Robot Checker Player Is Undefeated (Jun, 1938)
Filed under: Robots — @ 4:25 am
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jun, 1938
Buy on Ebay
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jun, 1938
Buy on Ebay
Does anybody know how this worked? My guess is that there is a guy in a robot suit. I have serious doubts that in 1938 they could build a robot articulate enough to manipulate the pieces even if it was fully remote controlled.
Robot Checker Player Is Undefeated
OWNED by Frank Frain, of New York, N. Y., a mechanically created robot is said to have played in more than 25,000 checker matches without being defeated. Sponsored by a well know radio manufacturer, the “Magic Brain Checker Player,” as the robot is known, is making a tour of the country. Standing six feet tall and weighing 500 pounds, the robot disdainfully sweeps the checkerboard clear of checkers if its opponent attempts to cheat.
I don’t know how he worked, but I think I saw him on Star Trek once, in “The Corbomite Maneuver”
Comment by Blurgle — June 8, 2007 @ 6:56 am
Cameras on bike wheels, death ray, robo-checker player and thinking in glass…
Cameras spin on bicycle wheel to film lightning streak, Popular Mechanics - 1936 - Link. Inventor hides secret of “Death Ray†- “Pigeons on the wing instantly killed by death rays from a machine four miles away—that is the……
Trackback by MAKE: Blog — June 8, 2007 @ 8:05 am
Sounds to me like the mechanical turk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk
Comment by dallas — June 8, 2007 @ 9:06 am
Reminds me of The Turk:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk
Comment by Keys — June 8, 2007 @ 11:27 am
It is cited on Time’s Jan 25th 1937 issue:
http://www.time.com/time/magaz.....-1,00.html
However, the name of the inventor is written as “Frank Train” instead of “Frank Frain”.
Comment by docca — June 9, 2007 @ 8:01 am
And by the way, the “well-known radio manufacturer” is RCA
Comment by docca — June 9, 2007 @ 8:02 am
I suspect that the move the robot wants to play is shown in some way
that is indecipherable to the opponent, perhaps as a sequence of lights on that front panel
the operator then “interprets” this display, ignores the silly lights and plays what ever move he thinks is best
Comment by phil — August 19, 2008 @ 5:41 am