An automatic tit-tat-to machine

✍ Scribed by Frank T. Freeland

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1879
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 380 KB
• Volume: 107
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0016-0032
• DOI: 10.1016/s0016-0032(79)90219-9

✦ Synopsis

The problem of designing a machine which would play one of the games of skill, has been attempted many times. Several automata have been constructed which would play the game of chess ; but it was always found upon investigation, that their motions were controlled by a hidden confederate. The infinite number of variations in chess renders the construction of a true chess automaton impossible. Mr. Babbage, the inventor of the difference engine, in his ninth Bridgewater treatise, refers to the possibility of constructing an automaton which would play a much simpler game, that of tit-tat-to. A gentleman of this city has invented and made some drawings of such an automaton, working upon the principle of a -x'UNIvERSITY OF ])I~NNA., ])HILA., z~5)~ember 9lb. 1S7S.

De:tr Sir :--I iland you herewith, description and drawings of the automatic Tit-Tat-To Player, exhibited at your last meeting. The invcnti.n displays so much mechanical genius that it cannot hut prove of interest, and perhaps of service, to all mechanicians.

Respectfully, W.~. D. MAal(s.