a history of cybernetic animals and early robots
Although built as an art piece, Nicolas Schöffer's CYSP-1 (a name composed of the first letters of CYbernetics and SPatiodynamic) is significant both in terms of the introduction of a new art form, as well as being a serious attempt as an autonomous "being". Schöffer was the first artist to be inspired by the new science …
Read More “1956 – CYSP-1 – Nicolas Schöffer – (Hungarian/French)”
This copy of a letter from 1957 describes the first "Mechanical Animal" built by the Sutherland brothers, Bert and Ivan. Here’s a transcript of the letter sent from Ivan E. Sutherland to Grey Walter in 1957: Nov 10. [IES to WGW] “Dear Sir: Early last month I had sent to you two copies of …
1953 – Timothy Turtle by Jack H. Kubanoff, Radio and Television News, April 1953 The text to the article is below. For the moment, the pages themselves can be found here. The article itself has a good description of its functionality. Some of its functionality reminds me of Berkeley's Squee i.e. flashing lamps controlling the …
Read More “1953 – Timothy Turtle – Jack Kubanoff (American)”
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)”
In my research for all things Grey Walter and his tortoises, I have uncovered five (5) video clips available on the internet. Of the five, I have downloaded four of them, the 5th has been allusive for some time, having not been able to re-locate it again after spending many hours trying. It is not …