Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 7.5.
saki. source: Pask 1961, pl. ii, facing p. 33. (reproduced by permis-
sion of amanda heitler.)
less loony exhibitors.” Pask got into conversation with Bailey about Grey Wal-
ter's robot tortoises, and Bailey in turn proposed that Solartron, which was
already expanding into the area of AI, should support the development of adap-
tive training machines by Pask and System Research (E. Pask n.d.; McKinnon-
Wood 1993). Thereafter (Pask 1982, 69, 72),
Bailey participated in the design and development of this and other systems;
notably:
eucrates
[figs. 7.6, 7.7] a hybrid training machine and trainee simu-
lation; a device for training assembly line tasks; a radar simulation training
machine and several devices for interpolating adaptively modulated alerting
signals into a system, depending upon lapse of attention. The acronym SAKI
stood, after that, for
Solartron Adaptive Keyboard Instructor
and a number of
these were built and marketed. Details can be found in a U.K. Patent granted
in 1961, number 15494/56. The machine described is simply representative of
the less complex devices which were, in fact, custom-built in small batches for
different kinds of key boards (full scale, special and so on). The patent covered,
also, more complex devices like
eucrates
. . . . In 1961 the manufacturing rights
for machines covered by these patents were obtained by Cybernetic Develop-
ments: about 50 keyboard machines were leased and sold.
