Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Portables with LCD display?

Author: Pat Barron

Date: 11:02:43 10/26/98

Go up one level in this thread


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.



This page took 0 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.