In 1996, world chess champion Garry Kasparov took on Deep Blue, the chess-playing computer developed by IBM, in a well-publicized six-game match. Kasparov won three games, lost one, and two games were declared draws. However, more than two centuries before Deep Blue, the first “machine” to take on all comers in chess was “The (Mechanical) Turk,” an automaton that debuted at Schönbrunn Palace in Austria in 1770. The Turk later toured Europe for exhibitions, attracting scores of fascinated onlookers and would-be opponents. Decades later, however, the Turk was exposed as a fake: there was actually a human chess expert inside the wooden cabinet in front of the Turk who was controlling the so-called automaton.
Šah-mat, Turk:
The Turk consisted of a life-sized head and torso, dressed in Ottoman robes and a turban. He had a black beard and grey eyes, and his left arm held a long smoking pipe.
Turk je zgradil Wolfgang von Kempelen, prvotno pa ga je zgradil, da bi naredil vtis na avstrijsko cesarico Marijo Terezijo. Leta 1854 je bila uničena v požaru.
Turek je zmagal v večini šahovskih dvobojev, ki jih je igral po Evropi in Ameriki skoraj 84 let, in premagal izzivalca, med drugim Napoleona Bonaparta in Benjamina Franklina.