Q.T.

They walk! They talk! Home robots even fetch a beer

Author: Vincent J. Schodolski

YOU ALMOST certainly don't know B.O.B yet, but you probably will by the end of the year. You might meet TOPO, er F.R.E.D. first, though.

B.O.B. is 3 months old, 3 feet tall, has red eyes and a round head. TOPO looks just like B.O.B. but is not as clever. F.R.E.D. has the same red eyes and likes to draw.

B.O.B., TOPO and F.R.E.D. are all personal robots, born in California's "silicon valley" and holding court at McCormick Place along with Q.T., another robot that already has sold clothes in a California department store.

But there's a lot more than robots lurking inside McCormick Place, where 1,275 companies are showing off everything from pocket calculators to video games to the likes of B.O.B., TOPO and F.R.E.D. at the 28th Consumer Electronics Show.

B.O.B., or Brain On Board, is the most advanced of three personal computers created by Androbot Inc. For $3,000 you can have a B.O.B. of your very own and programs that will make him do everything from getting a beer for you to teaching children geography.

"JUST IMAGINE your children coming home from school," said Thomas Frisina, president of Androbot. "You are not home yet, but B.O.B. greets them at the door and says, 'Follow me, kids, I've got something to talk to you about.' They follow him down the hall, into their rooms and for the next 20 minutes listen to B.O.B. teach them about geography or math or just tell a story."

It is all possible with a B.O.B. There are 15 of them, and the manufacturers say it is just the start. They admit that all of the robot types are little more than educational toys, but they say the potential for home robots is limited only by the imagination.

"What you see before you is a walking, talking, thinking computer," Dick Wieand said as he put B.O.B. through his paces and ordered a beer. As B.O.B. headed off for the refrigerator, his head spinning around and his ultrasonic-sensor eyes looking out for walls, B.O.B. hummed "How Dry I Am" in his electronic voice.

B.O.B. came back empty-handed; there were no beers left. He rolled up to Wieand, paused and said, "Remem- ber to open it before you drink it."

"WELL, HE DID what he was told," Wieand said, smiling at B.O.B. "He's a great little guy to have around." Before the show, open only to manufacturers and dealers, ends Wednesday, it is expected that 80,000 people will have wandered through McCormick Place

[Tribune photo by Michael Frye]

Q.T. the robot: Its inventor is teaching it Chinese. and several nearby buildings to attend the largest annual trade show in the nation. But there is more to the show than robots.

"I don't know what they want to do with them, but I'm working on a program to teach Q.T. Chinese at the moment."
Q.T.'s inventor, George Jerome

Video games, home computers, mini-discs, cordless telephones, stereo equipment, video recorders and satel- lite receivers for televisions are being sold with all the panache of a carnival sideshow. Barkers peddle software the way they used to sell machines that made coleslaw.

Models in skimpy outfits beckon to passersby to take their chances with Topsee Turvee, a video game in which the player helps "the odd little man fill his 3D ceiling and floor with loaves of bread." The dealers, chatting with the models, stood 10 deep while waiting to give the odd little man some help with his bread.

THERE ALSO IS a telephone-answering machine that greets the caller with an impressionist's version of Rodney Dangerfield saying, "I get no respect, and now it's your turn to get no respect because nobody here wants to talk to you."

And there is Q.T., the robot that sold clothes in California and is here selling camera batteries. Q.T.'s inventor, George Jerome, says he has an order from China for several of the robots.

"I don't know what they want to do with them, but I'm working on a program to teach Q.T. Chinese at the moment."