Reading a book this holydays, The Chess Machine by Robert Lohr.
There's another book about this theme, Tom Standage's The Turk.
I didn't read this one. Yet. The theme seems very interesting.
I'm still reading the first one. It's about a true event. A baron, Wolfgang Von Kempelen, in the XVIII, invented for the Queen of the Austrian impire Marie Therese a chess machine. A machine that thought!!!
Of course inside there was a midget, a good player for those times, Tibor, wich Von Kempelen took out of the streets of Venice, Italy.
The machine was named The Turk.
" Over the course of his career, the Chess Turk played against several famous opponents. In addition to games with Empress Maria Theresia and Benjamin Franklin, the match against Napoleon in 1809 in Vienna was the highlight of his career. Napoleon tried to test the Chess Turk by making illegal moves. The Chess Turk is said to have reacted first by bowing and then by placing the illegally-moved chess figure on the correct spot. After Napoleon made further attempts to deceive the machine, the Chess Turk swept all the pieces off the table, earning the praise of the French emperor." as discribed in the site of the Museumsforum Heinz Nixdorf in Paderborn, Germany.
The mechanism inside the machine was only to impress the public.
The only mechanism that worked was the one to permit the player inside to see the moves of the adversary and the ones that permited him to make his own moves.
The replica of the machine, that survived and exhibited from 1770 till 1838, is actually in the above mentioned Museumsforum Heinz Nixdorf in Paderborn.
Inside should be like this.
You can notice the player, a chess board and a candle. The candle was necessary because inside was completely dark. The smoke was filtered out by the turbant on the head of the turk. But what about the smell of burnt wax? As the games were disputed at night, nothing more simple than to put a candle near the chess board on the outside!!
But as in a trick of cards an element was necessary to distract the public. Von Kempelen had always with him and for everyone to see a little box, wich inside had nothing but air!! Is like the the right hand distracting you from what the left hand is doing. That wasn't of course necessary but added a misterious fact to the whole event.
The rest were cables to make the moves and magnets to permit the player inside to see the moves.
Cables to shake the head one time for check, two for queen check and three for checkmate.
The long pipe was to make a composition and was retired before the game started.
But the final trick was a Copperfieldish one.
As the games finished Von Kempelen showed the inside "mechanism". The one to show!!
He showed one part first with the midget hiding in one compartment. After he showed the other side as the midget moved to another compartment.
I wonder if in a game of chess isn't that what we really do.
Reading a book this holydays, The Chess Machine by Robert Lohr.
There's another book about this theme, Tom Standage's The Turk.
I didn't read this one. Yet. The theme seems very interesting.
I'm still reading the first one. It's about a true event. A baron, Wolfgang Von Kempelen, in the XVIII, invented for the Queen of the Austrian impire Marie Therese a chess machine. A machine that thought!!!
Of course inside there was a midget, a good player for those times, Tibor, wich Von Kempelen took out of the streets of Venice, Italy.
The machine was named The Turk.
" Over the course of his career, the Chess Turk played against several famous opponents. In addition to games with Empress Maria Theresia and Benjamin Franklin, the match against Napoleon in 1809 in Vienna was the highlight of his career. Napoleon tried to test the Chess Turk by making illegal moves. The Chess Turk is said to have reacted first by bowing and then by placing the illegally-moved chess figure on the correct spot. After Napoleon made further attempts to deceive the machine, the Chess Turk swept all the pieces off the table, earning the praise of the French emperor." as discribed in the site of the Museumsforum Heinz Nixdorf in Paderborn, Germany.
The mechanism inside the machine was only to impress the public.
The only mechanism that worked was the one to permit the player inside to see the moves of the adversary and the ones that permited him to make his own moves.
The replica of the machine, that survived and exhibited from 1770 till 1838, is actually in the above mentioned Museumsforum Heinz Nixdorf in Paderborn.
Inside should be like this.
You can notice the player, a chess board and a candle. The candle was necessary because inside was completely dark. The smoke was filtered out by the turbant on the head of the turk. But what about the smell of burnt wax? As the games were disputed at night, nothing more simple than to put a candle near the chess board on the outside!!
But as in a trick of cards an element was necessary to distract the public. Von Kempelen had always with him and for everyone to see a little box, wich inside had nothing but air!! Is like the the right hand distracting you from what the left hand is doing. That wasn't of course necessary but added a misterious fact to the whole event.
The rest were cables to make the moves and magnets to permit the player inside to see the moves.
Cables to shake the head one time for check, two for queen check and three for checkmate.
The long pipe was to make a composition and was retired before the game started.
But the final trick was a Copperfieldish one.
As the games finished Von Kempelen showed the inside "mechanism". The one to show!!
He showed one part first with the midget hiding in one compartment. After he showed the other side as the midget moved to another compartment.
I wonder if in a game of chess isn't that what we really do.