One of the world’s first remote-controlled machine-men was from Appenzell. The Sabor robot toured Europe, narrowly missed Frank Sinatra in the United States and gave flowers to the Queen of the Netherlands. Sabor is now on display in his “birthplace” in Teufen (AR).
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The robot of inventor August Huber, from Teufen, in Appenzell Ausserrhoden, measures 2.37 meters. He was born about 100 years ago. He wasn’t the world’s first machine-man, but he was certainly the greatest. And it was developed by an individual and not a company, unlike the few other robots of the time.
August Huber began working on Sabor when he was just 12 years old. It is unclear how the son of a textile industry family came up with this idea. A regional industry which could have had an influence, because there were weaving and embroidery machines in Appenzell – machines which were also the foundation of the country’s industrial mechanization (read framed).
“Mechanical knowledge was certainly the basis for getting into this DIY and manufacturing,” explains Lilia Glanzmann, co-director of the Zeughaus Teufen, a museum in Appenzell where Sabor is currently on display.
Science fiction in the 1920s
In the 1920s, the old dream of an artificial human met the new possibilities of electrical and radio technology. It was also around this time that the term “robot” first appeared in Czech author Karel Čapek’s 1920 science fiction play “RUR” (Rossum’s Universal Robots).
In 1927, Fritz Lang’s feature film “Metropolis” was released in theaters. The central character is a machine woman. The story of The Wizard of Oz by Lyman Frank Baum, first published in 1900 in the United States and which features the character of the tin woodsman Nick Chopper (“the Tin Woodman” in English), would also have could have inspired August Huber. Although he became a textile merchant in his father’s company, he continued to devote his free time to creating a man-machine.
The first Sabor model was made of wood and fabric. It could already be controlled by radio. Sabor then receives aluminum armor and an elegant head sculpted in copper by a German artist. The robot could move slowly on wheels, wave, turn its head, blink and speak.
Inside Sabor there are numerous remote-controlled switches, one for each function, 500 meters of cable and large rechargeable batteries.
Entered the scene at the Swiss National Exhibition in Zurich in 1939
In 1939, Sabor was presented to the general public for the first time at the Swiss National Exhibition in Zurich. He was a symbol of the hopes linked to new technologies. To operate Sabor, an animator interacted with the audience and the robot, while a technician with a telephone dial secretly dialed the various functions and lent his voice to the robot via a radio.
“The pilot also had an encyclopedia so that he could answer questions from the audience as quickly as possible,” explains Lilia Glanzmann. Sabor particularly impressed with a device: he could light a fire and make smoke. At that time, such a feat struck people’s minds.
Astonishment and disbelief
After the Second World War, the Appenzell robot was taken around the Globe.
Beginning in the 1950s, Sabor traveled throughout Europe and to Israel. He appeared in salons and in department stores or simply on streets closed especially for him. In the Netherlands, he gave flowers to the queen. In Denmark he met a prince.
Wherever Sabor appeared, with his somewhat heavy demeanor, people gathered around him. Driven by fascination and curiosity, but also by disbelief, says Lilia Glanzmann, “people kept asking if there was a human in there.”
In 1961, Sabor traveled to the United States, where he narrowly missed Frank Sinatra. The performance in a jazz cellar could not take place because Sabor was too tall and could not go down the stairs. Instead, he appeared on the famous Ed Sullivan Show.
The inventor August Huber was no longer there. In 1951, he sold Sabor to electrical engineer Peter Steuer, who became a sensation with Sabor. The legendary conservative Harald Szeemann was also interested in him. In 1967, he rented it for the “Science-Fiction” exhibition at the Kunsthalle in Bern.
In the mid-1970s, Sabor fell into obscurity and gathered dust in Peter Steuer’s garage. Perhaps not coincidentally, it was just as another new technology was taking off: the personal computer. Since the death of Peter Steuer, Sabor has been located in the canton of Basel-Landschaft, in the EBM museum in Münchenstein, now called “Primeo Energie Kosmos”.
Sarah Herwig (SRF)
French adaptation: Julien Furrer (RTS)
