Dedicated chess computers and nostalgic chess software

Welcome in my nostalgic thread about old machines.
This thread here is NOT about fast pcs with dozens of cores and hyperthreads, this is about the origins of computerchess.

As you maybe know, I am that old that I had the pleasure to live in those years where it all began.

I thought it could be a good idea to talk about old dedicated chess computers, later ones and old chess software.

I have plenty of machines and topics I am doing in the moment. And maybe some of you are interested too.

In the Moment I am doing an 68000 cpu dedicated and chess software tournament,
And today also a mephisto Monte Carlo IV in the limited Edition with 8 instead of 4 MHz arrived.

In the 68000 CPU tournament there Are spracklen and Kittinger Programs. Also Chris w. On AtariST (2 engines. Chess player 2150 and Chess Champion 2175) and a machine made by David levy for CXG company called Sphinx 68000.
Ed Schroeder participates with a 100 MHz !! Nigel Short dedicated machine with turbo from 5 to 100 and David Broughton is there with his philidor chess for XT PC.
Richard Lang with Vancouver 68000 and Montreal 68000 (aka Roma 16 bit engine).
Mephisto III S Glasgow by Thomas Nitsche and Elmar Henne running on a fast 25 MHz machine instead of the 12 MHz with waitstates.

Colossus chess X Atari ST and Sargon III on AtariST.

It was the Atari ST days when I contacted Chris W. because I bought „chess player 2150“ for Atari and was impressed how good it played related to the low search depth.

I know Chris W. did engines for the Sinclair zx spectrum (superchess) and other z80a machines. But in those 8 Bit days I did not contact him.

I started playing chess at the pretty late age of 15 and sadly, I lived in a mountainous region with no chess clubs, players or tournaments.

But once I got my chess addiction, I used to endlessly visit the library to get chess books, and I also visited antique book shops where I very often found old books by including the 1922 tournament book by Maroczy for, I think $2.

Eventually, I convinced my mother to buy me a small tabletop dedicated computer which was around 1800 strength...

Can't remember the model.

But I do remember every single night playing long time control games against it, transferring moves to my full-size tournament board, and recording my moves on a scoresheet - simulating a real tournament.

I also annotated my games in full in a notebook, which 10 years later I gave to my favorite student.

Really nice memories, AND I went from a weak beginner to about 1800 in my first year playing it and studying library books alone.

Brendan wrote:

I started playing chess at the pretty late age of 15 and sadly, I lived in a mountainous region with no chess clubs, players or tournaments.

But once I got my chess addiction, I used to endlessly visit the library to get chess books, and I also visited antique book shops where I very often found old books by including the 1922 tournament book by Maroczy for, I think $2.

Eventually, I convinced my mother to buy me a small tabletop dedicated computer which was around 1800 strength...

Can't remember the model.

But I do remember every single night playing long time control games against it, transferring moves to my full-size tournament board, and recording my moves on a scoresheet - simulating a real tournament.

I also annotated my games in full in a notebook, which 10 years later I gave to my favorite student.

Really nice memories, AND I went from a weak beginner to about 1800 in my first year playing it and studying library books alone.

I used to spend two week long “holidays” with my German ex-wife at her parents house in tiny village in Germany, just about entirely nothing to do, no cafes, no transport, no nothing, hardly spoke any German, but I acquired (must have been second hand I think) a Fidelity machine and used to play that. Not very fruitful because it was so weak, but I used to work out what it knew and what it didn’t from the moves it played. Using that knowledge as base, worked out what it would be good to know in order to beat it. Late 1970’s, I guess.

These machines, because of technical limitations, had ideal strength for aspiring players.

nescitus wrote:

These machines, because of technical limitations, had ideal strength for aspiring players.

Too late for me, I was pretty strong player by that time

What was the first software/hardware combination that persistently beat you?

TheSelfImprover wrote:

What was the first software/hardware combination that persistently beat you?

If you’re asking me .... not sure I can give you a good answer. I downloaded Stockfish onto my iPhone maybe three years ago(?), and it wipes me out. Playing it (not too seriously, like on a flight or something) with a knight handicap and it will usually win. Even with attempts to exchange down into easy win, it tends to win. Prior to that I don’t think I ever played any engines since pre 2000, never got round to to downloading GUIs and so on. Pre 2000 usually only played my own very occasionally, I seem to remember as long as I paid attention that I’ld usually win, or at least draw.
Chess programming had very bad effect on my chess, one stops thinking about games/positions in correct way.

Nowadays playing against ProDeo I even have trouble winning at depth=1. What Chris said, chess programming is bad for your elo.

Admin wrote:

Nowadays playing against ProDeo I even have trouble winning at depth=1. What Chris said, chess programming is bad for your elo.

Just out of curiosity, Ed - Have you experimented with other methods of weakening ProDeo? If so, what methods?

Very interesting subject for me.

Brendan wrote:

Admin wrote:

Nowadays playing against ProDeo I even have trouble winning at depth=1. What Chris said, chess programming is bad for your elo.

Just out of curiosity, Ed - Have you experimented with other methods of weakening ProDeo? If so, what methods?

Very interesting subject for me.

I had some fun with [Eval = xxx] setting, a value of 100 plays normal, 200 a bit risky, 300 reckless, or the other way around, 50 is passive and with [Eval = 0] you are playing against wood only. Option is currently not active.

Code:

 01: Fidelity Designer Mach IV                    9,0/9  ·· 1     1  1  1  1     1  1  1  1    35,50
02: Mephisto Nigel Short 100 mhz {Brettcomputer} 7,0/9  0  ·· 1  1  0     1  1  1  1     1    25,00
03: Mephisto Montreal 68000 {Brettcomputer}      6,0/9     0  ··       1  00 1  1  1  1  1    16,50
04: Mephisto Vancouver 68000 {Brettcomputer}     5,5/8  0  0     ·· 11 1     =  1     1       23,25
05: Novag Diablo 68000 sel.2                     5,5/10 0  1     00 ·· 1  =  0  1  1  1       22,25
06: Sargon III AtariST {Brettcomputer}           5,0/9  0     0  0  0  ·· 1     1  1  1  1    12,50
07: Philidor B1502 i7 Qemu {Brettcomputer}       4,5/8  0  0  11    =  0  ·· 1        1       20,75
08: CXG Sphinx 40 {Brettcomputer}                3,5/10    0  0  =  1     0  ·· 0  0  0  11    8,25
09: Chess Player 2150 AtariST {Brettcomputer}    3,0/9  0  0  0  0  0  0     1  ·· 1     1     6,00
10: Chess Champion 2175 AtariST {Brettcomputer}  2,5/9  0  0  0     0  0     1  0  ·· =  1     4,75
10: GM Petrosian Glasgow 25 mhz {Brettcomputer}  2,5/9  0     0  0  0  0  0  1     =  ·· 1     4,75
12: Colossus Chess X AtariST                     0,0/9  0  0  0        0     00 0  0  0  ··    0,00

54 Partien von 132 gespielt
Name des Turniers: 68000er
Ort/ Land: ORION8, Germany
Spielstufe: Turnier 40/120 20/60

So far I have played out the following game Results in the 68000 tournament. I wonder what is going on with colossus chess X.
Maybe the X version is not so good like the 2 or 4 version on 6502/z80a ?!

Nigel Short 100 MHz is mainly one of Ed schröders dedicated chess machines 6502 platform.
By exchanging the 5 MHz cpu with a 100 MHz 65F02 card that emulates the 6502 to this amazing speed.
The philidor engine is david broughtons engine made 1982/83 for Parker. It’s called Parker chess, or as David called it b1. To be precise b1502. In those years it run on an xt 8088 with booting from a 160 kb Fdd and having 128 kb ram !!

David had to use overlays like dos1 !!!  Used forever to load commands to handle the low resources .

It’s running in a dos emulator on an i7 pc today.

Because it is b-strategy it plays an individual style.

David broughton won 1981 with his SciSys Mark V in Travemünde the championship title on a (6502 / 2 MHz cpu) commercial dedicated chess computer.
I would say the b1 is his Adaption for the PC world.

After this he ended computerchess career and went to the television company beeing in charge for computer screen effects .

Scisys  had to look for other programmers. The found Julio kaplan.

The designer Mach 4 is a bit unfair in the tournament because it uses the 68020.

I had no Mach III (68000) in reach and thought it would not have such an impact, but as you can see it completely ruins the results.

MEPHISTO Montreal is by Richard Lang, using the Roma version of his engine.

Vancouver should be more modern because it uses hash tables and a later version (1991) while Roma is 1987 and has no hash.

Mark Taylor translated david Broughtons z80a code from his vega engine into the 6502 world for the 1981 championship title.
I guess when David left the computerchess Szene they continued it and participated with it in several attempts.

E.g. in cologne 1986 they used the common motorola 68000 platform for it.
A commercial version of it, made for CXG computers partipated unsuccessfully in Rome versus Richard Lang’s motorola beast.

After the whitewash disaster the CXG Sphinx 40/50 was sold, kind of mephisto Exclusive / Munich board with this selective engine in it.
It’s not very strong but plays interesting positional chess.

40 or 50 is the size of the wooden chess board.
The engine is the same. It’s a modular system but there was never a successor module.

Levy wrote articles about its engine called SEX algorithm in ICCA computer chess magazin.

It must have been this chess player 2150 times when I contacted Chris Whittington at Oxford softworks.
From this day we tried to make the program better and the bugs in the software rare.
Next stations were e.g. complete chess system (kind of chess base program with huge database and position recognition) on pc and chess system tal 1 dos and the later windows 2 version.

Since I was worried a little if colossus X on AtariST is broken or buggy,
I installed the PC version in dosBOX and ran it with 1000 cycles and was astonished to see that
Colossus Chess X on PC played exactly the same like the 68000 version for AtariST.
So IMO we can be sure that at that time colossus X was not really better then the others.
I had this relation different in mind for the 6502/z80a days of white knight/colossus chess 2/4 where I felt the engine was very strong compared to the opponents.
But as it seems this relation must have changed on the later 68000 machines.

IMO the strongest dedicated chess computer with 6502 Ed Schroeder has ever published with mephisto was not the known Milano or polgar or nigel short, these are maybe the latest 6502 products.
But ... the Monte Carlo IV.

I came to this conclusion by letting the dedicated chess computers manually play in a big tournament, where eds machine also participated and convincingly won ahead of his competitors.

MEPHISTO had plastic machines and wooden machines.
There was a plastic machine called supermondial with Frans morsch engine

https://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/index.php?title=Mephisto_Super_Mondial

and later it was updated with Ed Schroeder engine in the same 4 MHz hardware

https://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/index.php?title=Mephisto_Super_Mondial_II

The change of the engine from Frans to Ed made a progress of 57 ELO difference.

The same machine came to the market 1987 as Monte Carlo and 1989 as Monte Carlo IV with eds program, but this time not in plastic like in the supermondials but in wood.

A few days ago I bought for strategical reasons a Monte Carlo IV Limited Edition with 8 MHz instead of the normal 4.

The wooden boards were limited to only 500 units.

https://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/index.php?title=Mephisto_Monte_Carlo_IV_LE

The ELO is known as 2016.
Wow. 78 ELO with a doubling of the speed ?!

Before I begin with my main experiment I want to let the Limited Edition play some games, here they are:

the first opponent was a strong dedicated chess computer from NOVAG.
It has an ELO of 2006. Although it has not much positional knowledge, it has a fast cpu of the H8 family with 13.3 mhz. the machine is from 1998.

[pgn]
[Event "40/120 Monte Carlo IV LE 8mhz"]
[Site "SCW"]
[Date "2020.12.07"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Novag Turquoise"]
[Black "Mephisto Monte Carlo IV LE 8"]
[ECO "A00"]
[Result "0-1"]

1. b4 d5 2. Bb2 Nf6 {"} 3. e3 e6 4. a3 {"} c5 5. c3 Bd6
6. Bb5+ Bd7 7. Bxd7+ Nbxd7 8. Nf3 c4 9. O-O e5 10. Nh4 O-O
11. Nf5 Bc7 12. a4 g6 13. Ng3 a5 14. Ba3 Re8 15. d3 cxd3
16. Qxd3 Nb6 17. Qb5 Qd7 18. Qxd7 Nfxd7 19. Rd1 Nf6 20. f3
Nxa4 21. Ra2 Nb6 22. Nd2 Nbd7 23. Rda1 a4 24. e4 b5
25. exd5 Bb6+ 26. Kh1 Nxd5 27. c4 bxc4 28. Nxc4 Bd4 29. Bb2
Rec8 30. Nd6 Rc6 31. Bxd4 exd4 32. Nb5 d3 33. Ne4 Nxb4
34. Rb2 Nc2 35. Rd1 Ne3 36. Re1 Rc2 37. Rxc2 dxc2 38. Nbc3
Nd1 39. Na2 Rb8 40. Kg1 0-1[/pgn]

[pgn]
[Event "40/120 Monte Carlo IV LE 8 mhz"]
[Site "SCW"]
[Date "2020.12.08"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Mephisto Monte Carlo IV LE 8"]
[Black "Novag Turquoise"]
[ECO "E40"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 {"} 4. e3 Bxc3+ 5. bxc3 {"}
d6 6. Bd3 Bd7 7. Nf3 Bc6 8. O-O O-O 9. Re1 Ne4 10. Bb2 Nd7
11. Qb3 a6 12. Rac1 Qe7 13. Rcd1 Ndf6 14. h3 Rfe8 15. Qc2
Red8 16. Rc1 b6 17. Rcd1 Qe8 18. Ra1 Qd7 19. a4 Re8 20. a5
Reb8 21. axb6 cxb6 22. d5 exd5 23. cxd5 Bxd5 24. Rxa6 Nc5
25. Bf5 Qb7 26. Rxa8 Rxa8 27. c4 Bxf3 28. gxf3 Ncd7 29. f4
Ra2 30. Rd1 Qc6 31. Qb3 Ra5 32. Qd3 Qf3 33. Rd2 Qa8 34. e4
Ra7 35. f3 Ne8 36. Qb3 Qd8 37. Qe3 Ra4 38. Qc3 Qc7 39. Qb3
Nc5 40. Qb5 Qb8 41. Rg2 Ra5 42. Qb4 Nd3 43. Qd2 Nxb2
44. Qxb2 Qc7 45. Kh1 Rc5 46. Qa1 Rxc4 47. Qa8 Rc1+ 48. Rg1
Kf8 49. Bxh7 Qc3 50. e5 Rxg1+ 51. Kxg1 dxe5 52. fxe5 Qxe5
53. Qa3+ Nd6 54. Bf5 Ke7 55. Qa7+ Kf6 56. Bg4 b5 57. Qf2
Nc4 58. f4 Qe3 59. Kg2 Qxf2+ 60. Kxf2 b4 61. Ke2 Nb2
62. Kd2 Na4 63. Bd1 Nc5 64. Ke3 b3 65. Kd4 b2 66. Bc2 Ne6+
67. Kc3 b1=Q 68. Bxb1 Nxf4 69. h4 Ng6 70. h5 Nf4 71. Kd4
Nxh5 72. Ke4 Ng3+ 73. Kf3 Nf5 74. Kg4 Ne3+ 75. Kf3 Nc4
76. Kf4 Ke6 77. Ba2 Kd5 78. Kf5 Kd4 79. Kf4 Nd6 80. Kg5 f6+
81. Kg6 f5 82. Bb3 f4 83. Bd1 Ke5 84. Kxg7 Nb5 85. Bf3 Kf5
86. Bg2 Nd6 87. Bf3 Ne4 88. Bg2 Nc5 89. Kh6 Nd3 90. Kh5 Nc1
91. Kh4 Nb3 92. Kh3 Na1 93. Bc6 Nc2 94. Kg2 Nd4 95. Bb7 Ke5
96. Kh3 Nb3 97. Kg4 Nc5 98. Ba8 Ne4 99. Bc6 Nd2 100. Ba8
1/2-1/2[/pgn]


ok this opponent was maybe not so strong and 1.b4 is not a good opening. but the second game
has no excuse like this.

Maybe the opponent was not strong enough ?
So i tried another one.
the next is the Mephisto Montreal that has the ROMA engine of 1987 by Richard Lang.


[pgn]
[Event "40/120 Limited edition 8 mhz"]
[Event "40/120 Monte Carlo IV LE 8 mhz"]
[Site "SCW"]
[Date "12.12.2020"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Mephisto Montreal 68000"]
[Black "Mephisto Monte Carlo IV LE 8"]
[ECO "D27"]
[Result "0-1"]

1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. Bxc4 c5 6. O-O
a6 7. a4 Nc6 8. Qe2 cxd4 9. Rd1 {"} Be7 10. Nxd4 Nxd4 {"}
11. exd4 b6 12. Bf4 Bb7 13. Nc3 O-O 14. Qe5 Bb4 15. Rac1
Qd7 16. b3 Rfc8 17. Rc2 Rd8 18. Bh6 Ne8 19. Bg5 Rdc8
20. Qg3 Nd6 21. Bf6 Nf5 22. Qg5 Kh8 23. d5 gxf6 24. Qxf6+
Ng7 25. dxe6 Qc6 26. Qg5 fxe6 27. Ne2 Be7 28. Qg3 Nh5
29. Qc3+ Bf6 30. Qh3 Rg8 31. f3 Qxf3 32. Qxf3 Bxf3 33. g3
Rgc8 34. Kf2 Bg4 35. Rd7 e5 36. Rb7 Bd8 37. Nc3 Rc7
38. Rxc7 Bxc7 39. Nd5 Bd8 40. Ne3 Nf6 41. Nxg4 Nxg4+
42. Kf3 h5 43. Ke4 Kg7 44. Be6 Bf6 45. Bxg4 hxg4 46. Kf5
Rf8 47. Rc4 Kf7 48. Kxg4 Rg8+ 49. Kf5 Rg5+ 50. Ke4 Rg4+
51. Kf5 Rxc4 52. bxc4 Kf8 53. Ke4 Ke7 54. Kd5 Kf7 55. h3
Kg6 56. Ke4 Bg7 57. Kd5 Kf5 58. g4+ Kf4 59. a5 e4 60. c5
bxc5 61. Kc4 Bd4 62. h4 e3 63. Kd3 Kf3 64. g5 e2 65. Kd2
Kf2 66. Kd3 e1=Q 67. Kc2 Qc3+ 68. Kd1 Qb3+ 69. Kd2 Be3# 0-1

[/pgn]


ok this was easy , maybe too easy for Eds engine.
So i had to pimp the hardware.
Using a faster 25 Mhz CPU (twice the speed of the original) and again ROMA 16 bit engine:

[pgn]
[Event "40/120 Monte Carlo IV LE 8mhz"]
[Site "SCW"]
[Date "2020.12.12"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Mephisto Monte Carlo IV LE 8"]
[Black "GM Petrosian Roma 25 mhz"]
[ECO "A31"]
[Result "1-0"]

1. c4 c5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Nf3 g6 4. d4 {"} cxd4 {"} 5. Nxd4
Bg7 6. e4 d6 {"} 7. Be2 Nc6 8. Be3 Bd7 9. O-O Ne5 10. Qb3
b6 11. h3 O-O 12. f4 Nc6 13. Rad1 Qc7 14. Nd5 Qb7 15. Bf3
Rac8 16. Nxc6 Bxc6 17. Bd4 Bxd5 18. cxd5 Qc7 19. Rfe1 Rfe8
20. e5 dxe5 21. fxe5 Nd7 22. Qe3 Qc2 23. b3 Qc7 24. Bg4 e6
25. d6 Qb7 26. Bc3 Rc5 27. b4 Rcc8 28. b5 Rc5 29. Bf3 Qc8
30. Bc6 Rd8 31. Bd4 Rc4 32. a3 Ra4 33. Rf1 Rxd4 34. Bxd7
Qxd7 35. Rxd4 Qxb5 36. Re1 Rc8 37. Rd2 Qa5 38. Rd3 Rd8
39. Rdd1 Qb5 40. Qc3 Rf8 41. Kh1 Qd7 42. Rc1 Qb5 43. Qe3
Qa5 44. Re2 Qd5 45. Rc7 a5 46. Rcc2 Rb8 47. Re1 a4 48. Ree2
Ra8 49. Qd2 Qxd2 50. Rcxd2 Rb8 51. Rc2 Kf8 52. g4 h6
53. Kg2 g5 54. Rc7 Bh8 55. Kf3 b5 56. Ke4 b4 57. Rec2 Kg7
58. Rc8 Rb7 59. R2c7 Rb5 60. d7 Rd5 {-9.99} 1-0
[/pgn]


ok, even this faster ROMA was not convincing.
So i used another strong opponent. The fidelity designer mach IV has the 68020 hardware with a program
from spracklens.

here the first game:

[pgn]
[Event "40/120 Monte Carlo IV LE 8 mhz"]
[Site "SCW"]
[Date "2020.12.13"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Fidelity Designer Mach IV"]
[Black "Mephisto Monte Carlo IV LE 8"]
[ECO "E42"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 c5 5. Nge2 d6 {"}
6. dxc5 {"} Bxc5 7. g3 O-O 8. Bg2 Nc6 9. O-O Re8 10. a3 a5
11. b3 e5 12. Qd3 Bg4 13. e4 Qb6 14. h3 Bh5 15. Bd2 Rec8
16. Nb5 Bxe2 17. Qxe2 Nd4 18. Nxd4 Bxd4 19. Rab1 Qc5 20. a4
h6 21. Qf3 Qb6 22. Qf5 Qd8 23. Rbe1 Rc6 24. Rd1 Rac8
25. Bxa5 Qxa5 26. Rxd4 g6 27. Qxf6 exd4 28. Qxd4 Qb4 29. e5
dxe5 30. Qxe5 Re6 31. Qf4 g5 32. Qf3 b6 33. Qd3 Rce8
34. Bd5 Rf6 35. Kh2 Qe7 36. Kg2 Qe2 37. Qd4 Re5 38. g4 Kg7
39. Ra1 h5 40. Rg1 Kf8 41. Rc1 Kg8 42. Kg1 hxg4 43. Bg2
Ref5 44. Rf1 g3 45. f3 Kg7 46. Kh1 Qc2 47. Qd1 Qb2 48. Qb1
Qe2 49. Re1 Qd2 50. Rd1 Qe3 51. Re1 Qc3 52. Rc1 Qe5 53. Re1
Qc5 54. Qb2 Kg8 55. Qc3 Qf2 56. Rf1 Qa2 57. Ra1 Qe2 58. Re1
Rxf3 59. Qc1 Qd3 60. c5 Qxb3 61. c6 Rc3 62. Qxg5+ Rg6
63. Re8+ Kg7 64. Qe5+ f6 65. Re7+ Kf8 66. Re8+ Kg7 67. Re7+
Kf8 68. Re8+ Kg7 {Beide Geräte reklamieren Remis re3.}
1/2-1/2

[/pgn]

the mach IV was very lucky not to lose this game and get a draw out of it.

So another game will follow.

second game versus Designer Mach IV:

[pgn]
[Event "40/120 Monte Carlo IV LE 8mhz"]
[Site "SCW"]
[Date "2020.12.15"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Mephisto Monte Carlo IV LE 8"]
[Black "Fidelity Designer Mach IV"]
[ECO "A29"]
[Result "1-0"]

1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. g3 Bb4 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O
e4 7. Ne1 Bxc3 8. dxc3 h6 9. Nc2 Re8 10. Nd4 {"} Ne5 {"}
11. b3 c5 12. Nc2 d5 13. cxd5 Nxd5 14. c4 Nf6 15. Qxd8 Rxd8
16. Bb2 Ned7 17. Rad1 Re8 18. Rd6 a5 19. Ne3 a4 20. Nf5
axb3 21. axb3 Ra2 22. Rb1 Ne5 23. Nxh6+ Kf8 24. f4 exf3
25. exf3 Ned7 26. Bh3 Rxb2 27. Rxb2 gxh6 28. Bxd7 Nxd7
29. Rxh6 Kg7 30. Rh5 b6 31. Rg5+ Kh6 32. Rd5 Ne5 33. Kf2
Bb7 34. Rd6+ Kh5 35. Re2 Bxf3 36. Rxe5+ Rxe5 37. Kxf3 Re6
38. Rxe6 fxe6 39. Kf4 Kg6 40. g4 Kg7 41. Ke5 Kf7 42. h4 Ke7
43. g5 1-0
[/pgn]

The belligerents:

I have version 0655964

Mclane wrote:

The ELO is known as 2016.
Wow. 78 ELO with a doubling of the speed ?!

I believe the usual figure is 50 ELO....however, virtually no machines do exactly that number: they are either much higher or lower, it just depends on the program.
One example: The Excal GM goes up 114 points, for 12 to 24 MHz doubling.
Also, the first double is generally pretty big...then subsequent doubles begin to rolloff significantly.

Also: I am a bit surprised that the MachIV is not kicking butt...according to Aktivschach, M4 is 100 points higher (I forget what the Aktiv time control is...maybe that has something to do with your results).

There is btw an interesting documentary about peter Auge in Hongkong. The boss of NOVAG.
It’s about him and his wife and his dedicated chess computer company in Hongkong.

Since we also discuss capitalism and China and Hong Kong, this is maybe interesting because it shows the big difference between poor and rich in capitalism and how they live.

I met peter auge on exhibitions where he proudly presented his dedicated chess computers.

Today:


GM Petrosian Glasgow 25 MHz Brikett vs. Chess Player 2150 on AtariST
using my mobile Phone and Hataroid.