Before the days of punch cards

Seoul Hero's Nathan Bauman has posted an interesting piece about the first analog chess "computer," which was invented around the turn of the century by the Spanish inventor Torres y Quevedo.

According to Nathan:

The post contains all the pictographic evidence I can find on the internet for the first two chess computers, including a new color photograph showing the workings of the first machine in more detail than was the case with the only other photograph of this machine. I think it's kind of sad how unknown this machine is, considering how far ahead of its day it was when it was invented.