Robots again

From: Doug Yowza <yowza_at_yowza.com>
Date: Wed Mar 18 20:57:42 1998

On Wed, 18 Mar 1998, Tony Duell wrote:

> I have here a book from the Philips Technical Library called 'Practical
> Robot Circuits' published in 1960. The first half of this book contains
> the design for a robot 'dog' using essentially an analogue control system
> (mostly amplifiers and comparators) to process the signals from various
> sensors (photocells, microphones, thermistors, etc). The outputs of the
> comparators feed an array of relays which control assorted motors (this
> is, of course, a digital section).

Now you're talking classic analog computing! Somewhere I've got a book of
Ivan Sutherland's on this subject. I searched the net and found that he
wrote "An Electro-Mechanical Model of Simple Animals" in 1958, but that's
not the one I have. It's all coming back now (even though this was just
before I was born) -- the age of cybernetics! Whatever happened to the
age of the personal robot, and why do we still have manual vacuum
cleaners?

-- Doug
Received on Wed Mar 18 1998 - 20:57:42 GMT