A Day After Tommorow - The Cornflakes Farm! Pt 2

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Extract From the Micro Revolution by Peter large - 1980

Nat is an entrepreneur and his most profitable venture so far has breed to turn his smallholding into a Cornflakes farm. Nat's computer driven electric van takes itself on a regular pre-programmed weekly run-around the West Country, delivering orders of the famous ( and costly) Nathaniel brand of non-synthetic cornflakes, complete with bogus rustic picture of Nat on the packets. Nothing in this enterprise involves Nat in manual work. His factory farm is run by one capsule. That capsule first uses micro-waves to wriggle rather than plough the land. Then it hovers over the ground to release, at required intervals, seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and so on. Chemical sensors monitor growth and the capsule's time-release mechanism adjusts to changes in the weather. In between times the capsule becomes the intelligent scarecrow. Finaly, machines also run by microelectronics, handle the harvesting, procesing, packaging of the crop (the packaging material is grown on a field rented from a neighbouring farmer).

Mean while Jane turns to home chores - she turns on the house robot and tells it 47 (follow me), she leads it to the door of the dining room and says 39. That is a new programme for cleaning the room. The robot sets off to vacuum the carpet and dust the cahirs and table. The robot can hold a weeks memory and recharges itself when the power runs down....

The children follow appropriate syllabuses of the national school TV network, which includes interactive elements....

Joe turns on his living room wall screen as he answers the computer's ping. The call comes from the manager of a riding stables, thrity miles away. He thinks he has broken his ankle. He hold the ankle to the minature TV camera which is linked to his personal computer. Joe does the usual - 'does it hurt there' 'Wiggle your toes' routine. He is 70% sure it's not broken but to be sure Joe calls up the medical information bank. He cross questions the computer which has refined and aranged the information poured intlo it by a leading orthopaedic specialist.....

The city still exists but spread around the country...