The dedicated chess computer thread

[mclane]

I would not say the sparc was failure.
Problem was that the spracklen did IMO not really made much progress anymore.

If you see Mach III that was a progress over the 8 bit machines,
But Mach IV was only faster hardware and there was IMO not much
"Genius" anymore in the new portation, of course sainted chef could have bought hiarcs for the sparc module, mark was ready and he even won in Munich 1993 on a sparc machine PC.
But winkler did not want to pay enough when he did the negotiations with mark uniacke. So we will never find out how strong hiarcs on sparc could have been in 1993. IMO it could have been a milestone that could have rescued saitek.

[fern]

As I said in Hiarcs site, I think the Spracklen never went beyond Par Excellence, but just improved it a bit here and there AND got lot better hardware. From that improvements came Mach series and his last Sparc try.
If you play any mach you will not detect a really new program, but a good Par Excellence going a bit further.
As I have said many times, any chess programmer -and in fact any creator of anything - has ONE try which he creates very early and the rest of his life is improvement of it.
The curve ism like this:
a) First beginnings, an idea in his childhood but promising
b) full development
c) improvements along a long period
d) reduction, deterioration, bad copies, retirement.

sad regards
Fern

[fern]

I will try to convince a pigeon to play a game with me.

Fern

[mclane]

Ah , I did not read your posting in hiarcs forum Fernando,

I want to give an example of a very ugly game of the Mach IV


[pgn]Event "40/120"]
[Site "scw"]
[Date "16.08.2014"]
[Round "10"]
[White "Fidelity Designer 2325"]
[Black "Saitek Turbo Advanced Trainer 32mhz"]
[Result "0-1"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bc4 Nxe4 4. Nc3 Nxc3 5. dxc3 f6 6. O-O Nc6 7. Qd5 Qe7 8.
Bf4 g5 9. Be3 b6 10. Rad1 Bb7 11. Qe4 Na5 12. Bd5 c6 13. Bb3 d5 14. Qg4 Qf7 15.
Ba4 h5 16. Qg3 h4 17. Qh3 g4 18. Qxg4 Bc8 19. Nxe5 fxe5 20. Qe2 Rg8 21. b4 Qg6
22. g3
0-1[/pgn]

[mclane]

That shows why making the machine faster is not really helping.
As it seems to me the Mach III 16 bit program was less knowledge than the
Excellence program, when it comes to pins, pawn structures etc.
The disaster began with the par excellence, while the excellence program was capable to play with decent pawn knowledge, the par ex suddenly played one double pawn and isolated pawn after the other,
IMO the spracklen threw knowledge out of the program that was first in, to make it compute deeper.

[Henk]

I will try to convince a pigeon to play a game with me.

Fern

:lol:

[CRoberson]

My favorite thing about the dedicated Chess machines is that they are static. They always play at the same level even decades later. I bought the Excellence in 1988 or 1989. I couldn't beat it at its default level back then or even some years later. In late 2012, I started some serious self study on tactics. I thought I had improved and decided to challenge the Excellence to a game. Of course, it graciously accepted the challenge at its default level.

[pgn]
[Event "Test Game"]
[Site "Home"]
[Date "2012.12.22"]
[White "Charles Roberson"]
[Black "Fidelity Excellence 4 MHz"]
[Result "1-0"]

1.d4 d5 2.Bf4 Nf6 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.h3 Nh5 5.Bh2 e6 6.e3 Be7 7.Bd3 O-O 8.Nbd2 Nb4 9.Be2 Bd7 10.c3 Nc6 11.Bd3 f5 12.g4 Nf6 13.Qe2 Qc8 14.O-O-O fxg4 15.hxg4 Nxg4 16.Bxh7+ Kxh7 17.Bf4+ Kg8 18.Ng5 Bxg5 19.Qxg4 Bxf4 20.Rdg1 Rf7 21.exf4 Qf8 22.Qh5 Rxf4 23.Qh7+ Kf7 24.Qh5+ Ke7 25.Qg5+ Ke8 26.Rh2 Ne7 27.Rgh1 Rf5 28.Qg3 Rc8 29.Rh8 Ng8 30.R1h7 Rf7 31.Qh4 c5 32.Rxg8 Qxg8 33.Rh8 Qxh8 34.Qxh8+ Ke7 35.Qh4+ Rf6 36.Nb3 cxd4 37.Nxd4 e5 38.Nf3 Ke6 39.Ng5+ Kf5 40.f3 Rc4 41.Qg3 Rc7 42.Nh7 Rg6 43.Qh3+ Kf4 44.Qh2+ Kxf3 45.Nf8 Rg3 46.Qh1+ Rg2 47.Nxd7 e4 48.Ne5+ Kf2 49.Qh4+ Ke3 50.Qh3+ Kf2 51.Ng4+ Rxg4 52.Qxg4 Rf7 53.Qh5 Rf4 54.Qxd5 b6 55.Qd4+ Kf3 56.Qxg7 e3 57.Kd1 Kf2 58.Qe5 Kf3 59.Qh5+ Kg3 60.Ke2 Rf2+ 61.Kxe3 Rxb2 62.Qg5+ Kh2 63.Kf3 Rxa2 64.Qh5+ Kg1 65.Qg6+ Kh2 66.Qh7+ Kg1 67.Qg8+ Kh2 68.Qxa2+ Kh3 69.Qg2+ Kh4 70.Qg4# 1-0
[/pgn]

An enjoyable game especially considering it was my first win against it in roughly 24 years.

[Ralph Stoesser]

Those were the golden years, like it was a magic device that you could play against. I owned three of them in my lifetime. The Chess Challenger 3,NOVAG Constellation 3.6MHz, & the Mach III. The Mach III was particularly strong.

Is the magic gone if you run Stockfish on your computer. And if so why do you think ? Maybe because everybody has a home computer ?

In the golden years I couldn't afford those big chess computers. Today I sometimes enjoy to play a game against latest Stockfish on the Revelation II device via bluetooth connection to a fast i7 computer. Of course I never can win but I like the combination of a modern chess engine in a retro style chess computer. Feels like Mephisto Superman...

[mclane]

Lets get back to that topic. It’s interesting.