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Charles Godfrey Gumpel

5/3/2023

1 Comment

 
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Charles Godfrey Gumpel died On This Day 5th March 1920. leaving an estate of £1,474. He lived at 22 Christchurch Road 

He was the inventor of "Mephisto" the automated chess player.
In Movers and Takers Martin Smith writes "Unleashed in 1878 Mephisto was the creation of the German-born artificial limb maker Charles Gumpel. His Automation could move the pieces by conventional engineering but, unlike earlier efforts, there was no-one hidden inside pulling the strings nor were there any connecting cables. The operator was in an adjacent room directing it by means of an early electromagnetic wireless system"
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Image Mephisto
Exhibited at the International Theatre Exposition Universelle, Paris. 1889

Image of Chess players by Anthony Rosenbaum
NPG 3060
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1 Comment
Richard Stout
9/8/2024 05:05:20 pm

It is naive to believe that Gumpel unveiled a wireless, remote-controlled automaton in 1876 that preceded Marconi invention moving a telegraph key wirelessly by 20 years (1896). And it is beyond naive to believe Gumpel also invented electromagnetic gizmos that allowed a robotic arm to move chess pieces and shake hands (with lady players Mephisto is said to have always allowed to win). What this would mean is Gumpel created what we would call today an animatronic arm by 1876!

Nowhere in Gumpel's 1889 booklet on Mephisto, sold at the 1889 Paris Exhibition (world's fair) reveals anything about how Mephisto worked. (Much of the booklet is taken up with a short story by Gumpel having nothing to do with his supposed chess-playing android).

Perhaps chess-master Isidor Gunsberg made this fantastic wireless claim later. If this is the case, he would be admitting that he took part in a deception to con the curious out of a shilling. Why would anyone then think Gunsberg was above lying about how Mephisto worked?

Anyone with a basic understanding of stage magic would know how Mephisto worked--and it certainly wasn't through anachronistic wireless technology or animatronics!

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    Mark Bery, Secretary Streatham Society

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