Novag Citrine thoughts

[sje]

I retrieved my very old Novag Emerald earlier today and had it play against Symbolic. The Novag played White and opened with a Queen's Gambit. The machine was only a pawn down after twenty moves, but when Symbolic moved its king rook to c8 the Emerald was discovered to not be able to register any moves from or to the h file.

Two hours of work couldn't fix the problem, a bad line from the sensory file ribbon connector. RIP, Emerald.

----

I've decided to buy a Citrine. Furthermore, I'm going to purchase it from Our Sponsor as a measure of my support. The Citrine will be a good sparring partner for the emergent CIL Toolkit, and I just might connect it to FICS if they'll give me an account for it.

[Steve B]

I retrieved my very old Novag Emerald earlier today

OH so now you also have a Novag Emerald??
the list keeps on getting bigger and bigger
where do you have all of these old computers stored anyway ?
in a warehouse somewhere?
there are too many to just be at the bottom of a closet

Stunned with each passing post regards
Steve

[sje]

Well now I've got my Novag Super VIP and I even found the magic four port connecting box and cabling. But I can't find the six volt adaptor. Sadly, I don't know about getting a functional replacement adaptor because I'm not sure about the tip (inner) polarity needed. The usual convention is that the center tip is positive, but Novag goes the other way with at least some of its adaptors. Does anyone know about this?

[IanO]

Well now I've got my Novag Super VIP and I even found the magic four port connecting box and cabling. But I can't find the six volt adaptor. Sadly, I don't know about getting a functional replacement adaptor because I'm not sure about the tip (inner) polarity needed. The usual convention is that the center tip is positive, but Novag goes the other way with at least some of its adaptors. Does anyone know about this?

The SapphireII takes 9V 300mA center minus. The VIP probably has a similar design. I thought the Distributor was powered via the data cable, at least for just serial adaption. I don't know about the Distributor video generation.

For just serial, you could make your own cable and bypass the Distributor. The pinout is documented.

[bob]

the Chess Cafe is a very reliable dealer and affiliated with the USCF
they also have a great site dealing with chess in general
i have purchased many chess books from them over the years as i collect chess books as well
never bought any chess computers from them though
i cant say if their price is the best you can find.. but i do recommend them for reliability
click on books and equipment:
http://www.chesscafe.com/

The link for the DGT set and board is: http://uscfsales.com/item.asp?cID=0&PID=2704

The price is higher than I thought it was: US$749 + US$59 shipping = US$808 and that's a little steep. Maybe if it came with a robot arm...

I have one and i am not particularly excited about it. You probably remember the electronic board I built back in the late 70's when Dave Cahlander was building one for chess 4.x?? I prefer my 1970's version to the DGT even though the DGT uses RFID to identify the specific piece type. It lacks any sort of "output" mechanism (I used small incandescent lights under the squares on mine) which is a real draw-back for using it to play games. Too bad, really as it is thin (about 1/2") and looks nice... if it just had a decent LED under each square...

[Steve B]

the Chess Cafe is a very reliable dealer and affiliated with the USCF
they also have a great site dealing with chess in general
i have purchased many chess books from them over the years as i collect chess books as well
never bought any chess computers from them though
i cant say if their price is the best you can find.. but i do recommend them for reliability
click on books and equipment:
http://www.chesscafe.com/

The link for the DGT set and board is: http://uscfsales.com/item.asp?cID=0&PID=2704

The price is higher than I thought it was: US$749 + US$59 shipping = US$808 and that's a little steep. Maybe if it came with a robot arm...

I have one and i am not particularly excited about it. You probably remember the electronic board I built back in the late 70's when Dave Cahlander was building one for chess 4.x?? I prefer my 1970's version to the DGT even though the DGT uses RFID to identify the specific piece type. It lacks any sort of "output" mechanism (I used small incandescent lights under the squares on mine) which is a real draw-back for using it to play games. Too bad, really as it is thin (about 1/2") and looks nice... if it just had a decent LED under each square...

actually i don't remember that ..was it used only by you for your competitions or did it hit the market for resale?
i do remember seeing an ad for a DGT type board back the early 1980's
it was called the Chessmate or something similar
was that yours?

Steve

[Tony Thomas]

If you can remember that TV show, you must be as old as I am.

Sadly i think my age is probably the sum total of the ages of three typical CCC members these days
52 Regards
Steve

Give me 26 years and I will catch up with you..

[sje]

The SapphireII takes 9V 300mA center minus. The VIP probably has a similar design. I thought the Distributor was powered via the data cable, at least for just serial adaption. I don't know about the Distributor video generation.

Thank you; it appears you are correct. I'm using the adaptor from the recently deceased Emerald and it appears to work. The only problem is that the piezoelectric buzzer is shot and I doubt that's because of the adaptor.

I need some rs-232 connectors for further work with the distribution box.

[bob]

the Chess Cafe is a very reliable dealer and affiliated with the USCF
they also have a great site dealing with chess in general
i have purchased many chess books from them over the years as i collect chess books as well
never bought any chess computers from them though
i cant say if their price is the best you can find.. but i do recommend them for reliability
click on books and equipment:
http://www.chesscafe.com/

The link for the DGT set and board is: http://uscfsales.com/item.asp?cID=0&PID=2704

The price is higher than I thought it was: US$749 + US$59 shipping = US$808 and that's a little steep. Maybe if it came with a robot arm...

I have one and i am not particularly excited about it. You probably remember the electronic board I built back in the late 70's when Dave Cahlander was building one for chess 4.x?? I prefer my 1970's version to the DGT even though the DGT uses RFID to identify the specific piece type. It lacks any sort of "output" mechanism (I used small incandescent lights under the squares on mine) which is a real draw-back for using it to play games. Too bad, really as it is thin (about 1/2") and looks nice... if it just had a decent LED under each square...

actually i don't remember that ..was it used only by you for your competitions or did it hit the market for resale?
i do remember seeing an ad for a DGT type board back the early 1980's
it was called the Chessmate or something similar
was that yours?

Steve

No. Ken Thompson built the first "piece recognition board" I saw in 1978. He used tuning coils inside the pieces to couple a transmitter (y-direction on the board) with a receiver antenna (x-direction) to sense what pieces were on what squares. I used reed switches so I could not do piece recognition, but I could play speed chess with Cray Blitz and never type a character. That was why I built it in fact, as I did so many speed chess games against IM/GM players at the ACM and WCCC events, I wanted to get rid of the typing to make my "move input/output" job easier.

It was never sold, I have one version only, and it is in my office. Uses a simple parallel port interface to a computer.

[Tord Romstad]

I have one and i am not particularly excited about it. You probably remember the electronic board I built back in the late 70's when Dave Cahlander was building one for chess 4.x?? I prefer my 1970's version to the DGT even though the DGT uses RFID to identify the specific piece type. It lacks any sort of "output" mechanism (I used small incandescent lights under the squares on mine) which is a real draw-back for using it to play games. Too bad, really as it is thin (about 1/2") and looks nice... if it just had a decent LED under each square...

I've seen that DGT also sells a chess clock which can be attached to the board, and which can display the computer's moves in algebraic notation on an LCD display. I don't have a DGT board or clock myself, so I have no idea how well it works in practice.

Tord