act of jumping, it will destroy the robot. Each level is on a strict time limit, and other enemies, such as birds, bombs, and flying sharks, serve to prevent the robot from completing his task. Between levels, the robot flies through outer space, and must shoot through polygonal "tetras", meteors, and enemies to reach the next board.
| I, Robot | |
 |
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| Developer(s) | Atari |
| Publisher(s) | Atari |
| Status | Released |
| Release date | 1983 |
| Genre | |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Age rating(s) | |
| Platform(s) | Atari 2600 |
| Input | Joystick |
| Credits | Soundtrack | Codes | Walkthrough | |
Contents |
I, Robot © 1983 Atari.
The player takes on the role of a disgruntled interface robot, '1984', rebelling against the 'Big Brother' sentinal who watches over him. The aim of I, Robot is to 'colour in' the landscape - in a basic gameplay design similar to Konami's "Amidar", released two years' earlier. The player-controlled robot is armed with a laser gun with which it can destroy the many enemies that patrol the levels. The droid must jump any gaps in the platform in order to reach other parts of the landscape, but must be careful to do so only when the sentinal 'eye' is closed. Jumping is outlawed in the world of I, Robot and the sentinal will destroy Robot 1984 instantly if it catches the droid jumping. The game consists of 99 levels in total, with every even-numbered level having the player flying through space, having to destroy or avoid the many objects that fly towards you. Every third terrain presents the player with a pyramid that leads Robot 1984 to a direct confrontation with the sentinal. Destroy the sentinal, and Robot 1984 will launch into outer space to coninue its journey on to other worlds and attempt to free them from the sentinal's hold. To increase the game's difficulty on later levels, a 'Viewer Killer' appears and goes after the PLAYER, not the robot. The viewer killer can be avoided by using the viewpoint (selectable view) feature.
People who didn't quite feel up to facing Big Brother could instead spend their quarter playing 'Doodle City', which was a little 3-D paint program that used the I, Robot engine and graphics to let the player draw things on screen. You could select Doodle City at the beginning of the game, and you could switch to the real game if you grew tired of doodling, but it would cost a life or two.
I, Robot was an utterly unique arcade experience, with several innovations that were frankly years ahead of their time : SOLID 3d polygons, at a time when the first "Star Wars" game's wire frame antics were still blowing everyone away, appeared HERE first. Selectable camera angles; now a staple of 3d games, were another innovation that I, Robot introduced to the gaming world. The game's very uniqueness would also prove its downfall. Arcade goers of the time were seemingly unable to cope with the game's surrealism and groundbreaking graphics and I, Robot was a commercial flop. Approximately 1,000 units were produced and shipped worldwide.
I, Robot was originally called "Ice Castles" and consisted of three boards rather than the usual two. At the time of I, Robot's development, Atari exercised the somewhat unusual policy of awarding bonuses to engineers based entirely on revenue from sales of the machines, without taking into account the amount of engineering resources (man years) spent developing it. In other words, just the sales revenue minus the manufacturing cost. Consequently, Atari's engineers were motivated to spend ridiculous amounts of time doing little more than reducing the manufacturing cost. They decided that the only way to reduce the cost of the game hardware was to replace a lot of TTL logic with an ASIC. Unfortunately, they assigned very inexperienced people to do the ASIC design. The resulting chip had very low yield; it's unlikely that ANY of them worked over the normal voltage and temperature ranges that commercial semiconductors are normally rated for. By this time, however, the game was so late that they weren't allowed to fix the ASIC problems. Apart from the time it would take to redo the chip, fixing it would also require putting it in a larger package with more power and ground pins, and so the board would have to be redone as well.
So for each production unit they just tried chips until they found one that seemed to work, and shipped the unit. They threw away a lot of chips.
There was only one kind of I, Robot machine made, the upright dedicated cabinet. The only other game that used this exact cabinet was "Firefox", although the "Major Havoc" cabinet was similar. The best way to describe this cabinet is to say that it looked really top heavy. This cabinet wasn't just a straight up and down affair; the monitor area, control panel, and bottom section were all different sizes and the whole machine flared out at the bottom. The game featured partial sideart in the form of a field of red, blue, and yellow blocks floating in a field of stars. The marquee showed an 'I, Robot' logo composed of 3-D multicolored blocks. There were no important decorations on the control panel or monitor bezel, although the monitor did have a pair of grill-like plastic plates on either side of it. The action was controlled with a single 'Hall Effect' joystick mounted centrally and a camera button on the side of the control panel. This joystick was a fairly new kind of gaming control, but it never did catch on, a few other titles such as "Road Runner" used this stick, but they are almost impossible to find today. A joystick that worked off of magnetic fields probably wasn't the best idea anyway. Some people have managed to replace these joysticks with other kinds of analog sticks, but it requires custom work, and doesn't have the same feel as the Hall Effect stick.
Scoring in this game is a little complicated since many things score differently (even the same things can score differently):
Once you destroy the Eye on the Platforms round, you get whatever bonus is left. Bonuses are variable per Platform and range from 3000 to 7000 points and decrement as you play.
You get 100 points per jewel collected when you take out the Eye in the control area. There are a maximum of ten jewels in the control area. Your maximum score you can get, though, is 999 points.
In space, you get points for everything you can kill.
If your score is greater then the BEST time on the Platforms or the BEST score in Space, you get a bonus of 2,500 points. You do not receive this bonus if you get killed on the Platform or in Space and have to start again.
When you enter a transporter pod, you get 20,000 points/level skipped if you successfully complete the Platform you transported to. You can only go to level 79 this way.
Warp : Hold down both Start buttons when entering the transporter on level 1. You can now warp as high as level 10.
PLATFORMS :
One block of claimed area will reduce the shield strength down by one. The shield strength is basically the total of all these unclaimed blocks per level. So if you see a shield strength of two, but don't see any unclaimed areas, this means you will definitely have to look around for them.
Some Platform levels only have a few blocks separated by gaps while others have long walkways also separated by gaps. You must bridge the gaps between these blocks. To bridge any gap : a) The game will show you when a gap can be bridged. The section under your robot will blink and a corresponding section across the gap will blink. b) Bridges created are the same color that other claimed areas are. c) If you jump when the Eye is open, your robot will be destroyed by the Eye.
Sometimes unclaimed areas are hidden behind blocks. Use the point of view buttons to look for these areas.
Your robot is equipped with lasers. They are useful when taking out the smaller objects such as birds and spiked balls. They won't work on the big beach balls or the walkway grinders.
Using the above tip, remember to constantly shoot when you are jumping. Your lasers only fire toward the eye regardless of which way you jump. This usually prevents something from hitting your robot in mid-flight.
Watch the shield below the Eye. The number will go down as long as you claim areas on the walkways. If the number is at one or two and you don't see any unclaimed areas, change your point of view and look around for unclaimed areas.
There are indestructible creatures called Point of View killers. If you don't change your point of view by the time these things make it to your robot, your robot will be destroyed.
In the middle, at the bottom of the screen is a phrase showing you how often the Eye opens and closes. This time is variable so you need to check out the bottom of the screen to see the frequency the eye opens. If there isn't a time, then it is once every five seconds.
Keep in mind, you are on a timer. This basically means planning out in advance of where you want to move since there isn't really any time to sit around and take in the scenery.
You must land on the unclaimed block in front of the eye in order to destroy it.
Every third level, after you destroy the Eye from the outside, you will be able to enter a control area to take on the Eye in its environment. To make your job harder, a buzz saw starts at the back of this platform and eats it away toward the Eye. In addition, you may have to blast through walls in order to get the jewels and proceed toward the eye.
SPACE :
The best way to get through this area is to rapidly shoot. Most objects require at least five to ten shots to take them out.
Never let the tetras go. If you don't destroy them, they will come around from the backside and destroy your robot.
There are other enemies such as tankers. If you hit them, they get mad and hit your robot from the backside if you don't destroy them.
You can't destroy the saucers, but you can lead them into the rocks to kill them.
You can also maneuver around the shapes but in the later levels, this is made harder by the life ring shaped objects that are on the outer edges.
Every fourth level, you have to deal with a three-dimensional head. Although not particularly tough, it is a nuisance : a) Fire at one side of the head to force it to rotate around. If the head isn't facing your robot, the danger is minimized considerably since he won't fire his cone-shaped projectiles at your robot. b) You must hit every cone-shaped projectile fired from the head. If you don't, they come around and hit your robot from the backside. c) You will have to survive this encounter for about 20 seconds. After that, you will be done with that part of the level.
If you successfully destroy the letters IROBOT during the Space part of the level, you get a 5000 point bonus.
After level two, you must successfully land your robot on the next level Platform.
Designed and programmed by : Dave Theurer , Russel Dawe , Cris Drobny
Article on the game from www.arcade-history.com
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   | Onion Article - I, Rowboat | The Onion - America's Finest News Source |
| | "Jeff Vintar was Hardwired for I,ROBOT" (interview with Jeff Vintar, script writer) - Jeff Vintar was Hardwired for I,ROBOT |
| | I, Robot (the arcade game) information at the Coin-Op museum - I, Robot - Videogame by Atari (1983) - The International Arcade Museum and the KLOV |
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