Author: Pat Barron
Date: 11:02:43 10/26/98
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On October 15, 1998 at 17:27:20, Steven Schwartz wrote: >The handheld LCD chess computers are gone now. At one time, >we had the Mattel Computer Chess and the Shadow and Executive >by Saitek, but no more. I think the problem was that the >pieces on the display were all based upon a triangle with >little appendages denoting the differences between kings >and queens and knights, etc. It was very difficult to distinguish >the pieces from one another. > >Chess is tough enough when you KNOW what all the pieces are:-))) >- Steve (ICD/Your Move) The display on the Saitek Shadow isn't _too_ bad - though the hardest pieces to tell apart are, unfortunately, the King and the Queen. I have a Shadow, and I really like it - oddly enough, I was just playing it last night. Its maximum rating is, I'd guess, somewhere around 1200 USCF (anybody know a more accurate number for this machine?), but that's still about 200 points higher than me... :-) It does have the annoying property that it sometimes overlooks the obvious - during one of my recent games, I was a down a couple of pieces and in bad position, and the machine was intent on executing a 3 or 4 move mating attack. There really wasn't any rush necessary on the computer's part - I was stuck, and wasn't going anywhere - but I still had a potential mate-in-2 on the computer's back rank. The computer only needed to pause its attack for one move to play P-R3, to create luft in case I checked on the back rank. But it didn't - it didn't see that there was a mate in 2 moves, that it could have avoided trivially, and this was *not* on one of the handicap levels. Oh well, another point for me ... :-) Anyway, the point of that whole story is, I've really been wanting a stronger handheld LCD-screen computer for a long time. I like the LCD screen a lot - I can take the thing with me wherever I want, not have to worry about losing the tiny little plastic peg pieces on the bus, or in a coffee shop, or wherever. In the absence of such a machine, I've recently been thinking about getting a Novag Jasper - calculator style with a separate board (but at least the board is not integral to the operation of the machine, the way it is on a peg sensory machine - if I lose pieces, it doesn't stop me from using the machine. Anyone know anything about this unit? It is claimed to have a rating of about 1750 USCF, which is pretty incredible, considering it supposedly has a 4K program and something like 800 bytes of RAM. --Pat.
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