Joe the Robot (AKA FANTASTIC FILMS ROBOT) by Steve Johnson and Tullio Proni, General Technics (1977). Joe appears on the back cover of Fantastic Films, October 1978, where you could apparently "WIN A FREE (R2D2-Type Remote-Controlled) ROBOT worth $3000.
"That's Joe the Robot, built by Steve Johnson and Tullio Proni in 1977, with help from other GT members. When STAR WARS came out, Joe was repainted to resemble R2D2. The General Technics gang showed him off at movie theaters around Chicago; sometimes they got in for free. Joe was controlled by Touch-Tone signals sent over a CB radio channel. I think he was propelled by a pair of windshield-wiper motors." – W. Higgins (beamjockey)
"While in college in Chicago, I helped form General Technics, a technology-oriented science fiction group (or was that a science fiction-oriented technology group?), with friends Jeff Duntemann, Jim Fuerstenberg, Tullio Proni, and many other members of midwestern university science-fiction clubs. We originally coalesced around blinkies, robots, and the beginnings of personal computing, and have extended our grasp to high-altitude rocketry, high voltage, and raising kids. John Brunner, the author of "Stand on Zanzibar," the science fiction novel in which the General Technics corporation appears, graciously permitted us to use the name of his fictitious company. GT has flourished in the intervening years, combining with a similar group from Michigan Technological University, and attracting members from all over the world. GT remains loosely organized. If you consider yourself to be "in" GT, you are!" " – Steve Johnson, General Technics.
