Boris

[james uselton]

I was surfing the net recently and came across the Boris chess computer (1977). The price in 1977 was $300.00. The elo was 1100!
The average teachers salary in 1977 was $277.00 a week.

My dilemma is this: If you paid $300.00 for a chess computer in 1977---you must have been a pretty serious chess player. The elo of Boris was 1100 elo. Why would anyone buy a Boris. Surely, they would be beating this computer in their sleep. Can you imagine how this thing played endgames. And yet, this thing must have sold and sold pretty good for the very next year Fidelity chess challenger came out.

Were players so desparate for chess computer they would buy anything at whatever price at whatever elo?

[tjfroh]

James,

I bought the deluxe talking Boris in the walnut case with nicad batteries in 1979. It was about $450.00. We did it for egotistical reasons.

Today yuppies buy expensive cellphone/computers for the same reason.

Tj

I was surfing the net recently and came across the Boris chess computer (1977). The price in 1977 was $300.00. The elo was 1100!
The average teachers salary in 1977 was $277.00 a week.

My dilemma is this: If you paid $300.00 for a chess computer in 1977---you must have been a pretty serious chess player. The elo of Boris was 1100 elo. Why would anyone buy a Boris. Surely, they would be beating this computer in their sleep. Can you imagine how this thing played endgames. And yet, this thing must have sold and sold pretty good for the very next year Fidelity chess challenger came out.

Were players so desparate for chess computer they would buy anything at whatever price at whatever elo?

[Steve B]

i also bought the first Boris and the first Fidelity Chess computers and i have been buying them ever since..for over 30 years
yes they played weakly but back than it was amazing that you could buy a machine and take it home and it could actually play a game of chess(no matter how poorly)
it was the tremendous commercial success of these early chess computers that inspired other programmers to enter the commercial chess computer field which utility has led to engines rated 3000+ running on your home PC today
more on the Boris:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10261668@N ... 923816639/

Spanning the Ages Regards
Steve

[sje]

I purchased one of these for US$300 back in late 1978. It was my first dedicated unit and I recall it quite well. To me the price was justified as in return I received many hours of fun doing experimentation.

The standout characteristic of the first Boris was that it had an eight character LED display that could show an entire rank at a time and this made position verification much easier than seeing only one square or piece at a time.

While the program was quite weak, it was also fairly solid and could be trusted to run all night on a position without hanging.

Years later I extracted a final value from that Boris by trading it to a friend for assistance with moving.

[Pressie]

I recall when I first got mine, taking it down to the club and watching this machine nearly draw a 1850 rated player. Maybe I'm wrong but when it first came out I think they were advertising it as playing 1500-1600. At the time I was no more than a C class and it took some time for me to get used to playing “The Machine.” But as stated its endgame was atrocious. I later upgraded with the Morphy cartrige and finally the Steinitz . Like Steve, I then graduated to Fidelity and have continued in computer chess in some form ever since.

By the way, I still have it somewhere, but it long ago played its last move.

[sje]

I'd say that the unit I had (the very first Boris):



had a strength around about 1100 elo (1400 tactical, 800 positional).

Compared with some alternative cheaply built plastic chess computers, the wood-and-metal Boris was sturdily constructed. The box had an internal power supply and tended to run a bit warm.

The machine ran with an eight bit Fairchild microprocessor that had split instruction and data address spaces. It was called the F-8 and I don't think any other chess computer used it.

Perhaps the biggest annoyance with the original Boris was the lack of an opening book.

Gosh, it's hard to believe all of this was thirty years ago.

Later models had a memory for saving the game, and eventually battery powered versions with peg sets came on the market. These were probably rather stronger than the original.

[sje]

I later upgraded with the Morphy cartrige and finally the Steinitz .

Aren't you writing about the later offering known as the Great Game Machine? That's the one that had an upgrade capability.

[Steve B]

I'd say that the unit I had (the very first Boris):

Later models had a memory for saving the game, and eventually battery powered versions with peg sets came on the market. These were probably rather stronger than the original.

actually Steve the later Wooden Boris..the" Boris Master" was rated the same and the only real difference between it and the original Boris were the two features you mentioned:


there were plans for a Boris Grandmaster which would have had a stronger program plus the Memory features but it never made it to market

two other Wooden Boris's were produced but only as prototypes
one made of Lucite and the other ..10 ft tall:

the Lucite Boris is still in working existence today and owned by the founders of the Chafitz Company(shown in the second photo)

Boris Bedazzled Regards
Steve
PS..Selective Search shows a rating of 1060 for the wooden Boris

[sje]

Another feature of the original Boris was its ability to issue random insults on its horizontally scrolling eight character display. I did something like this for my first chess program, although my message texts were more, uh, "expressive" than what one would see in a program sold to the public.

[Pressie]

I later upgraded with the Morphy cartrige and finally the Steinitz .

Aren't you writing about the later offering known as the Great Game Machine? That's the one that had an upgrade capability.

Your absolutely right Steve. I went digging in the closet and found it.

It started out with the Boris 2.5 module and ended up with Stenitz. I also have an endgame module named Capablanca Edition master chess endgame. And finally Borchek Edition master checkers. I don't see the Morphy module, not sure what happened to it.

Does anyone remember the playing strength of Boris 2.5? I believe it was much stronger than the original Boris (maybe 1550?). As I think back now, I do believe it did draw that first game with the 1850 player. When it first came out Steinitz was touted as being near 1800, but I don't think that it played near that strong.

It was pretty cool playing those early machines.