Author: Mike Byrne
Date: 07:10:28 10/10/04
This one was called the "Turk", and it used to resides in the Smithsonian Institute ..until the real Turk showed up. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5926388121 ;>) I know some of us are old, but we're not that old. Steve - any comments? There are two books about the "Turk" one is by Standage (sp?) http://www.janmag.com/features/turkexc.html The other book is by Levitt and occasionally you can grab it on ebay for about $25. Book collectors are more interested in the Levitt book, it is published by Mcfarland who are the premier (highest qualty workmanship) chess book publishers in the US. From Scientific American " It was an impressive showpiece: a fierce-looking, turbaned puppet seated at a cabinet bearing a chessboard. Its successive owners from 1770 to 1854 would open the cabinet to display to an audience an array of gears and springs and then would invite a spectator to play a game of chess with the Turk, as the turbaned figure came to be known. The Turk usually won. Audiences and chess players were impressed. But it was a grand hoax. Jammed uncomfortably into the cabinet, kept from the audience's view by legerdemain, was a "director," a human chess player who observed by candlelight the moves made by the opponent and operated the pantograph that executed the Turk's responses. " http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0786407786/qid=1097417001/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/104-5636990-5681525?v=glance&s=books#product-details
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