1909 - Occultus -also Barbarossa [redbeard] Very little is known other than a weird photo and article on an automaton / robot named "Occultus" recently exhibited in Berlin by a man named Whitman. Its quite probable that Occultus can't perform all the functions he's purported to do, but possibly some of…
The entry is significant in that it highlights the technologies of the time that enabled most of the early electric animals, mechanical men then later the robots to be operated remotely by sound, light, or radio waves. This technology and underlying principles influenced these machines for at least 50 years. The…
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…
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…
The Ducrocq family of cybernetic animals were named “Miso” These were designated M-1 through to M-5. Some articles refer to “le renard” (French for fox) as “Job” (M-5). M-1 in most cases was referred to as Miso. It probably became M-1 when M-2 was built. So far, I have seen…
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,…
The next Grey Walter and his tortoises posts are taking a little time. In the mean time, here are some photo's non-specific to other posts.
Although Squee the electronic squirrel is attributed to Edmund C. Berkeley, Jack Koff (City College of New York engineering student) and Robert "Bob" A. Jensen (until he re-entered the Air Force in June 1951), William Szabo and ECB are all credited with its construction. The opening page from Radio-Electronics mag [Dec, 1951] offers…