BERKELEY ENTERPRISES LABORATORY -- COMBINED PROGRESS REPORT AND JOB LIST
AS OF SEPTEMBER 25, 1956



Memorandum for Laboratory Associates from E. C. Berkeley:
To: Milt Stoller Leo Mackta  
  Juli Skalski Bob Jensen  
  Ellis Cooper Mort Kronengold  
  Sam Ain    
Information: Palmer Weber Jim Cryan Bill Mandel


1. Simplac. On Saturday, Sept. 22, Milt, Juli, Ellis and I talked about a new beginning on Simplac. Milt presented very convincing arguments for making Simplac a transistor cormputer; we decided to do so. We settled on six building blocks to be made at once, according to plans written down and given to us by Milt: a transistor flip-flop; a series AND circuit, a parallel AND circuit, a single shot, a differentiator, and an inverter, Juli and Ellis took responsibility (Prog. _________) for making at least some of these by our next meeting. Saturday, Oct. 6, at 12:00, when we will all meet again. Milt took responsibility for starting the logical design of the new Simplac (Prog. _________). We expect that the old magnetic drum can be used, but only with new and better magnetic heads. The plan is for registers of 3 binary digits, which can hold a binary number of two digits and sign, or an instruction of 3 binary digits.

2. Magdum. Mort and Bob are to get together and consult on Magdum (Prog. ________). Bob is finishing Franken (Prog. ________), now promised for September 30, When it is finished, Bob will take Magdum from Mort's basement (Prog. ______), and start to set it up so that communication between Magdum and Simon takes place (Prog. ________). Mort will consult and advise. The six storage registers of Simon can be replaced by six equivalent storage registers of Magdum. This is the first step.

3. Display Room for Small Robots. The front room at 513 will become a room for display of all our finished and some of our unfinished small robots (Prog. _______). The brick side of the room will also support a shelf, or perhaps two shelves, so that very small robots and other finished parts can be placed on the shelves (Prog. ________).

4. Miscellaneous. The Remington-Rand Young-and-Rubicam display device has been canceled. Reason: it is not client's own equipment as it should be for the purpose of the TV show, / George the Gogetter: waiting for some more time from Ellis. / Sundorra 21: Juli is to talk to Bob Jenson about making this second game machine, according to Bob's plans (Prog. ______). / Relay Moe will be on the front cover of "Radio Electronics", for December in color; Juli will be on the front cover, too. / Burroughs has a Nixie letter display cold cathode tube for $10. Juli is to buy it and set it up as an output display device (Prog. _______). / Ellis is to come up with an estimate for making a monorail stabilized car, like the the one we admired in the ISA show (Prog. ______) / Juli is to check out the tape duplicator (Prog. ______). / Alice and Ed are to put together a complete up-to-date file of all useful information on small robots, Simplac. Etc. (Prog. _____). / Juli is to make simple cheap sheet plastic dust covers for all robots on display (Prog. _______). / Juli is to make Marbellina behave; last time it was putting out two ping-pong balls instead of one (Prog. _______). / Magnetic cigarettes for John Arthur Expositions: the experimental work by Ellis and Jill has wound up in a blind alley. Ed, and perhaps Mort, have to come up with some more ideas to try out (Prog. ________).

5. Marketing. The Sylvania message display robot and rental of Relay Moe have brought us in about $8100 since last November, of which perhaps $3000 or $3500 is the excess over direct expenses. Ed is to get out a mailing to many New York advertising agencies and advertising directors saying what we can do (Prog. _______).