Most people who know robots, know the Turk. It was supposedly a chess-playing automaton that beat Napolean and others. It wasn’t actually an automaton. It actually held a chess master (William Schlumberger) in a secret compartment who played the robot.

But fiction often leads to fact. Thus we have El Ajedrecista.

Built in 1912 by Leonardo Torres y Quevedo, the machine used magnets to move the pieces around the board and detect the human players moves. It proved to be an excellent chess player, winning all of the games it played in King/Rook vs. King endgame. So it’s not a full game, but it did always win - never even getting a forced draw.

What’s remarkable about this, is that this was in 1912. And for those of you who don’t pay much attention to history, the microchip hadn’t been invented yet. Big Blue wasn’t around, Gary Kasparov was still a gleam in his grandfather’s eye, and yahoo games were something played by the uncool kids in a parking lot with a deflated soccer ball. This was an all analog, all mechanical computer that kept track of the input of the player, controlled the output of all the pieces, and mechanically kicked your ass.

Your weakness sickens me. I’m going out for a cup of 30 weight.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 17th, 2006 at 9:27 am and is filed under History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.