That second "unit" is simply NFG. I can't count the number of blitz games I used to play against GM players. We both played with a real clock, 5 minutes per side, my "overhead" time just penalized Cray Blitz, which might have lost 1 game out of every 25 due to time.Steve B wrote:Fidelity wrestled with the problem of not showing any led's on the board because it was distracting to some ownersbob wrote:I am not a DGT fan. The RFID pieces are nice, and solve quite a few problems that I (and others) had as we built our own electronic boards in the 70's and 80's. But it has one glaring omission. You can't see, on the board, the move the computer wants to make. I have one in my office, and while it is a nice test/debugging tool, I hate playing on it because I have to move the physical piece to move, but I have to look at the screen to see what Crafty played in response. Some have seen the electronic chess board I build around 1978, where I had incandescent bulbs hidden under the corner of each square, so that when the computer wanted to move a rook from h1 to h7, it looked like an airport landing system where the lights flash in sequence down the file, making it clear that a move had been made and what you needed to do to complete the process by physically moving the rook.Steve B wrote:Hi Fermin
it seems the future is bleak regarding dedicated chess computers(boards) from the old time established companies
Novag ,Saitek/Mephisto have all baiscally left the business and are no longer selling anything new
there is one company..Phoenix technologies that does remain active selling dedicated chess boards and modules incorporating modern day PC engines and emulations of older programs
recent releases were Shredder 12 and Hiarcs 13.3 for their Revelation board and modules
Rev-Shredder has been rated 2725 by the SSDF
early testing seems to indicate that Rev H13.3 will be rated close to 2800 elo ..
in addition this company will soon be releasing an electronic board in conjunction with DGT which will have engines hardwired into the board and also piece recognition technology
you can read more here:
http://www.phoenixcs.nl/index.php
Best Regards
Steve
Don't know why the DGT board omitted that, other than the fact that it was really designed to capture games as they are played between two humans, rather than being an I/O peripheral for a chess engine.
I do agree with HG that the best solution is a web-cam. But it certainly is not the "easiest" solution. One might encode pieces with a non-visible bar code, and use an overhead device to watch the board to detect moves, but then there is the problem of making moves for the computer. The old "phantom" idea was the slickest, the novag robot was OK. Both are Rube Goldbergish in complexity and reliability.
they came up with a auto-sensory playing board that had no led's
the Moves were shown in a separate Unit(attached by cable to the board) which also contained the Program
it was called the Elite Private Line
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10261668@N ... 0922170604
the separate unit had an LCD display screen in the lower front and a small depiction of the chess board on top for move indication:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10261668@N ... 922170604/
One thing nice about this new DGT board is that it will also have piece recognition which to date only a few very expensive dedicated computers had
makes setting up problems a snap
although i dont set up many problems
just something nice to have
its like having a balcony in a NYC apt..
everyone wants one but hardly anyone ever actually uses it
Indoors Regards
Steve
It is not very efficient to have to look away from the board, see something cryptic like g7d4, and then look at the board and recognize that it is (in our parlance) Bxd4 and make that move. If the lights flash, there is no mental algebraic decoding, then looking at the board to see what it really means. And such moves can sometimes be amazingly difficult to interpret when time is short.
You can have the external displays and stuff. I want _instant_ indicators.
My chessboard was really the best I ever saw. Playing surface was a USCF roll-ez vinyl tournament board. In the upper right-hand corner of each square, I used a high-speed router to precisely cut a 1/4" diameter hole. I then glued this to a piece of translucent plexiglass that was the same color as the cream-colored light squares. On those squares you could not easily see the small holes at all. On the green (dark squares) you saw that tiny circle, but it had no depth since the depth was just the thickness of the vinyl board (glued to that rigid plexiglass remember...)
That entire thing, which was barely thicker than the standard roll-ez board was then mounted on a sheet of 1/2" plywood. Inside there, I had room to mount the magnetic reed switches, and the circuit board used to read 8 squares at a time and interpret those "changes" as a chess move. And underneath those small holes, I mounted a small incandescent light bulb, each controlled by its own darlington pair power transistor. I could turn on any of them, or make them "chase" like an airport runway landing system, etc. My eyes never had to leave the board. Just move and hit the clock. I could keep my eyes on the screen to see what it was thinking about but I didn't need to interpret unless I wanted to because the flashing lights clearly showed me where to move.
That let me use a real chess clock to play 5 minute chess, without the odd rules others used (5 mins of CPU time, or the computer loses at move 60 if it hasn't mated or announced mate, etc.
And it worked flawlessly.
