IBM unveiled its Deep Blue chess supercomputer prototype 30 years ago today — two years later in its second attempt, it defeated Grandmaster Garry Kasparov

On December 5, 1995, IBM took the wraps off its Deep Blue prototype, a supercomputer designed to beat the world’s greatest chess players. IBM would manage to achieve its goal two years later, after a host of software and hardware revisions. In 1997, Deep Blue famously triumphed over an at-his-peak chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov, during a rematch in New York City. The win was a turning point for IBM, who was increasingly characterized as a has-been, with a dire share price to match. It was also a cornerstone in the company’s approach to computing, pivoting from mere chunks of hardware to ‘thinking systems.’

Interestingly, Deep Blue originated from work on a chess chip, which started a decade earlier at Carnegie Mellon University. That hardware research project was dubbed Deep Thought, which will tickle The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fans.

The first Deep Blue prototype revealed consisted of “an IBM RS/6000 workstation with 14 chess search engines as slave…