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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 Bert, and Bert's then close friend Malcolm Mugglin built their first "beastie".

1957

Here's a transcript of the letter send from IEW to Grey Walter in 1957:

Nov 10. [IES  to WGW]
“Dear Sir:
Early last month I had sent to you two copies of a paper entitled “An Electro-mechanical Model of Simple Animals” which was submitted by my brother, Bert (William R. Sutherland), and his close friend, Mac (Malcolm G. Mugglin), to their department of Electrical Engineering. Perhaps a little of the history of that paper would be of interest to you.
I am now a Junior (3rd year) at Carnegie Tech, also studying electrical engineering – in this and many other things I have followed the lead of my brother. Bert is two years older than I, recently became married and is now on active duty as an officer of the U.S. Navy. Our interest in mechanical and electrical things probably comes from our father, a Civil Engineer from New Zealand: Ph. D. from London, but our first good luck and stimulation came when we met Edmund C. Berkeley in 1952.
Mr. Berkeley took an interest in the work that we had already done, namely a simple adding machine, and encouraged us to continue, both by suggesting problems and by providing funds for their solution. During the period October, 1952 to June, 1955 we worked under the guidance of Mr. Berkeley. We did a major protion [sic] of the work on a mechanical maze solving mouse similar to one constructed by Claude Shannon of Bell Labs. During the latter part of this same period, Bert left home for college, and I continued our work alone.
During this contact with Berkeley’s organization we often saw “squee”, his mechanical squirrel; this was our first contact with the species of mechanical animals. Our next contact came when we read your The Living Brain. We were both interested in all the things you have done, but most familiar with the mechanical and electrical aspects, and most interested in your Machina speculatrix. Can you imagine the joy of two young people reading about important work accomplished far away in a field they were just becoming part of?
It was no surprise to me when Bert suggested, about Christmas of 1955, that we build a mechanical animal also. On page 45 of Bert’s thesis is a picture of the first crude result. When this first model was finished, about May, 1956, Bert for some reason lost interest in the project for a time. During this period, May to December, 1956, I continued work on the second model, the one which finally became the subject of the paper sent [to] you.
About Christmas 1956, Bert decided to write his thesis. By the end of January I had finished making the frames, motor mounts etc for the models shown in the various pictures; these Bert took over, assembled and used as a basis for his work. Mechanically these machines were good; electrically they were incomplete, as the thesis shows. They had two big drawbacks however: the wet battery needed constant care, and by the way cost us many pairs of pants through acid holes; the machines were cumbersome and heavy.
At the moment, Bert is busy with his new wife and the Navy, so I am in charge of our project. To get around the two drawbacks mentioned I have constructed a third type of beast. This new model, commonly called “beastie” because of its smaller size, uses dry cells for power, is entirely operated by transistors and proves to be the best we have yet accomplished. However, although I have the mere construction problems fairly well met, I have not yet obtained any results from this latest model The problems which were not yet solved in when Bert’s paper was written are still not solved.
Perhaps by now you are wondering just why I should write this letter. It is a sort of news report, an information carrier rather than a questionnaire. I examine what we have done: we have a rather nice looking machine which will respond to light and avoid obstacles in a rather crude sort of way. We have a great many possibilities for future work. I examine what I think we should do next: proceed with communication and learning as interesting behaviour. Perhaps making the machines (I’d like to build more of the “beastie” type) play tag might be a good start. We need a better obstacle strategy.
Building these machines has been, to say the least, an education in itself. I have found time and time again that to us the problems of actual design and construction were fairly straightforward; the decisions such as I face now of what to do next are more difficult. Perhaps you have some ideas. I am, of course, curious to know what you think.”

1959

July 13 ECB to Hy Nagourney of Science Materials Center (HN) – ECB spoken to WGW on recent visit to England and discussed possible manufacture of small robots.
 
Dec 19. IES to WGW
Dear Dr. Walter:
I have written a paper for the American Institute of Electrical Engineers which attempts to show how simple animals steer themselves. It considers, amongst other things, your Machina Speculatrix. This paper is soon to be published in Electrical Engineering, the monthly publication of the AIEE.
I would like to include a picture of Machina Speculatrix with my paper. Would you be so kind as to send a picture suitable for publication?
I am particularly interested in showing the “tricycle” [sic] type steering system which you used. A side view with the cover removed would, I think, be best. …..”

1960

Jan 23 [Ivan Sutherland to WGW]
“I thank you very much for the photographs of M. Speculatrix. ….I observed the numeral 6 stamped on several parts. Was this the sixth model you have built?

Feb 1. [WGW to IS]
“the number ‘6’ which you saw on the chassis is, as you guessed, the serial number of the model.
You may be interested to know that Basic Book Inc …., who run the Science Library, are proposing to manufacture these models for demonstration purposes.”

RH-Note – its interesting to note that Berkeley was including IES in on the tortoise deal Mar 1 1961.

1961

Mar 1. Berkeley invites Ivan Sutherland to join Science Materials Center. Berkeley writes "We would like very much for you to be associated with us at Science Materials Center in one or more projects, including particularly to small robot project. …..we could draw on all of Grey Walter’s and all of your ideas and capacities, in order to produce small robots which would be of scientific value and instruction. I am sure that we need your help in addition to Grey Walter’s in order to make a resounding success of this project.”

No further correspondence known of from Berkeley archive.

I will talk further in another post about Ivan and Bert about later cybernetic models, including Franken, the maze solver.

Robot Tortoise Likes Women –

Recognizes Voices, Comes To Meet When Called-Can be Sulky                                          

LONDON. Feb. 25      Daily Express reported today that Dr. W. Grey Walter. 38-year-old brain scientist has built a robot tortoise so "human that it likes company, recognizes voices and comes to heel when called. The paper said that the tortoise avoids cold or damp weather, great heat or bright lights, likes women but dislikes men.   "It can be temperamental and will be neurotic and sulky for days if teased or given too many contradictory instructions," the Express added.  Dr. Walter, at the Burden Neurological Institute at Bristol, built the tortoise with ordinary radio tubes, switch relays, miniature microphones -for registering sound and photoelectric cells for recognizing color and shape.

Has Not Yet Made "Robot Tortoise"

BRISTOL, England, Feb. 25 Dr. W. Grey "Walter, 38-year-old director of the Burden Neurological Institute here, said Wednesday that it "should be possible" to build a "robot tortoise" which would react to light and sound, but he has not yet made one.  "The most I can say is that theoretically such a thing should be possible and that I am planning to make one if I have the time," he added.  Earlier a London newspaper had reported that the brain scientist had built a robot tortoise so human that it liked company, recognized voices and avoided cold or damp weather, great heat or bright lights.

Inventor Ready To Build His Robot Tortoise

Bristol, England — AP —

A robot tortoise with a "mind" has reached past the blueprint stage at Burden Neurological Institute. Conceived by Dr. W. Gray Walter, director of the institute's physiological department, the tortoise is designed to react just like the real thing. He said the tortoise probably would be very large at first "when I get the time to build it." He chose this particular creature because of its "convenient shape. It's size may be reduced when it becomes possible to make microscopic valves, microphones and photo-electric  cells to control it." When completed he said he would "challenge anyone to tell whether or not it is living, without prolonged observation."  Dr. Walter pictured something like this happening at the institute in the not too distant future: "As you stand by the fire a robot tortoise lumbers along and nestles cosily by your leg. You exclaim in astonishment. The tortoise sheers off nervously and takes refuge under the sofa, but a low whistle brings it back again. It will even seem to possess all manner of lovable qualities conspicuously missing in other robots." The only trouble is, he said, "I am not sure yet how it will react to publicity."

At ELMER's rear you can see the two different coloured plugs used for charging the batteries.   The later automatic re-charging appeared for only a short period with ELSIE. The photo below is a discovery of mine, being the only picture known to date showing ELMER's internals. The front is to the left and you can clearly see the clockwork mechanism so often talked about. The Photo-electric cell (PEC) holder can be seen, but the PEC itself has been removed, which is has to be to remove the shell.  What is interesting is the type of front wheel. It appears single-sided, and pneumatic like the rear-types we generally see for his younger sister ELSIE. In the later time-lapse photos that we will see of ELMER, his trace is a lot more jerky and less smooth than ELSIE.  In his book 'The Living Brain', Grey suggests to other builders of the model that "the front tyre should be of rubber, but  thin and fairly hard, so that it can turn easily", apparantly after the lessons learnt from ELMER. This photo is even more significant, in that the CORA circuit can be seen under construction in the foreground, but more on that find when I discuss CORA in a later article.

    Ray Cooper, the last director of the Burden Neurological Institute, wrote this bio on Grey Walter  for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography ( http://www.oxforddnb.com ) . (William) Grey Walter (1910-1977),  Walter, (William) Grey (1910-1977), neurophysiologist, was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on 19 February 1910, the only child of Karl Wilhelm Walter (1880-1965), a British journalist then working on the Kansas City Star, and his wife, Minerva Lucrezia (Margaret) Hardy (1879-1953), an American journalist. His parents had met and married in Italy, where they spent much of their lives. During the First World War they moved from the United States to Britain, where Grey Walter spent the rest of his life. He was educated at Westminster School (1922-8), where he specialized in classics and then in science, which he continued at King's College, Cambridge, from 1928. He took a third class in part one (1930) and a first class in physiology in part two of the natural sciences tripos (1931), and went on to do postgraduate research on nerve physiology and conditioned reflexes. His MA dissertation on `Conduction in nerve and muscle' was accepted in 1935.  Walter then joined Professor F. L. Golla, an eminent neurologist who was director of the central pathological laboratories at the Maudsley Hospital. Golla wanted to apply the new method of investigating the brain by recording its electrical activity (electroencephalogram or EEG) to clinical problems and was able to provide various types of patients for Walter to study. In 1936 a patient thought to be suffering from schizophrenia was found to have abnormal activity in the EEG and then discovered to have a cerebral tumour. Recordings done in the operating theatre confirmed that the activity was associated with the tumour. Between 1936 and 1939 many hundreds of patients were investigated; those with epilepsy were shown to have abnormal activity in the EEG between attacks.  In 1939 Golla and Walter moved to Bristol to open the Burden Neurological Institute as a research centre in neuropsychiatry. There Walter made many novel instruments to analyse the EEG. On-line frequency analysis was developed in 1943, sensory stimuli used to provoke abnormal activity in the EEG in 1947, and the toposcope to analyse the frequency and phase structure of the EEG in 1950. The work on conditioning went on and in the early 1960s led to the discovery of the contingent negative variation, which became a subject of study throughout the world. Walter also developed models that mimicked brain systems and this involved him with Norbert Wiener and others in early work on cybernetics. His `tortoises', displayed at the Festival of Britain in 1951, were designed to show the interaction of two sensory systems: light-sensitive and touch-sensitive control mechanisms (in effect, two nerve cells with visual and tactile inputs). These systems interacted with the motor drive in such a way that the `animals' exhibited `behaviour', finding their way round obstacles, for example.  Walter was a fluent speaker and writer, on general as well as technical subjects. He was fluent in French, Italian, and German. He was the author of 170 scientific publications and gave a number of important lectures. He relished making broadcasts and giving talks; he was a frequent guest on BBC television's The Brains trust. He wrote two books: The Living Brain (1953), which was popular science and was the first introduction that many people had to the brain, and a science fiction novel, Further Outlook (1956), which was not very successful. He was awarded an ScD by Cambridge in 1947, and in 1949 was made a professor of the University of Aix-Marseilles. In 1974 he was awarded the Oliver-Sharpey prize of the Royal College of Physicians. In 1975, the Electroencephalographic Society, of which he was a founder member, commemorated his achievements by striking a Grey Walter medal, `to be presented … in recognition of outstanding services to clinical neurophysiology'. He was the first recipient of the medal.    A member of the Cambridge Apostles from 1933, he was a communist supporter before and during the war but later became more sympathetic, first to anarchism, and then to syndicalism. He was an active member of tile Association of Scientific Workers. He was involved in the peace movement, being a member of the Peace Pledge Union in the 1930s and the Bristol committee of 100 in the 1960s; but was never a pacifist, and he served in the Home Guard during the Second World War. A firm atheist, he was interested in, though unconvinced by, the paranormal, and also did research on hypnosis. In 1934 Walter married Katharine Monica (b. 1911), younger daughter of Samuel Kerkharn Ratcliffe, a British journalist and lecturer; they separated in 1945 and divorced in 1946. They had two sons, Nicolas, who became a journalist and lecturer, and Jeremy, who became a physicist. In 1947 he married Vivian Joan (1915-1980), daughter of John Dovey, colour manufacturer. She was a colleague for many years. They separated in 1960; they had one son, Timothy (1949-1976). From 1960 to 1972 he lived with Lorraine Josephine, daughter of Mr Donn, property developer, and former wife of Keith Aldridge. In 1970 he suffered severe brain damage in a road accident which effectively ended his career. For forty years he had been at the forefront of research on the living brain, using its electrical activity to chart normal and abnormal function. He died of a heart attack at his home at Flat 2, 20 Richmond Park Road, Clifton, Bristol, on 6 May 1977 and was cremated on 12 May. TRIVIA: After Grey Walter had his road accident, he wrote about it in a paper called "My Miracle" now in the BNI Archive located at the British Science Museum Archives in Wroughton, Swindon.  In the document, he talks about how he got interested in motor scooters (Italian Vespa's, actually). Here's some dot points from the article:

• Vespa 125cc scooter – over 20 years ago prior to accident. ie summer of '47. For reduction in transport costs.
• accident  with horse. Unconscious from June 13 for about 3 weeks.
• 60 y/o at time of accident.
• Son Timothy about to start 3rd  yr at Cambridge. Discovered at start of 1st year that Timothy had muscular dystrophy.
• Mention of lack of alpha brain waves in WGW.
• 15 in every 100 have no alpha waves.
• "My experience of what is now called "electronics" is even longer – over 50 years since my father and I started to make "wireless" sets in 1919, before there was any broadcasting in Britain."

Here's the address of the :- Science Museum Library and Archives Science Museum at Wroughton Hackpen Lane Wroughton SWINDON SN4 9NS www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/library

next Grey Walter post here

There are various bio's out there on Grey Walter already, but I thought I'd try a  different approach.  One of the better references on Grey Walter and his tortoises is, interestingly enough, the book titled "Discussions on Child Development" in one volume 1971. Most researchers on Grey Walter and his tortoises usually only reference the Swindon archive extract which contains only the text of one section. I encourage you to buy this book and read all the Grey Walter notes.  The book is a collection of Proceeding on meetings on Psychological Development of the Child 1953, 1956, 1958, 1960.  All the speakers introduce themselves, so let me let Grey Walter introduce himself  (p21, Book 1):

" Well, sir, I may add to your confession of cosmopolitanism that I have an American mother and an English father, and that I share a birthplace with Norbert Wiener, T. S. Eliot, and Harry Truman. I was born in Missouri. For that reason my life has been one long illustration of the need to 'show me'.

I am an experimental scientific worker. I started my training in the University of Cambridge as a fairly pure neurophysiologist in the school of Adrian and Matthews, and I spent five years there, studying the detailed neurophysiology of the peripheral nervous system. I then had the honour of being delegated by my professor, Sir Joseph Barcroft, to work with a Rockefeller Fellow—one of the first and few who came from Leningrad–on conditioned reflexes. I was given the task of acting as his assistant and becoming familiar with the classical techniques of the Pavlovian School. I spent two years at that work, having a good background already of neuro­physiology. I was enabled first of all to introduce a number of modernizations into the Pavlovian technique, to assure myself of the essential accuracy of the Pavlovian hypotheses, and to become much impressed with the manner in which the Pavlovian workers at that time were able to distinguish factors related to personality in their experimental creatures, both animal and man. Since that time, as you know, that particular aspect of Pavlovian work has been rejected and denied by the Soviet authorities, and very few people, I think, understand how important the typology of Pavlov was, in the early days, to the development and scope of the Pavlovian theories.

After we had realized that to extend the work in Cambridge would cost far more money than was available, I had t he good fortune to be appointed as a Rockefeller Fellow at the Maudsley Hospital in London, where my approach to the human problem was directed and inspired by Professor Golla, who was then setting up a new laboratory for the multi-disciplinary study of the human organism; I had the role there of physiologist. There I was introduced to the study of the electrical activity of the brain, which as a physiologist I had previously considered to be inaccurate and unlikely to lead to any information, the brain being, of course, at that time a most objectionable subject of study. I had the opportunity to visit many European centres of brain physiology preparatory to setting up our own laboratory. I met Berger and Foerster and various other workers in the field of brain physiology. Our laboratory was set up mainly for the application of electroencephalography to psychiatric problems, but we were very soon more heavily involved with neurology, and I devoted a number of years to the study of organic lesions of the nervous system. It was rather a tough apprenticeship for a physiologist, having to relearn neuroanatomy and apply it to what was then an extremely inaccurate and troublesome method of study.

At the end of my period at the Maudsley, just before the War, I moved with Golla to Bristol, where I am now, and once again had to redirect my ideas towards the more generalized physiology of the human nervous system. Our plans were interrupted by the War. During the War we devoted our attention mainly to the problem of head injuries and epilepsy in Service personnel, but at the same time occurred the opportunity to deal with more normal physiology in matters quite relevant to the meeting here, that is the problem of children evacuated from the cities. Hundreds of ill-behaved and, in fact, horrible creatures descended upon us from the slums of big cities, presenting one of the most serious problems which my country has had to face: the disposal of these young creatures in schools, billets, and so forth. We found that the application of physiological techniques to the separation, selection, and classifica­tion of these children was astonishingly valuable. From that time dates my interest in the relevance of the physiology of the nervous system to the study of how children grow up, how the influences of environment and heredity, nurture and nature, combine to make the child as it is.

These interests have been paramount in my scientific thinking, combined obviously with the early influence of the Pavlovian School, and I have attempted particularly to quantify methods of study, to develop men and machines able to make objective and concrete appreciation of the problems which we encounter in this sort of work. This approach seems to me to have been neglected in the past, and ignorance here is liable to produce considerable misunderstanding if projected further. "

More to come next blog entry here…