Mr. Future

An episode of Computer Chronicles (1983-2002) about the Tsukuba Expo 85 has some fantastic segments about mid-80s robotic visions of the future.

At 10:57 We get a good long look at Waseda University’s Wabot 2 playing the organ, with great commentary about robots and society from the late Professor Ichiro Kato.

And at 18:32, there’s a love scene from German designer / futurist Luigi Colani’s Robot Theater. A few years back I saw the robot actors on display at Nagoya’s Robot Museum. Seeing them in motion here just made my morning.

Of course there are other good clips of the Expo’s mag-lev monorail, France’s proto-web MiniTel, and Sony’s first Jumbo-Tron.Colan