jbn@FORD-WDL1 (01/23/86)
Since Perceptron-type systems seem to be making a comeback, a
historical note may be useful.
The original Perceptron was developed in the early 1950s, and
was a weighted-learning type scheme using electromechanical storage, with
relay coils driving potentiometers through rachets being the basic
learning mechanism. The original machine used to be on display at the
Smithsonian's Museum of History and Technology, (now called the Museum of
American History); it was a sizable unit, about the size of a VAX 11/780.
But it is no longer on display; I've been checking with the Smithsonian.
It has been moved out to their storage facility in Prince George's County,
Maryland. It's not gone forever; the collection is rotated through the
museum. If there's sufficient interest, they may put it back on display
again.
Another unit in the same collection has relevance to this digest;
Parts of Reservisor, the first airline reservations system, built for American
Airlines around 1954, are still on display; they have a ticket agent's terminal
and the huge magnetic drum. Contrast this with Minksy's recent claims seen
here that airline reservation systems were invented by someone at the MIT AI
lab in the 1960s.
John Nagle