Author: Steven Schwartz
Date: 13:15:28 04/17/98
Go up one level in this thread
On April 17, 1998 at 16:01:12, Karsten Bauermeister wrote: >On April 17, 1998 at 13:57:19, Steven Schwartz wrote: > >>On April 17, 1998 at 13:49:16, Christophe Theron wrote: >> >>>On April 17, 1998 at 08:22:48, Steven Schwartz wrote: >>> >>>>On April 17, 1998 at 01:34:13, Christophe Theron wrote: >>>>>I remember playing once in a store against a Scisys model which had a >>>>>mechanical arm. It was maybe christmas 1981 or 1982? It moved the pieces >>>>>itself! The program was Sargon 2.5 I think. People from the store had to >>>>>throw me out every evening! >>>> >>>> >>>>If it had a robotic arm, it was the Robot Adversary by Novag, >>>>programmed by Dave Kittinger. >>>>-Steve >>> >>>It is strange, because I remember the unit seemed to be exactly the one >>>of the Sargon 2.5 or Morphy computer. >>> >>>Maybe I'm just mixing two old memories... >>>Christophe >> >>I think you might be. >>Applied Concepts (Texas) introduced the big beautiful, wooden >>Sargon 2.5 Auto Response Board (actually manufactured by >>A.V.E. Microsystems in California) around that time. >>It had no robotic arm but was autosensory. Then when Applied >>got out of the business, A.V.E. marketed it by themselves, and, >>finally, I convinced Fidelity to buy the boards and put the >>their latest Spracklen program inside. Now, THAT was a nice machine. >>The best looking board with the strongest program at the time. >>-Steve > > >Hi Christophe, hi Steve, > >it is possible, that Christophe is right! There was a model from Applied >Concepts with an robotic arm!! This machine was called Boris Handroid! >It was not as elegant as the Novag Robot, but it works. It had an long >brown body with an small board in front of it (~20x20 cm). The arm came >out on two splints. >The Novag Robot is made of metall (the only chess computer, which is >made out of metall!!), silver and black, and had a black and mobile arm >with a joint. > >But it is nearly improbable, that Christophe played against this model. >My information is that there were only 3 or 5 units were produced. One >is in Denmark, one is sold to Japan for 10.000 Dollar a few years ago on >a auction in London, and a few are meanwhile scrap. >This infos came from Mr. Bauerle, who was the distributor in Europe >(seated in Munich) for some years. > >Karsten Hi Karsten, Still further proof that my mind is corroding. Thanks to your note above, I indeed remember the "Handroid", but since it was never produced for consumption in the U.S., I never actually got to see one in person. - Steve
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