Category talk:Chess automatons

Robotic chess computers

This was removed from the "Inspiration" section of The Turk, saved here for future reference in case a more appropriate article is found. --IanOsgood 17:23, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Chess automatons inspired several high-end robotic chess computers. Several museums had one-off exhibits which coupled an industrial robotic arm with a chess computer. In 1977, Chess 4.7 played a match with David Levy using a custom built robotic arm. The first robotic chess computer for sale to the public was the Novag Robot Adversary in 1981which had a robotic arm. Later robotic chess computers would eschew an above-board armature which was expensive to produce and prone to mechanical failure for a cartesian coordinate robot which shifts magnets under the board to move magnetic pieces. Such models included Phantom Chess (1983, later sold by Fidelity in 1988 and Mephisto in 1990) and the Excalibur Mirage (1997). The market for high-end standalone chess computers has declined in recent years, so there are no robotic models currently available.