El Ajedrecista
El Ajedrecista (English: The Chess Player) was an automaton built in 1912 by Leonardo Torres y Quevedo. El Ajedrecista made a public debut during the Paris World Fair of 1914, creating great excitement at the time. It was first widely mentioned in Scientific American as "Torres and His Remarkable Automatic Devices" on November 6, 1915.[2] Using electromagnets under the board, it automatically played an endgame with three chess pieces, moving a king and a rook against a human opponent king. The device is considered the first computer game in history.[3]
The automaton does not deliver checkmate in the minimum amount of moves, nor always within 50 moves, because of the simple algorithm that calculates the positions. (See fifty move rule.) It did however checkmate the opponent flawlessly every time. If an illegal move was made by the opposite player, the automaton would signal it.[4]
Its internal construction was published by H. Vigneron.[5] Leonardo's son Gonzalo made an improved chess automaton based on El Ajedrecista in 1920, which made its moves via magnets located under the board.[6] Both are still working and are on display at the Colegio de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos in Madrid. As opposed to the human-operated The Turk and Ajeeb, El Ajedrecista was a true automaton built to play chess without human guidance.
[edit] Notes
- ^ "chessprogramming - Leonardo Torres y Quevedo". http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Leonardo+Torres+y+Quevedo. Retrieved 2010-06-12.
- ^ Torres and his remarkable automatic devices. Issue 2079 of Scientific American, 1915
- ^ Montfort, Nick (2005). Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction. MIT Press, p. 76. ISBN 0262633183
- ^ Atkinson, George W. (1998). Chess and machine intuition. Intellect Books, pp. 21-22. ISBN 1871516447
- ^ H. Vigneron: Robots. English Translation in: David Levy, Monty Newborn: Chess and Computers, pp. 13-23. Computer Science Press, 1982.
- ^ Brian Randell, From Analytical Engine to Electronic Digital Computer: The Contributions of Ludgate, Torres and Bush. Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 4, No. 4, Oct. 1982
