

The Johns Hopkins Beast (Circa 1960)

Built during the 1960s at the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, the Johns Hopkins Beast was a mobile automaton. The machine had a rudimentary intelligence and the ability to survive on its own. 


"The robot was cybernetic. It did not use a computer. Its control circuitry consisted of dozens of transistors controlling analog voltages. It used photocell optics and sonar to navigate. The 2N404 transistors were used to create NOR logic gates that implemented the Boolean logic to tell it what to do when a specific sensor was activated. The 2N404 transistors were also used to create timing gates to tell it how long to do something. 2N1040 Power transistors were used to control the power to the motion treads, the boom, and the charging mechanism" Wikipedia article on Johns Hopkins Beast, accessed 11-13-2013).