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From: ba672@lafn.org (Arthur T. Murray)
Subject: Re: Brainiac in memoriam (Mentifex history)
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Reply-To: ba672@lafn.org (Arthur T. Murray)
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References: <nagleE2Ip9L.9J9@netcom.com> <850699908snz@longley.demon.co.uk> <58pbq2$btj@ux.cs.niu.edu> <850439432snz@longley.demon
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 10:54:34 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai:42845 comp.society.futures:6658


nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) reminisces with vivid memories
and prompts the timeline of Project Mentifex to be appended:

> ba672@lafn.org (Arthur T. Murray) writes:
> >Brainiac?  Mirabile dictu!  Someone remembers the old Brainiac?!!
> >Being twelve years old at the time I received the toy Brainiac at
> >Christmas in 1958.

>       Now there was a frustrating machine.  It was basically
> six multipole rotary switches and a few lamps, with no active
> components at all.  The rotary switches were really tacky; they
> were Masonite disks with lots of holes turning against a Masonite
> base.  "Programming" was performed by inserting 6/32 round-head machine
> screws into the holes and connecting them with hookup wire.

1959  Built transistor radio transmitter based on H. Zarchy book.
1962  At Seattle World's Fair experienced IBM speech recognition.
1964  Transmitting from seat disrupted high school physics class.
1965  Began experimenting with relays; started AI theory journal.
1966  Created artificial life organism made from electric relays.
1969  Studied electronics at Redstone Arsenal and at Sandia Base.
1972  Burned AI notebooks; began documents now available via WWW.
1973  As German and Latin teacher moved AI project to Redmond WA.
1977  Left Overlake School and moved AI project near Univ. of WA.
1978  In sudden insight saw necessity of abstract memory channel.
1979  Developed AI theory of diagram below; publication rejected.
1981  AI theory published as "Know Thyself" in NOVEMBER Magazine.
1985  First Mentifex post in comp.ai arouses surprise and flames.
1988  Advertising in Neural Network Review; PC AI; and AI Expert.
1989  Bulk of seven thousand blurbs mailed in Mentifex envelopes.
1990  Began publishing Mentifex blurbs in Finland, Spain, Canada.
1991  Entire Mentifex theory and Mind.anim published as Amiga PD.
1993  Mind.rexx AI program debuts and is distributed on Internet.
1994  Work stops on Mind.rexx for ports to mainframes and robots.
1995  Ports bog down;  NW AI Expo;  New Civ donates Mentifex URL.
1996  Web search engines reveal spread of theory and memes of AI.

  /^^^^^^^^^^^\ Overview of a Detailed Mind-Model /^^^^^^^^^^^\
 /visual memory\           ________   semantic   /  auditory   \
|      /--------|-------\ / syntax \  memory    |episodic memory|
|      |  recog-|nition | \________/<-----------|-------------\ |
|   ___|___     |       |    |flush-vector      |    _______  | |
|  /image  \    |    ___V____V___  word-fetch   |   /stored \ | |
| / percept \<--|-->/ conceptual \--------------|->/ phonemes\| |
| \ engrams /   |   \ mini-grids / for thinking |  \ of words/  |
|  \_______/    |    \__________/  in language  |   \_______/   |

http://www.newciv.org/Mentifex/ run periodic Mentifex Web search.
http://www.complex.com.pl/~venom/science.html one Web waystation.

