A specialized composition platform designed for rodeo journalists and the bullfighting memoir market in Spain and parts of Mediterranean Europe.
Continuous literary composition while mounted on mechanical bulls and other high-activity livestock.
NOTE: Intended for operators with advanced physical control and a high tolerance for centrifugal forces.
While the machine itself performed within expected operational parameters, test operators consistently failed to maintain meaningful narrative coherence beyond approximately twelve seconds of continuous operation.
A final engineering report concluded:
"The limitations observed appear to be primarily biological rather than mechanical."
On 04.17.1979,
On 04.17.1979, aspiring novelist Marilyn Bradley was ejected from the mechanical bull at 00:00:09.7 of the test cycle.
Sustained a fractured cranium.
Recovered fully.
Subsequently abandoned Western fiction in favor of romantic fantasy, where she achieved significant commercial success.
Testing oversight was provided by Wyatt McSmith, former competitive rider and safety consultant, who had lost his right hand in a mechanical bull incident several years earlier.
McSmith's review of the RS-33 program is archived in Sympathetic Safety Report WR-79-17.
"IT AIN'T THE MACHINE. IT'S WHAT'S BETWEEN THE STIRRUPS."
The modest success of the LL-99 Gunslinger and its Mounted Composition Stabilization Kit generated optimism within the Frontier Narratives Division. By late 1978, management approved development of the RS-33 Rodeo Scribe.
Several engineers objected.
Meeting notes from November 1978 contain the handwritten observation: "Horseback writing and mechanical bull writing appear to be different activities." The observation was not adopted.
The resulting testing program generated multiple injuries, several lawsuits, and substantial negative press coverage.
Development was discontinued in early 1980. No production units were ever completed.
Several claims against the company continued into the mid-1980s.
The RS-33 Rodeo Scribe was never approved for any form of consumer use. This archival record is provided for historical and research purposes only.