a history of cybernetic animals and early robots
Painting by FRED FREEMAN, originally appearing in the July 11, 1960 issue of LIFE Magazine. The creature unreeling an electric cable as he explores a distant planet is a man prepared for space as some scientists propose. Electrodes and other attachments would control many of the physical functions normally initiated by the brain, such as …
Read More “1960 – Cyborg – Kline and Clynes (American and Austrian)”
"MM7" on the left, Claus Scholz in the middle and "MM8" on the right. Scholz made MM7 between 1957-8 and finished with MM9 in 1973, so I believe. The MM7 Selektor human machine is the development for which the international scientist Scholz-Nauendorff, nicknamed the "Viennese father of robots", is best known. Designed as a means of …
Read More “1957-73 – “MM6″,”MM7 Selektor” & “MM8 Contina” Selektor – Claus Scholz (Austrian)”
ROBUG: switch-programmable to wake/seek/avoid on light/touch/wind; feelers charged to 90 volts! "In high school [Montreal,1964] he [Hans Moravec] won two science fair prizes for a light-following electronic turtle and a tape-controlled robot hand. As an undergraduate he designed a computer to control fancier robots, and experimented with learning and automatic programming on commercial machines. During his …
Read More “1964 – “ROBUG” – Hans Moravec (Austrian / Canadian)”
The above three images suggest there is a film clip out there somewhere. The Vienna Tortoises: Left: 1954 Eichler's Schildkröte; Centre: 1959 Kretz/Angyan/Zemanek Machina Combinatrix; Right: 1965 Bielowski Schildkröte HANS KRETZ: An Interview Conducted by David Morton, IEEE History Center, 25 July 1996 Interview #283 for the IEEE History Center, The Institute of Electrical and …
Read More “1959 – Machina Combinatrix – Kretz / Angyan / Zemanek (Austrian)”
In June of this year (2009), I went to the UK and to Europe to visit some of the great computer pioneers and in particular, to talk to them about their early cybernetic models they built. I travelled with David Buckley (see his site here), and one of our stops was to see Heinz Zemanek …
Read More “1954 – Vienna Turtle – Eichler / Zemanek (Austrian)”