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simonblack
Robotics?? What dat?? (Australia)
tuatoru
It was great! At home we had semi-automatic washing machines, and laundry dryers and ovens with timers on them. Some people had central heating with thermostats, too.

And there were automatic lifts (elevators, for US-ians) in office buildings and department stores--just press the button to go to your floor. Amazing!

luxurytent
Can you elaborate on this?
simonblack
In the late 60s there was very little automation in Australia. Assembly lines were exactly that, with humans all the way. Pretty much there had been little or no change in manufacturing since the 30s or 40s.

So a few years later when many protective tariffs were removed, most manufacturing in Australia withered away very quickly. Today Australia is an economy with just two branches: primary industry and the FIRE sectors.

There is very little 'value add' industry. Which is silly as there is abundant iron ore and coal so the steel industry should be overwhelming the world. Instead, both those commodities go to China where they make the more profitable steel.

danielEM
I'm curious what was the state of an art in robotics area in 60s in different countries, feel free to post links to videos and pictures.

Here is my country - Poland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjrYk546uBA

dang
Posts without URLs get penalized, so I put your link in the URL field above and moved your original text to the thread.
abraxas
Awesome blast from the past. I wonder if this was ever featured on the legendary Polish TV program called "Sonda" (English title would "The Probe")? "Sonda" was a great pop-science show when those were much more science and much less pop. Just two dudes sitting and discussing new and future technology and its implications.

Damn, I miss "Sonda" so much and this clip took me right down that memory lane.

Here's the amazingly great intro music clip from the start of that show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHT8u52bSVE&ab_channel=Dukat...

baal80spam
> "The Proble"

Typolice: I'm pretty sure you meant "The Probe"

scyzoryk_xyz
Yes! Though Sonda was the early 80’s no?

Sonda definitely had little oversight and no screenwriting, but it was very honest and well intentioned in that old school Polish-Socialist Politechnika Engineer sort of way. Definitely a breath of fresh air, even today. Makes one wonder if this was the same in other Socialist Republics or was unique to Poland.

abraxas
I'm sure they had something. However, I never heard from any other geek from the socialist bloc mention any show that had the cult following of Sonda among us, Poles.
heyitsme
I was just a kid in the 80s, but indeed remember watching "Sonda" - it was fantastic! Going through some episodes now on youtube, does bring back memories. There was another show in the late 80s called "Bliżej świata" (English: "Closer to the World"), which would run for an hour or so on a Sunday night and show snippets from western tv shows. The contrast to the (usually) very bleak communist Polish TV, was striking. For me, back then, watching both of these shows felt like looking through a window into a different world.
RicoElectrico
The best thing about Sonda was that one of the hosts took a position on the episode's theme, and the other - an opposite one, even if just for the sake of discourse.
Claude_Shannon
And to imagine we had lost most of the episodes, as the tape was reused :(
mirekrusin
Grabs pack of fags on demo - classic.
pndy
Cigs pack was probably at hand and back then wrapped in thin paper it was soft enough to train with such tech; I wouldn't expect the arm would be able to proudly pick and carry the PZPR standard right away. I still wonder how this was done - it moves really smooth

Besides, pretty sure that's still a valid term for cigarettes in the UK so please hold your angry clicks folks

rsj_hn
Being able to pick up a pack of cigarettes, remove one, and then smoke it would be a pretty awesome achievement.
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systemvoltage
I think the golden peak period of humanity was post-war 1950s-1980s.
teryyy
from these charts[1] I'd disagree. https://www.vox.com/2014/11/24/7272929/global-poverty-health...
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anticodon
Even if it all were true, it won't last for long. We're in the supercrisis. It's unlikely that it will end any time soon.

Fossil fuels sources are depleted. Without fossil fuels there's no agriculture as they are used to produce fertilizers, also tractors, harvesters, etc work on fossil fuels.

It's possible to go back to the technologies of 17th-18th century (wind energy, etc), but these technologies are unable to support the current population of Earth and current lifestyle. Population would have to shrink to the size of the world population from 17th century also. Also, no cheap plastic toys everywhere. No huge suburbs with huge houses and cars with 4-6 liters of displacement to move from home to work.

From reading news it looks like there're no serious science and technology advances. All the advances are concentrated on how to brainwash world population more effectively and extract the money and attention by providing spiffy useless toys like cooler smartphones.

Claude_Shannon
In West? Perhaps. In Poland or other Soviet-occupied countries? No, not at all.
foofoo55
It's so advanced the robot arm gets ahead of the guy at the 11 second mark.
furyg3
I'm glad someone else noticed this...