18 Activation Key Top: Fritz

The first chess engine, ELAJ, was developed in the 1950s by computer scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). However, it was not until the 1970s and 1980s that chess engines started to gain popularity. One of the earliest commercial chess engines was Chess 4.6, developed in 1977 by Northwestern University. This engine was capable of defeating human chess players, including a computer chess world champion.