The Turk: an 18th-century chess automaton
The Turk was presented in 1770 as a chess-playing apparatus created to astonish audiences at the Habsburg court. Its inventor, Wolfgang von Kempelen, displayed the device to impress Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. For decades the spectacle drew crowds because it seemed to be a self-moving player capable of making legal chess moves.
The device was advertised as able to contest human opponents and to complete puzzles such as the knight's tour, in which a knight visits every square of the board exactly once. Exhibitions continued into the 19th century and the automaton remained publicly active until it was destroyed by fire in 1854.
How it actually worked
Investigators eventually determined that the Turk was not an autonomous thinking machine but a staged trick—a mechanical illusion and, by modern standards, a hoax. A concealed human operator sat inside the cabinet and manipulated the chess pieces via hidden controls. With strong players concealed within, the machine achieved a high win rate against many challengers.
Famous figures who faced the Turk included Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. Several professional chess players served as the hidden operators over the years: Johann Allgaier, Hyacinthe Henri Boncourt, Aaron Alexandre, William Lewis, and Jacques Mouret, among others such as William Schlumberger.
Although the Turk was an elaborate deception rather than an early computer, its fame influenced later discussions about machines, intelligence, and performance in public demonstrations.