Von Kempelen's Chess-Playing Mechanical Device of 1770

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Luitpoldt

I have not seen an article on chess.com on von Kempelen's famous mechanical chess machine, invented at Vienna in 1770, which was also called 'the Turk' because of the figure which sat atop it.  Edgar Allen Poe tried to puzzle out what really made it operate when it was on display in Baltimore, since it played chess quite well, even though it seemed mechanical.  In fact it was just an elaborate mechanism concealing a human chess-player inside.  Someone interested on the history of chess should post an article on it.

Luitpoldt

I googled it, and there are no links to any discussions about it on chess.com, as there usually are with chess stories appearing here.

kindaspongey

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708105211/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review254.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708094912/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review335.pdf

SunPrarieWI

Know of a PGN game list of the games the Turk played?

batgirl

@luitpoldt must have overlooked these (unfortunately, when V3 came out and chess.com eliminated Albums where I have the images stored, most of the images disappeared):


    The Turk at Odds 
      Maelzel, Schlumberger and the Turk
 
      Brewster's Letters on Natural Magic
      Robert-Houdin and the Turk
      E.A. Poe and the Turk - Part I
      E.A. Poe and the Turk - Part II
      An Attempt to Analyse the Automaton Chess Player by Robert Willis 
      
The Turk - Joseph Friedrich Freiherr zu Racknitz

      Inanimate Reason by Carl-Gottlieb von Windisch
 
      Observations on an Automaton Chess Player by an Oxford Graduate. 1819.
      The Chess Automaton by George Walker, Part I
      The Chess Automaton by George Walker, Part II
      The Automaton by John Timbs
 
      The Turk - from the Diary of Robert Gilmor
 
      The Automaton Chess-player - Cornhill Magazine
      Address to the Automaton Chess-player
      The Last of a Veteran Chess Player

SunPrarieWI

Thanks!

Ill check out links.

I want to create an opening book from the Turks actual games even though I had read there were a few different chess players employed under the box.