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07/09/2007: "Ancient Greeks made robots"

Noel Sharkey, a computer scientist at the University of Sheffield, UK, has traced the technology way back to ancient Alexandria.

In about 60 AD, a Greek engineer called Hero constructed a three-wheeled cart that could carry a group of automata to the front of a stage where they would perform for an audience. Power came from a falling weight that pulled on string wrapped round the cart's drive axle, and Sharkey reckons this string-based control mechanism is exactly equivalent to a modern programming language.

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2007/07/programmable-robot-from-60ad.html