Mephisto (chess machine)

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Mephisto was a chess-playing automaton from the 19th century .

history

Mephisto was constructed by Charles Godfrey Gümpel and introduced to the public after six or seven years of development. Unlike previous Chess Android as the Chess Turk of Wolfgang von Kempelen or Charles Arthur Hooper Ayub was it designed so that the suspicion could be largely eliminated in its interior concealing a human player. Nevertheless, Mephistus' actions were also controlled by a human, but apparently from a distance and via electromagnetic impulses.

How the machine worked in detail was not made public at the time. The player who Mephisto served, had in any case on a chessboard , which was connected to the stationary front of the machine board, respectively only the currently occupied position to be moved figure mark and then the position at which the character should be rotated by Mephisto. According to Tim Harding, the machine's right arm was movable and could grab and move the figures. Harding also published a drawing showing Mephisto in action; here the machine is holding a chess piece in its right hand. Another contemporary illustration shows the figure with the right arm resting on the back of the chair.

In 1878 an observer mentioned the moveable right arm, as well as Mephistus's moveable head, which seemed to orient itself on the chessboard, and his horse's foot , which seemed obligatory for the name of the machine. This reporter also announced that there was a spike on every square of the chessboard used by Mephisto, which the player had to press each time he removed a piece or placed it on a new square. He suspected that this transmitted information to the machine operator so that the machine could react to the changed state on the field.

Mephisto had a black beard and was dressed in "oriental" clothes. There was a smile on his face and his posture looked pretty casual.

According to Harding, Mephistus' first appearance took place on March 30, 1878 in the home of its inventor. The chess players Bird, Blackburne , Hirschfeld and others as well as a number of chess journalists were present. During this demonstration there was a technical breakdown, so that Hirschfeld's game against Mephisto could not be ended. Gümpel had to repair and modify the machine before he could put it back into operation.

Isidor Günsberg, Mephistus "Brain"

In Mephistus' first year of operation, the machine was probably mostly controlled by Isidor Günsberg . Gümpel's plan to exhibit Mephisto in Paris in 1878 could not be carried out. But in August 1878 Mephisto won the chess tournament of The Counties Chess Association in London. In October of the same year it was presented at the Royal Aquarium in Westminster . In the next few years Gümpel toured various places with Mephisto and let chess players play against the machine for money. The audience also paid admission. The attendance was great. Mephisto, who was probably still served mostly by Günsberg, did not win every game. Among other things, Henry Lee won a game against Mephisto, which was published by Wilhelm Steinitz . Mephisto is said to never have won against women. He preferred to let benefits pass unused.

From February 1879 Mephisto was six days a week each 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. on beach to visit. Ajeeb, a replica of the original Chess Turk, succeeded him in the Royal Aquarium. In August 1879 Gümpel moved his machine to Brighton , where he stayed for a long time. Mephisto's achievements in this phase were changeable. Harding suspects that Günsberg at least did not stay in Brighton all the time to operate the machine, but perhaps instructed a weaker chess player who had to take over his job as Mephistus' brain in the off-season. By 1883 at the latest it was apparently common knowledge that Mephisto had been served frequently by Günsberg; at that time this fact was published in the Sheffield Independent . Later, probably from 1885, the machine was apparently often controlled by Richard Henry Falkland Fenton . Taubenhaus conducted the automaton when Mephisto appeared at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889 . After this exhibition, Mephisto disappeared from the scene. Nothing is known about his whereabouts.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Monroe Newborn: Computer Chess . Elsevier Science, June 25, 2014, ISBN 978-1-4832-1890-8 , p. 6.
  2. ↑ a b c d Tim Harding: Eminent Victorian Chess Players: Ten Biographies . McFarland, April 12, 2012, ISBN 978-0-7864-6568-2 , pp. 283-286.
  3. ↑ a b Pictorial representation of Mephistus on chess.com
  4. ^ "Mephisto", the New Automaton Chess-Player , in: The Sydney Mail , June 8, 1878, p. 8 ( digitized version )