Chafitz dedicated chess computer gets a new heart

Before Fidelity made the Spracklens famous, the spracklens were hired by the company Chafitz.
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Chafitz



From these cool 70ies time zone, i have the Chafitz ARB sensory mode. In original state with Sargon 2.5 by Dan and Kathe Spracklen.

Chafitz ARB


A few years ago Steve UK made a new PCB to bring the machine from 2 mhz and version 2 into 16 mhz with version 4 !!

This nice elo push made the engine much stronger. It suddenly played arround MM4 Level.

Now its time for another revision.


Wolfgang Zugrav send me a new PCB where the 6502 gets emulated by an FPGA.

This way the machine runs now with 130 mhz.

The software is on a small micro SD card.

On these pictures you see the old PCB by steve UK and the new one with the pocket beagle. And you also


Fotos

see how the Chafitz is made from inside. All hand wired. There were no industrial PCBs for the LEDs and the reed contacts at that time.

If we add 50 ELO points with each doubling of the engine,
Sargon 4.0 has the following rating:


With 2 mhz 1700
2 to 4 = 1750
4 to 8 = 1800
8 to 16 = 1850
16 to 32 = 1900
32 to 64 = 1950
64 to 128 / 130 = 2000

Of course if the 1700 in the 2 mhz is not really accurate, could be it had only 1650, we would land 1950.

We will see. I am playing 40/120 with the „new“ machine.

Long live the chafitz family.

I saw they are still in business doing data destruction.
(Old HDDs gets destroyed the way the data is really gone).

Steve Chafitz,  
Pioneer in the dedicated chess computer field is now the big destructor of almost anything arround electronic !!

Here a video, he is having less hair on his head bit still alive and kicking.

What an amazing story and gift for all of us.

Mclane wrote:

I've never see the Spracklens with permed hair before!

That's a heart-warming story: the great old dedicated computers live on!

Chafitz. Steve and Arleen Chafitz.  
They sold the Chafitz dedicated chess computer the Spracklen gave their engine BEFORE Fidelity hired the spracklens.
In the first years , fidelity 1-10 had the engine by ron nelson.
Ron Nelson

Mclane wrote:

Chafitz. Steve and Arleen Chafitz.  

Easy to say now, but I did think that the picture didn't look like the Spracklens!