In late 1951, Paul-Alain Amouriq, a Frenchman then aged 17, built a cybernetic tortoise inspired by Grey Walter's as published in a French science magazine Science et Vie (February 1951). Several years later Science et Vie became aware of Amouriq's tortue, and Pierre de Latil visited him and the subsequent article was published in the March …
A significant feature of the tortoises is so often referred to as "An Imitation of Life". As well as their behaviour, the tortoises construction had to be such that autonomy could be exhibited. This is somewhat driven by the technology and parts available at the time. For Grey Walter's purposes, the models had to be self-contained …
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 …
W. Grey Walter's early contact with Edmund C. Berkeley. Who is Edmund C. Berkeley? Probably more renowned for building what has been now considered as the first Personal Computer, called 'Simon' and construction details were published in Radio Electronics in 13 parts from 1950 to 1951. He wrote a book on computers called Giant Brains …
This entry describes two references to transistorized versions of Grey Walter's tortoises. The second reference refers to people and organisations mentioned in another post on W. Grey Walter and Edmund C. Berkeley . 1957 Jan 25 [WGW response to letter.] The main difficulty is in the mechanical assembly, particularly the gearbox which has to be completely …