But first, the news:

After Forty years of showing off the shiniest and most gadgety of objects, the Consumer Electronics Show has been exhibiting and talking about these new doodads called robots that are entering the consumer mainstream.

Mr. Robotics is presently studiously attending all the robotics seminars in the emerging technology pavilion. If you are there and they have wi-fi and you’re reading this and have nothing better to do, go ahead and see if you can spot him.

Mr. Robotics will return with lots and lots of juicy photos and ranty commentary (if he knows what’s good for him) tomorrow!

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With even more proof that robots are surreptitiously taking over our popular culture, let us welcome with big shiny robotic tentacles the addition of Diesel Sweeties to the actual, real live paper comics page!

All these earthshakingly groundbreaking news tidbits (except for Mr. Robotics being in Vegas, that I had a suspicion about) are courtesy Robot Gossip!

Respeck to Mr. SB, but here’s an earlier suicide bot from artist Jean Tinguely (1925-1991).

Homage to New York was a 1960 assemblage of junk found objects that painstakingly destroyed itself over 30 minutes.

Here’s a video (and a recollection that will sound very familiar to anyone involved in machine art):

The last few hours of the day were frantic. Jean insisted that we shouldn’t test anything. Instead he kept adding new stuff to the machine. Not until 6 o’clock did I get a cable for the electricity. The event was scheduled from 6:30 to 7:00. At 7:30, I asked Jean “On va?” Jean answered, “On va.” and I closed the switch.

Homage to New York video and commentary

There’s nothing better than robots. But Donuts run a very close second. So what could be better than a robot that makes donuts? Well, an animated real doll, but that’s another post.

This is a great robot - it’s even model number 42. Douglas Adams haunts us all.

It was difficult to find information about the Belshaw Donut Robot 42 other than the owner’s manual, so I will be the first person on the internet to tell the world about the warm, human, emotional side of the Belshaw Donut Robot.

The Belshaw Donut Robot 42 is an industrial donut making machine that looks sort of like an aircraft carrier, measuring 41 inches long and 20 inches wide. The Belshaw company is owned by the Welbilt company, the very same people who make the hotel icemakers, restaurant dishwashers, and the like. As it turns out, the Donut Robot 42 is an obsolete model, but despite its age (and associated dents, scratches, and stains), it still makes doughnuts like a champ.

Newer refinements in current Belshaw Donut Robots include a doughnut odometer, so you can tell if any of your thieving employees are stealing doughnuts from you. Probably most importantly is the ability to throttle doughnut production, because the Donut Robot 42 goes full-bore making doughnuts as fast as it can.

One of the most famous robots was the Chess playing “Turk”, built by wunderkind Wolfgang von Kempelen of what is now Slovakia.

It wasn’t actually a robot, but a very elaborate prank (we hate pranks here at Suicide Bots, yes we do. Hate ‘em. That’s us…). Both front panels rolled aside to expose the elaborate gears, pulleys, and mechatronics that operated the Turk - who defeated Napoleon (yes, that one), Ben Franklin, and most of the Chess Masters of both sides of the Atlantic.

But in the end, it was just a guy behind the mirrors who operated the mechatronic Turk. True, he was a chess master, and the Turk was a mechanical marvel (the seated “Turk” was not a guy in a costume, it was a very good animatronic android who would pick up the chess pieces and move them around the board (in response to the operations of the hidden operator/chess player.))

It took several years before the hoax was exposed. The primary player was William Schlumberger. Some insist the player was a legless war veteran, but that’s not true. William Schlumberger had his legs. He just wasn’t a very good boat companion.

So there’s today’s history lesson.

Rook takes Queen. Checkmate. You have to do the dishes for the next month.

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.