tomishere said:
how was it explained in the original book??
I don't want to wreck anything for people who might want to read it, so I'll issue a spoiler alert on this post.
As to the "superhuman" aspects of the show, they weren't in the book. He couldn't run much faster than a normal person, but he could maintain his pace for as long as he could stay awake because the isotope-powered legs did all of the work. He was just "along for the ride". Also, his oxygen requirements were far lower, and his stamina far higher, than for a normal person because of the extreme amount of muscle in the legs and one arm that no longer needed an oxygenated blood supply. His swimming, however, was faster than human because the sheer power of the legs overcame the hydrodynamic drag that makes travel in water harder and because steel-mesh fins popped out of the balls of his feet. There was an oxygen cylinder inside one thigh, with a mask/hose assembly that was accessible via a camouflaged hatch, so he could remain submerged for hours.
I can't remember whether or not the spine was reinforced in any way, but no actions took place that would damage a normal one. The ribs, however, were made of shape-memory vitallium metal, with wires strung amongst them to serve as an antenna for the radio in his other thigh.
The left arm was used as much as a club as anything else (it was changed to the right for the show because Lee Majors is right-handed.) The backs of the knuckles and edge of the hand were armour plated, so he had a tendency to just punch his fist through someone's skull or "karate chop" his neck into a dozen pieces. If longer range was needed, his "bird finger" was hollow, locked into place when necessary, and connected to a compressed CO
2 supply. It fired miniature darts tipped with shellfish toxin.
The eye was simply a miniature camera that took a picture when he blinked and automatically advanced the film. I think that it had 20 exposures available, and there might have been IR sensitivity.
After the series came out, he altered that in the sequels in that the fake eye was tied into the optic nerves so as to superimpose that "rangefinder" grid on the vision of his real eye. At that point, Caidin still didn't think that artificial vision would be possible within the immediate future, and he appears to have been right. We are just now beginning to make progress in that direction.
The bionics in the book, as in the series, were permanent and neurologically controlled, as opposed to the state-of-the-art myoelectric strap-on devices that existed at the time. The cobalt steel "bones" were inserted into, and bonded with, the stumps of the original bone and the input wires were fused with the remaining neurons, so everything was literally thought controlled as biological limbs would be.
About the only thing that really surpassed the stuff in the book was electronics technology. Computer chips barely existed at the time, and certainly nothing like what is available now. On the other hand, that isn't necessary for the mechanical systems involved. That sort of tech would be great, especially for power management and switching, but not essential.
About the "obsolescence factor" of SF, Caidin himself pointed out something mind-boggling. He was one of the main official correspondents covering everything about the space programme, and was even named an honourary astronaut. His observation was that he and his friends had known for decades that humans would land on the moon, and even had an accurate idea of how it would be achieved. Not one of them, however, ever imagined that people would be watching it on TV.
