Author: Tony Asdourian
Date: 18:05:45 01/18/99
Reading about the Fidelity Machines made me very nostalgic for the "old days", and I was wondering if it could be possible if there could be some more articles in the Web CCR about the foibles of those machines. I remember, for instance, the tremendous enthusiasm in CCR for the Fidelity Prestige (I still have that issue!) and to a lesser degree for my beloved Mephisto II (which could run on batteries but then ran noticeably slower and "beeped" in a lower, more lethargic tone). The Mephisto II had replaced the Chess Challenger 7, which, although much maligned in recent postings, had a number of delightful features including: 1) You couldn't make illegal moves!, 2) It could solve a Mate in 2 in ONLY 25-30 minutes, no matter HOW complicated (unless there was underpromotion, granted), and the best feature, 3), When it was "thinking", it had an LED display that read "oo", but the "oo" would switch from the top half of the display to the bottom, and when it was getting close to moving, the "oo" would vibrate back and forth faster and faster until one practically got dizzy, and Voila!--- the move appeared. Never mind that it was likely moving its pawn to a5 or its king to h8, I loved it anyway. Well, I could go on, but I would love to read other people's memories of these machines. I remember how excited we all were as they defied yet another "expert's" predictions as to how good they could get. Come to think of it, could Steve post some of the old CCR reviews from the 80's on the website, too?
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