Isaac Asimov Someday

“Someday” by Isaac Asimov is one of his many stories providing a glimpse of a potential future. The story features two boys learning about life before there were computers and their story telling robot, Bard. Asimov also uses the story to commentate the competition between various forms of media. Asimov’s “Someday” upholds his reputation of telling thought provoking scenarios featuring humans and robots. The story begins as two boys meeting after school (Asimov,291). Paul comes in while Niccolo is listening to a fairytale being told by a robotic bard. Paul, being unaware of Niccolo’s bard, is quick to take interest in it. Paul is quick to remark that it is an old model based on it only able to tell stories through speech and its stories only being about “woodcutters and princesses and talking animals.” (Asimov, 292-293) Unlike the newer Bards that had a screen to show the story. Both boys quickly grow bored of the bard and Paul thinks of a way to increase the vocabulary so the Bard can tell new and exciting stories. (Asimov,295) Paul takes apart the Bard and has a digital book about

Daugherty, their teacher, had him over at his house after school. (Asimov, 296) Mr. Daugherty discussed with him about being entering computer school and doing proper programing. It is during this scene that an allusion to Multivac, a giant computer that is in several other short stories by Asimov, is given. Mr. Daugherty also showed him his collection of old computers. Paul vividly describes to Niccolo old hand calculators, slide rules,” wires with balls on them” and multiplication tables. Paul had no idea what written on the multiplication tables as writing had long since been absent from education. (Asimov, 298) Paul had a challenging time explaining to Niccolo’s that there used to be no computers to solve problems and it was the “squiggles” on the slide rule and multiplication table that would “compute”