Author: Tony Asdourian
Date: 19:25:00 01/18/99
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I never had a SciSys Mark V, but in 1982, I lived in London and would regularly go to the only store in town that had one on display and play it. What a machine! If memory serves me correctly, besides a gorgeous look it had a LCD board that was about 2.5'x2.5' that was easily readable, the ability to play 8(!) simultaneous games, and had lots of "cool" (to a 13 year old) messages (e.g. "Draw by 3-time repetition") below the display. To this day I still think it is one of the best designed chess computers I have ever seen. I seem to remember reading in CCR that the buttons stuck some and it froze up now and then, and in fact played an astonishingly passive game of chess. They had a nice brochure, too, that advertised the fact that it could solve the Saavedra position (involving rook underpromotion to avoid a stalemate and eventually win) that I eventually ripped to shreds reading it so many times. And, as I reach back to the depths of my memory, I seem to recall a "Philidor" add-on module (the charade of upwards compatability getting an early startin this business) that was supposed to improve its play, but in fact made it even MORE passive. Ah, the dedicated chips of yesteryear.
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