The 1st 20 years
Since 1949,
Grason-Stadler has grown from three men operating in a Cambridge apartment to nearly 100 people housed in a 16,000 sq. ft., well equipped plant in West Concord, Mass.
Relay Programming System:
The Grason-Stadler Relay Programming System provided low-cost automatic control of and data collection from moderately complex behavioral-science experiments whose events occur at rates up to 15 per second. The system permitted the generation of an extremely wide rarge of relationships between stimulus and response events, relationships such as are commonly found in standard ratio and interval schedules of reinforcement. The system could be programmed to operate a great variety of external devices such as food dispensers, slide projectors, shock generators — virtually anything whose activity could be controlled by contact closures.
Series 1200 Solid-State Programming System:
The Series 1200 System was Grason-Stadler's response to those researchers who needed sophisticated control of experiment parameters and versatile data acquisition techniques. It was smaller, quieter, and much faster than its relay counterpart. And because it was faster it could make sophisticated control decisions — from detecting coincidence between discrete nerve cell firings to the generation of random numbers. Series 1200 provided control of and data collection for a variety of life-science experiments. Its applications range from standard schedules of reinforcement in the behavioral sciences through complex multi-alternative forced choice procedures in psychoacoustics, to evoked potential threshold tests in neurophysiology.
SCAT Computer Interface System:
The SCAT Computer Interface System was designed to work with a DEC PDP-8/I general-purpose computer to permit on-line, real-time control and data acquisition functions in multiple and/or highly complex experiment situations. It was suitable for virtually any life-science application which required that input events be sensed, stored, or manipulated in complex ways and that related output events be generated. The SCAT System was fully conversational, permitted on-line computational analysis and consequent modification of experiment control functions, provided a variety of raw and concensed output data formats, and possessed a basic decision-making speed that was limited only by the computer itself.
Audiology-Psychoacoustic Research Equipment:
This category represents a wide variety of audiometric and psychoacoustic devices which generate, control, and monitor electrical waveforms in the audio range. It included audiometers which, with associated peripheral equipment, permitted the clinical evaluation of speech and hearing defects. It also included auditory training devices which could be used in individual or in large classroom situations to train the hard-of-hearing. And finally, it included psychoacoustic devices which generate or control a variety of complex auditory parameters.
Types of equipment:
Audiometry: The Zwislocki Acoustic Bridge, for evaluation of the acoustic function of the middle ear; the Psychogalvanometer, for determining auditory thresholds by means of electrodermal response; the Speech Audiometer, for measurement of hearing for speech; the Bekesy Audiometer, for audiometric testing according to the method of Georg von Bekesy; the Narrow-Band Noise Modulator, for producing narrow-band masking signals at any frequency; the Recording Attenuator, for providing a graphic record of responses as a subject controls the intensity of an auditory signal.
Auditory Training: Group Hearing Aids for wide-band amplification of acoustic signals for groups of up to twelve listeners.
Psychoacoustics: Noise Generators, Phase Shifters, Electronic Switches, and Voice-Operated Relays
