Author: John Coffey
Date: 16:18:57 03/03/00
Let us go back in time to about 1987. Radio Shack sold several models of dedicated chess computers. Fidelity was selling a 2100 level chess computer for about $100. About 3 years later I bought a master level computer for about $300. My friends and I were strong enthusiasts of dedicated chess computers, and we were thinking back then that the progress that had been made would lead to new models that were cheaper and better. Now come back to the present. Personal computers are about a hundred times faster than they were back then. Have dedicated chess computers made similar progress? I don't see hardly any change. Today you need to pay more than $100 for an Expert level program and master level programs still cost hundreds of dollars. (And Radio Shack is still selling mostly crap.) I had figured 13 years ago that by now we all could have pocket-sized chess masters that cost $30 each. At least a dozen years ago my friends and I were testing single-chip chess computers sold by Radio Shack that seemed to play in the class B range or at least very strong C player. We really figured that this would be the wave of the future and soon we would would be seeing single chip chess masters that were inexpensive. John Coffey
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