”MAELZEL’S CHESS-PLAYER
PERHAPS no exhibition of the kind has ever elicited so general attention as the Chess-Player of Maelzel. Wherever seen it has been an object of intense curiosity, to all persons who think. Yet the question of its modus operandi is still undetermined.”
…..
Poe redogör för tidigare kända komplicerade automater men finner att den främsta är Babbage’s räkneautomat

”But if these machines were ingenious, what shall we think of the calculating machine of Mr. Babbage? What shall we think of an engine of wood and metal which can not only compute astronomical and navigation tables to any given extent, but render the exactitude of its operations mathematically certain through its power of correcting its possible errors?”
…..
”Arithmetical or algebraical calculations are, from their very nature, fixed and determinate. Certain data being given, certain results necessarily and inevitably follow. These results have dependence upon nothing, and are influenced by nothing but the data originally given.”
….
Eftersom Babbage’s automat är deterministisk och schack inte kan vara deterministiskt

”But the case is widely different with the Chess-Player. With him there is no determinate progression. No one move in chess necessarily follows upon any one other.”
,,,
”It is quite certain that the operations of the Automaton are regulated by mind, and by nothing else. Indeed this matter is susceptible of a mathematical demonstration, a priori. ”

Den maskin Poe kände till var nog Difference Engine och det var ingen dator. Men intressant hur nära i tiden designen för Analytical Engine låg. Den enda automat som skulle ha kunna spela schack. Man kan undra om Poe någonsin fick kännedom om denna maskin.
Poe’s samlade verk finns på nätet.