Author: Fernando Villegas
Date: 13:24:18 09/18/98
Go up one level in this thread
On September 18, 1998 at 16:11:35, John Coffey wrote: >In 1984 I purchased a Novag Super Constellation. Mine quit working a few years >ago. > >What impressed me the most about this program was the strength for its time >considering that it was only running on a 4 mhz 6502. Granted it was no >master, but the USCF gave it a rating of 2018. Those ratings given to >computers were pretty controversial, and may still be controversial today >on newer machines. > >My understanding is that it only evaluated positional ideas at the base of the >search tree. Although that is rather limited, it gave the machine a balance >of positional and tactical strength (for its time) that still probably could >beat most tournament players. It seemed especially strong at speed chess. > >I wonder if anyone has one of these that still work? I would be curious if >it still could hold its rating, and if gets totally crushed by better programs >running on machines that are hundreds of times faster. > >John Coffey Hi John: I had Constellation 3,6, very similar to yours, although somewhat weaker as much the program was 16 Kbytes. Nevertheless, it played a pretty game and I lost -and won- very interesting games. A couple of years ago i gave it to a prodige child in my country. That happened after winning him in a tournament with that mate given withjust the knight. I suppose I was so impressed to beat the genius in so a pretty way that in a rush of benevolence I was prepared to give him anything. Well, the boy has made a very good use of Constellation, he call sometime to tell me that he win Constellation all the time -maybe not so, quite, but.. - and I feel that this end for Constellation, like a sparring partner for a child just beginning his career, is the very best he could have. I liked it very much, very enterprtesing. You just does not get that kind of computer these days... Fernando
This page took 0.01 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.