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1770 Mechanical Chess Player Inspired Babbage
dipfan writes "A new book tells the extraordinary true story of a clock-work chess-playing "machine" named The Turk that wowed Europe and the US in the 18th and 19th century, beating Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon, among others. Although it turned out to be a cleverly designed trick, the device is credited with inspiring Charles Babbage (the father of the computer), who played and lost to the automaton in 1820, with the idea that a mechanical engine could be programed to perform tasks... and the rest is computing history, right up to IBM's Deep Blue. There's an article by the author at Wired, and the preface and first chapter of the book The Mechanical Turk available online."
That is an unbelievable karma whore.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
1770... This is news? ;)
Oops!! forgot what day it is!!! Er.. Umm... I mean I'm just reminding you! Okay! okay! I'm gone now!
I stole this Sig
A Multi-Gigahertz processor.
1.5 GB of DDR RAM.
Dual 100 GB hard drives.
A half dozen fans to cool the whole thing.
AND I CAN'T FIND A GAME OF OTHELLO / REVERSI THAT CAN CONSISTENTLY BEAT ME.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant