Some more photos of W. Grey Walter and his Tortoises.
BNI archives, courtesy of Owen Holland.
BNI archives, courtesy of Owen Holland.
BNI archives, courtesy of Owen Holland
BNI archives, courtesy of Owen Holland
BNI archives, courtesy of Owen Holland.
BNI archives, courtesy of Owen Holland
BNI archives, courtesy of Owen Holland
BNI archives, courtesy of Owen Holland
BNI archives, courtesy of Owen Holland
Joe Engelberger looking over the then, newly restored original Tortoise.
BNI archives, courtesy of Owen Holland.
Image courtesy Steve Battle.
BNI archives, courtesy of Owen Holland. Photo by Meljay Photographers of New York.
Tortoise detail. At this stage, assuming tortoise is #6, it has not yet been customised with the top-mounted spare vacuum tube clips nor the tiny spanner used to adjust the relays.
BNI archives, courtesy of Owen Holland.
Grey Walter in America with his own #6 from the batch of 6 made by "Bunny" Warren of the BNI for the 1951 Festival of Britain. The machine in front is CORA (Mark II), the desktop demonstration model. As suggested by others, I do not believe the desktop model of CORA was ever wired into a Machina Speculatrix tortoise. It was a very much self-contained and separate from the tortoises.
I believe the CORA (Mark I) (possibly in the image below) was probably "Elmer" converted by adding the additional reflex circuits. The seemingly black holes are clear sections in the painted plastic shell and were probably there to see the neon lamps operating as part of the additional circuit. At one stage, there were two circuits added, each tuned to a different note from a UK police whistle (which could produce two notes separately or together. When sounded together, this is when the so-called neurosis kicked in, eventually solved by a technique favoured by Walter, leucotomy (labotomy), in this case by cutting out the additional circuits, turning CORA (a machina docilis) back into ELSIE (a machina speculatrix).
Both photo's by (or for) Pierre DeLatil. Note the extra battery pack in both photos, weighting or lifting the shell to simulate 'bump' mode, maybe to attract baby Timothy for the sake of the photo shoot.
Dr. Ray Cooper (Dir. Burden Neurological Institute), Vivian Walter (nee Dovey) and Dr. W. Grey Walter with two tortoises c1956. Thanks to Owen Holland for correcting the names.
Unfortunately the above image is so poor that it is difficult to see any additional circuitry on what looks like ELSIE that would make it a CORA.
Image from "Future Shock" documentary.
Image of ELSIE showing shell, plastic 'antennae', and lamp at the front.
Meccano model of a tortoise.
See other Grey Walter and his Tortoises here.
See other Cybernetic Creatures here.