Since mephisto Phoenix uses a Rasberry Pi and UCI format for engines there is plenty of possibilities.
E.g. it seems it will be the first dedicated chess computer coming with 5 pieces endgame tablebases in the next update. Many engines can qualify for the machine.
40 years after i bought my first dedicated chess computer, another Mephisto comes on the market and will be a succes IMO.
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Alex-Microsmeta
Posts : 4 Join date : 2022-12-01
Subject: Re: Mephisto Phoenix chess computer Sat Dec 10, 2022 6:05 pm
Mclane wrote:
In 14 days a new dedicated chess computer by Mephisto comes on the market . Its called Mephisto Phoenix.
Mephisto is the company that began in 1980 with mephisto 1.
I remember how i bought the first dedicated chess computer from Mephisto. I was very young and had not much money but i bought the mephisto machine.
1982 Mephisto 2 came on the market. 1983 Mephisto 3 came on the market.
And these Nitsche/Henne machines were really a breakthrough.
My first dedicaded computer in the same year was the weak Fidelity Mini Sensory Chess. But the last was the rock solid Mephisto Roma 68000 bought after that my boss organized the WMCC 87 under the Vittoriano at Venice Square (Piazza Venezia) in Rome :-)
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Mclane
Posts : 2976 Join date : 2020-11-17 Age : 57 Location : United States of Europe, Germany, Ruhr area
Subject: Re: Mephisto Phoenix chess computer Sat Dec 10, 2022 6:49 pm
Yes the roma had a lot of knowledge about pawns etc. Dallas was a very good blitz engine. But roma was Slow. Richard put much knowledge into the thing, iam sure ossi weiner adviced to do so.
TheSelfImprover
Posts : 3028 Join date : 2020-11-18
Subject: Re: Mephisto Phoenix chess computer Sun Dec 11, 2022 10:42 am
Alex-Microsmeta wrote:
My first dedicated computer in the same year was the weak Fidelity Mini Sensory Chess.
Snap!
It wasn't weak by my standards, and from playing it I learned a valuable skill - to push pawns!
I didn't know until decades later that it ran a Ron Nelson program (link) - I had always assumed it was the Spracklens.
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Mclane
Posts : 2976 Join date : 2020-11-17 Age : 57 Location : United States of Europe, Germany, Ruhr area
It is a very nice set Thorsten. I think I love the big chessboard the most of it but that is just me, the computer is very nice too. Mephisto Glasgow can run at 65 times the original speed they say what Elo would that be
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Mclane
Posts : 2976 Join date : 2020-11-17 Age : 57 Location : United States of Europe, Germany, Ruhr area
On the bottom my old mephisto II from 1982. On top you see Mephisto Phoenix from 2022. 40 years of development between these two dedicated chess computers. The new machine has no real buttons but the big touch display can generate all kinds of „buttons“.
Mephisto II had a cool and for the time big LCD display.
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Mclane
Posts : 2976 Join date : 2020-11-17 Age : 57 Location : United States of Europe, Germany, Ruhr area
here a game of Mephisto III S Glasgow on the new Mephisto Phoenix dedicated chess computer. Glasgow runs as Emulation in full speed.
You also get many Ed Schroeder emulation engines such as Gideon, MM4/5/Nigel Short and Polgar.
Also native UCI engines such as the new shredder 13.5 with neural net and Hiarcs14.2, Komodo and Stockfish.
One good feature is that you can reduce the engines speed. E.g. run Hiarcs14.2 with only 1% speed. Or give precise ELO numbers to limit its playing strength. E.g. giving Hiarcs14.2 2100 ELO. and it will NOT compute immediality without thinking, that would spoil the complete fun. no it computes like a normal human beeing.
But here Thomas Nitsche and Elmar Hennes Mephisto IIIS Glasgow Phoenix against my Fidelity Elite A/S with v6 hardware (68020) and the spracklen engine:
Posts : 2976 Join date : 2020-11-17 Age : 57 Location : United States of Europe, Germany, Ruhr area
Subject: Re: Mephisto Phoenix chess computer Sun Mar 12, 2023 4:35 pm
So this machine offers really big screens for computerchess. An exclusive shredder 13. NNUE version, the first time Hiarcs is included in a dedicated chess computer, and also Komodo in a dedicated chess computer.
I still think computerchess history would have changed if eric winkler would have decided to buy hiarcs from mark Uniacke. At the championship in munich hiarcs got the title amateur champion with his sun sparc version. And the saitek sparc was running a Spracklen engine, the successor of the 68000 Fidelity software, transferred to the sparc cpu. IMO hiarcs on the same module would have scored better , they only had to buy a license and exchange the eproms.
Saitek would have had a stronger engine with a championship title in 1993.
Mclane
Posts : 2976 Join date : 2020-11-17 Age : 57 Location : United States of Europe, Germany, Ruhr area
Mephisto Phoenix dedicated chess computer emulation Sphinx40 (Levy/Taylor) max speed vs. GM Petrosian Amsterdam engine with 25 mhz. This means Richard running like 2x faster instead of 12 mhz with wait states speed up to 25 mhz without wait states = at least 2x faster or 68020 instead of 68000.
Mephisto Phoenix emulator by Millennium Company speeds up the original emulation of the 68000/8 mhz Sphinx 40 engine by Levy / Taylor by a huge factor.
Here a game between GM Petrosian 25 mhz running Amsterdam engine versus CXG Sphinx 40 Phoenix with max speed: And this is the game. Amsterdam engine by Richard Lang was running on 25 mhz. That is as fast as running on 68020.
The sphinx by Levy/taylor is running in an emulation on the mephisto phoenix hardware while richard Langs 1985 Amsterdam runs on 25 mhz 68000 hardware , that is at least 2x the speed of the original amsterdam module, that was running with waitstates, while gm Petrosian is not having waitstates. So amsterdam from 1985 runs overall with 8 mhz while petrosian runs with sharp 25 mhz.
In the "Mephisto Phoenix" the emulator of the dedicated chess computers is the major clue for us dedicated chess computer lovers.
At the championship in Rome the Levy / Taylor machine had to play Richard Langs beasts and was completely blown away by Richard Langs machine and software. Levy / Taylor lost 0:9 !!!
When later CXG came out with the wooden Sphinx40/50 computers (either as a 40 or 50 mm per square edition, similar to Mephistos Exclusive and Munich boards) that had 8 mhz Motorola 68000 hardware (Richard Langs commercial versions were normally sold with 12 mhz 68000 or even 68020 CPU with 14 mhz), the software could not make much out of it. The program was too slow for playing accurate enough.
even worse later Frans Morsch 8 Bit machines (CXG Dominator) also sold by CXG were stronger then this 68000 Hardware.
But today we can speed up the hardware.
And suddenly this way too slow engine can show its strength.
In the first 2 games the overclocked machine had to fight the Novag Beluga:
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