1950c – NERISSA Artificial Nerve – W. Grey Walter (British)

NERISSA.- A Nerve Excitation, Inhibition and Synaptic Analogue. This demonstrates particularly the relationship between the various parameters of nervous action such as finite propagation rate, excitation threshold, all-or-none conduction, strength-duration curves of excitability, refractory periods, Wedensky synaptic facilitation and inhibition, inhibitory escape and rebound, transmission of information by pulse interval modulation, and anomalies of " …

W. Grey Walter’s Tortoises – Self-recognition and Narcissism

Self-recognition and the Mirror Dance [Image source: An Imitation of Life,  Scientific American, May 1950, p42-45.] 7 . Self-recognition. The machines are fitted with a small flash-lamp bulb in the head which is turned off automatically whenever the photo-cell receives an adequate light signal. When a mirror or white surface is encountered the reflected light …

W. Grey Walter, Edmund C. Berkeley, Ivan E. Sutherland and the Tortoise

Who is Ivan E. Sutherland? Ivan was born in 1938, Nebraska, USA and is a computer pioneer, inventing Sketchpad, being the first what we now call a Graphical User Interface (GUI). He also built a walking machine, but that will be the subject to another post later. As an under-graduate student, Ivan, with his elder brother …

M. speculatrix – a new species of animal – ELMER

ELMER – (ELectro-MEchanical Robot)                              How the media reported the coming of ELMER :   Lethbridge Herald –  Wednesday , February 25, 1948 Robot Tortoise Likes Women – Recognizes Voices, Comes To Meet When Called-Can be Sulky                                           LONDON. Feb. 25      Daily Express reported today that Dr. W. Grey Walter. 38-year-old brain scientist has built a robot tortoise so "human …

Dr. W. Grey Walter (cont)

    Ray Cooper, the last director of the Burden Neurological Institute, wrote this bio on Grey Walter  for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography ( http://www.oxforddnb.com ) . (William) Grey Walter (1910-1977),  Walter, (William) Grey (1910-1977), neurophysiologist, was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on 19 February 1910, the only child of Karl Wilhelm Walter (1880-1965), a British …