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"I can remember when the first pulsars were discovered. I was able to go and sit down and listen to graduate students talking about what their theories, to explain what pulsars really were."
- Vernor Vinge

Neuristor Brain  
  A computer device made up of neuristors.  

The Hangman, the telefactoring robot, achieves self-awareness with a unique computing device.

"The full sensitivity of the neuristor brain was not appreciated at first. It was assumed that the operators were adding data in a linear fashion and that this would continue until a critical mass was achieved, corresponding to the construction of a model or picture of the world which would then serve as a point of departure for growth of the Hangman's own mind. And it did seem to check out this way.

"What actually occurred, however, was a phenomenon amounting to imprinting. Secondary characteristics of the operators' minds, outside the didactic situations, were imposed. These did not immediately become functional and hence were not detected. They remained latent until the mind had developed sufficiently to understand them. And then it was too late.

Technovelgy from My Name is Legion, by Roger Zelazny.
Published by Del Rey in 1976
Additional resources -

See also the entry for neuristor.

Compare to the artificial brain from Edmond Hamilton's 1926 classic The Metal Giants.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from My Name is Legion
  More Ideas and Technology by Roger Zelazny
  Tech news articles related to My Name is Legion
  Tech news articles related to works by Roger Zelazny

Neuristor Brain-related news articles:
  - IBM's Neuromorphic Chip

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