Author: Fernando Villegas
Date: 15:19:12 04/17/98
Go up one level in this thread
On April 17, 1998 at 16:15:28, Steven Schwartz wrote: >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 Hi all: I don't know what you thinks, but it seems only fair that Karsten must be named the Great Scholar of Chess Computer History, the Dean of hidden information, etc. And I believe I knew something about all this! Nevertheless, I am sure that Kartsen wont answer the follwing question for a milliond dollars: the name of an Atari program that was the customization of an Slate program. I got you, Karsten...
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