Record · Do this to my work · it acts
Element 112
Show it once, and it runs the errand from then on.
teach and repeat · save as a skill
First known
Opened
1954Unimate patent: an operator moves the arm through the job once, the machine records the positions, and it repeats them. George Devol.
See also: GE's record-playback machine tools, Schenectady, 1946–47, are a lead.
“the transfer-head program codes can be recorded in the very machine that later is to be controlled automatically ... the transfer head may be manually moved into the sequence of positions required”
The year is the patent's filing. The arm it describes became the Unimate, and teach-and-repeat modes for web agents bring the same idea to errands.
Someone opened the dated document itself. The source.
- ReadingValue
Specimen № 112 — operate freely
Fix the photo once while it watches, save it as a skill, and watch the album fill.
Fig. 112 — Demonstrate
000 readings · idle
Down the Record column
Read down and Record gets heavier: each step is the same act, on a machine that keeps track of more.
Bodies
The act stays put while the hardware changes. These are some of the forms Demonstrate takes.
- teach and repeat
- save as a skill