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Posted by benbreen 3 days ago

Gakutensoku(en.wikipedia.org)
40 points | 6 comments
h_mirin 22 minutes ago|
I'm Japanese, and this is the first I've heard of Gakutensoku. If you asked people in Japan for an old Japanese "robot", I think most would come up with this tea-carrying karakuri doll. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakuri_puppet

That one predates the word "robot" entirely. The design is documented in a 1796 book called "Karakuri Zui", so Edo period, shoguns still in charge.

ginko 2 minutes ago|
Yeah, I was about to object that this is essentially a large automaton of which there are tons of earlier examples from Japan.
tantalor 22 minutes ago||
Automaton
vintagedave 3 hours ago|
The Wikipedia page doesn't say: what happened to this robot?

> the details of its disappearance are unknown

A mystery! Someone will know...

vintagedave 2 hours ago||
I can find references to:

* Appearance in Korea at an expo (1928, 1929?): https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/landing/article.kci?arti_id=...

* The creator writing about it in 1931 (reference 10 on the same page)

Shanghai but uncertain date.

Was it dismantled in either Korea or China, or shipped back and dismantled, or destroyed?

aa-jv 2 hours ago|||
I like to think he's in some wealthy parlor somewhere, sequestered away, bringing mirth and humanity to an elite few who need it most of all.
ludamn 27 minutes ago||
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