Author: Vincent Diepeveen
Date: 16:43:35 08/10/00
Go up one level in this thread
On August 09, 2000 at 16:15:39, Christophe Theron wrote: >On August 09, 2000 at 13:25:35, Doug List wrote: > >>OK, so I'm new here. I looked around and didn't see (or couldn't tell) if there >>are any threads concerning Electronic Boards. I REALLY want to be able to sit >>down and play a game w/o the (Desktop) computer or having to press keys. I just >>want to move the pieces myself. (I know, enough whining). >> >>Anyway, I'm just starting to look into this and don't want to spend that much >>money (under $150?). I really am a novice in the computer chess area and only >>barely got my feet wet in a tournament setting once (I don't even know my >>rating, but I can beat my dad -- sometimes). I guess a board that can >>potentially play somewhere in the 2000 level would be plenty for me. (not that I >>can play up there, but I want to have plenty of room for growth). >> >>Suggestions? >> >>Much thanks, >>doug > > > >Buy a Palm (www.palm.com) and ChessGenius (www.chessgenius.com) for Palm, you'll >find the combination excellent. You'll get a 1950 elo chess computer. > >You play on a LCD chessboard with a stylus, that's much more convenient than >actual small plastic pieces, believe me. You can play anywhere, even at night >(the Palm has a backlit screen). > > > > Christophe I know your eyes are used to 2 dimensional chess, but really nothing compares to 3d pieces from wood. The smell, the ability to throw with pieces if you're angry, but most important a real chess board, instead of all those stupid flickering screens. I"m living under 250k power cables. Just 20 metres above my head (netherlands is small) and i'm very near to a power division station (explains my extra power perhaps), all screens are interlaced here. I run in 100 herz vertical, because 75 herz vertical is a sure interlaced and bigtime flickering screen. Even my palm-pc is an annoying amount of light, even it's not as bad as a normal monitor. a 1950 program i beat blindfolded, the 33Mhz processors are really too bad nowadays to run a program. 75Mhz philips nino is already a lot faster, 32 registers. Already a lot better for speed. 16mb RAM or 32, whatever you like. I don't think genius runs on that however as nino is windows-ce. An OS that has been thrown out by microsoft, the windows-CE development platform is full of bugs. Incredible huge bugs. Also it doesn't run very well. You can't install many service packs or it doesn't run anymore. It's only allowing to press on the screen. Ideal for chessprograms actually one would say. Well it is. It runs for hours on a small battery pack, or 2 AAA batteries. However further it's a worthless thing. Real bad sound on it. No way you can use it as a note taker. I tried it. worthless shit. They really need something that translates spoken text to the screen, or Palm PC's will be worthless for anything, except games like chess where you don't need to enter much in. For chess it's however way too slow. Nowadays i'm used to fight against Tigers on fast K7s at the internet, trying to get to opposite bishops which it will not soon understand, or fighting against a dual crafty which requires me first to win some rating against other humans or i can't even play it, as people kick on their egorating and only allow 20 players or so on the icc server that are logged on to play their programs. Of course i don't play 3 0 as some only play, but it's all just getting used to it. If i play against processor at 33Mhz, though they can easily put 222Mhz 1watt processors inside those palm pc's without needing to pay much extra producing costs, then i get really soon bored. It needs to compare just *a bit* with my pc, or even testing DIEP, which runs at those palm-pc's also, is useless also. Palm-PCs suck compared to a DGT or TASC board attached to your PC. TASC boards don't get made anymore. Bit hard also to talk to a printerport nowadays under NT (tasc uses printerport to attach), DGT board is really interesting though. Real cheap and i think all chessbase products support it. Diep also will. Right after WMCC it's the first thing i get to work. Even trying to get the auto232 player to work under NT has a lower priority than that. As for me as a chessplayer, nothing compares to a 3d board where you can relax at, instead of looking to a real small slow display. Regrettably there are not many boards yet left to support. Only the DGT board qualifies. I can't remember other boards that are getting made and sold right now or which are under development. Perhaps more knowledgeable people at this area know? Vincent A philips nino.
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