Chess Computer Vintage (Hardware and Software)

Rebel · Post by **Rebel** » Mon Sep 13, 2021 4:34 pm

One of my first, the Chess Challenger 10 with voice! Price $999. I was addicted instantly.

AlexChess · Post by **AlexChess** » Mon Sep 13, 2021 4:36 pm

Amstaff wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 12:57 pm I have a Novag Diamond that is in perfect shape and plays very strong at longer time controls. Bought it new in 1994 or so, also I have a Mephisto Atlanta, that is very lightly used, both excellent machines.

Novag and Fidelity were my very respected commercial competitors. Then Saitek-Kasparov bought Mephisto + Fidelity (this last one sold in 1989 to H&G Mephisto), and Renaissance had finally the Sparc Risc module from consorts Spraklen (authors of the mythical Sargon Chess!!!) ...but with Windows 95 the dedicated chess computer decline was near...

AlexChess · Post by **AlexChess** » Mon Sep 13, 2021 4:46 pm

Rebel wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 4:34 pm One of my first, the Chess Challenger 10 with voice! Price $999. I was addicted instantly.

Fantastic computer 10: a step in the future but expensive for me ...I was really dreaming Fidelity Sensory Chess 7 but I was too young to buy it

...If you are Ed Schroeder you are a GIANT in this field

Thank you for what you have done and you are still doing for the chess community!

Rebel · Post by **Rebel** » Mon Sep 13, 2021 5:48 pm

AlexChess wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 4:36 pm
Amstaff wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 12:57 pm I have a Novag Diamond that is in perfect shape and plays very strong at longer time controls. Bought it new in 1994 or so, also I have a Mephisto Atlanta, that is very lightly used, both excellent machines.
Novag and Fidelity were my very respected commercial competitors. Then Saitek-Kasparov bought Mephisto + Fidelity (this last one sold in 1989 to H&G Mephisto), and Renaissance had finally the Sparc Risc module from consorts Spraklen (authors of the mythical Sargon Chess!!!) ...but with Windows 95 the dedicated chess computer decline was near...

More precisely it was the 80486 that killed the dedicated chess computer industry.

AlexChess · Post by **AlexChess** » Mon Sep 13, 2021 6:53 pm

Rebel wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 5:48 pm
AlexChess wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 4:36 pm
Amstaff wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 12:57 pm I have a Novag Diamond that is in perfect shape and plays very strong at longer time controls. Bought it new in 1994 or so, also I have a Mephisto Atlanta, that is very lightly used, both excellent machines.
Novag and Fidelity were my very respected commercial competitors. Then Saitek-Kasparov bought Mephisto + Fidelity (this last one sold in 1989 to H&G Mephisto), and Renaissance had finally the Sparc Risc module from consorts Spraklen (authors of the mythical Sargon Chess!!!) ...but with Windows 95 the dedicated chess computer decline was near...
More precisely it was the 80486 that killed the dedicated chess computer industry.

Right, but opened new wonderful horizons to the chess community with the much strongers Rebel, Genius, Hiarcs, Fritz, Tiger, Junior, Shredder, Mchess ...up to Stockfish 14

mclane · Post by **mclane** » Mon Sep 13, 2021 8:36 pm

Rebel wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 5:48 pm
AlexChess wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 4:36 pm
Amstaff wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 12:57 pm I have a Novag Diamond that is in perfect shape and plays very strong at longer time controls. Bought it new in 1994 or so, also I have a Mephisto Atlanta, that is very lightly used, both excellent machines.
Novag and Fidelity were my very respected commercial competitors. Then Saitek-Kasparov bought Mephisto + Fidelity (this last one sold in 1989 to H&G Mephisto), and Renaissance had finally the Sparc Risc module from consorts Spraklen (authors of the mythical Sargon Chess!!!) ...but with Windows 95 the dedicated chess computer decline was near...
More precisely it was the 80486 that killed the dedicated chess computer industry.

All true but they came back.

Novag, fidelity, Excalibur, cxg, conchess, hg, saitek, … they all died. But others replaced them today.

MIllennium
DGT
Pewatronic
…

mclane · Post by **mclane** » Mon Sep 13, 2021 8:37 pm

AlexChess wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 4:36 pm
Amstaff wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 12:57 pm I have a Novag Diamond that is in perfect shape and plays very strong at longer time controls. Bought it new in 1994 or so, also I have a Mephisto Atlanta, that is very lightly used, both excellent machines.
Novag and Fidelity were my very respected commercial competitors. Then Saitek-Kasparov bought Mephisto + Fidelity (this last one sold in 1989 to H&G Mephisto), and Renaissance had finally the Sparc Risc module from consorts Spraklen (authors of the mythical Sargon Chess!!!) ...but with Windows 95 the dedicated chess computer decline was near...

If mr.k winkler would not have been so stingy we would have had hiarcs munich into the sparc…
Mark Uniacke won the amateur title in munich with a sparc station.
It would have been easy to bring this engine into saiteks sparc module.
And it would have been stronger then spracklen engine.

AlexChess · Post by **AlexChess** » Mon Sep 13, 2021 9:10 pm

mclane wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 8:37 pm
AlexChess wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 4:36 pm
Amstaff wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 12:57 pm I have a Novag Diamond that is in perfect shape and plays very strong at longer time controls. Bought it new in 1994 or so, also I have a Mephisto Atlanta, that is very lightly used, both excellent machines.
Novag and Fidelity were my very respected commercial competitors. Then Saitek-Kasparov bought Mephisto + Fidelity (this last one sold in 1989 to H&G Mephisto), and Renaissance had finally the Sparc Risc module from consorts Spraklen (authors of the mythical Sargon Chess!!!) ...but with Windows 95 the dedicated chess computer decline was near...
If mr.k winkler would not have been so stingy we would have had hiarcs munich into the sparc…
Mark Uniacke won the amateur title in munich with a sparc station.
It would have been easy to bring this engine into saiteks sparc module.
And it would have been stronger then spracklen engine.

Interesting! I have met mr. Erik Winkler when I was working for the Italian Saitek-Kasparov-Mephisto-Tasc importer. He liked very much the Italian names for his computers: Virtuoso, Simultano, Leonardo and ...Capella (that in Italian with 2 p means "blunder"

) We talked about the need of a 16 bit stronger CPU because Julio kaplan's engines (Maestro, Analyst) were good, but not enough supported by hardware. while Fidelity and Mephisto were already switched to Motorola 68000, 68020 and 68030. For sponsored tournaments we were using a handcrafted 8 bit turbo module with external cooled CPU to improve speed from 8 to 16 mhz, before the arrival of Risc 2500

Kasparov Capella was very nice (partially on wood, but without a display) and was running a Franz Morsch 16k engine with 2000 opening books moves

mclane · Post by **mclane** » Mon Sep 13, 2021 9:20 pm

Ok, some insider stuff.
Sparc module in munich had bugs and was oc and heated up.
System crashed.
Also always fianchetto of KNIGHTS in main line.
Horrible.

B1a3 - a3c4 - c4b2

Operator of sparc module was upset.

It was mr. Guenther Niggemann.
I was operating mchess.
At that time chess niggemann developed the opening book of sparc module.
Reason was the normal opening book that came with the module was weak.
So niggemann put one of his employees, a strong IM (Markus Schaefer) to program the tournament book for the sparc.
P.P.S. Markus schaefer was a polite and correct accurate guy. But on the chess board he changed into a monster and played like Tal.

But, i had prepared championchip with hiarcs. Tested hiarcs against any opponent i had at home and it won against any beside the king on chess machine.
So i was very confident that mark would win a title in munih. And so he did.

See pictures in
http://thorstenczub.de/hiarcs.html

My friend IM Bernd Kohlweyer commented the games. His playing style is a little like petrosian.

Marks father was in munich too.
He was very proud that his son won a title.

AlexChess · Post by **AlexChess** » Mon Sep 13, 2021 9:26 pm

mclane wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 9:20 pm Ok, some insider stuff.
Sparc module in munich had bugs and was oc and heated up.
System crashed.
Also always fianchetto of KNIGHTS in main line.
Horrible.

B1a3 - a3c4 - c4b2

Operator of sparc module was upset.

It was mr. Guenther Niggemann.
I was operating mchess.
At that time chess niggemann developed the opening book of sparc module.
Reason was the normal opening book that came with the module was weak.
So niggemann put one of his employees, a strong IM (Markus Schaefer) to program the tournament book for the sparc.

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com ... f=1&nofb=1

But, i had prepared championchip with hiarcs. Tested hiarcs against any opponent i had at home and it won against any beside the king on chess machine.
So i was very confident that mark would win a title in munih. And so he did.

See pictures in
http://thorstenczub.de/hiarcs.html

Marks father was in munich too.
He was very proud that his son won a title.

So maybe you know our friend Sandro Necchi (author of MChess Pro book openings

) I also have operated Tasc R30 against it in a tournament

I operated turbo module against Garry Kasparov, Judit and Susan Polgar and Anatoly Karpov in different tournaments (easy wins, it was about 2000-2100 Elo)

Chess Computer Vintage (Hardware and Software)

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