Mephisto (automaton)

Mephisto was a 19th-century pseudo-automaton chess player built in London by the Alsatian artificial limb maker Charles Godfrey Gumpel (c. 1835–1921). It took some 6 or 7 years to build and was first shown in 1878 at Gumpel's home in Leicester Square, London.

Unlike earlier so-called "chess automatons" such as The Mechanical Turk and Ajeeb, which concealed a human player inside the cabinet, Mephisto was operated remotely by a chess master located in a different room and connected via a system of mechanical and electrical transmissions, leading later commentators to describe it as a “pseudo-automaton”. It is most closely associated with the Hungarian-British master Isidor Gunsberg, who served as its principal operator during public exhibitions and on tour.

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