Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 12:13:08 04/18/98
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.
You are right! This is the right model!
The "Boris Handroid" had in fact the Sargon 2.5 program in it, I think,
or a modified version. It had the same style of play, and the same kind
of messages.
The arm was not really an arm, but rather some kind of "portico" (I've
just find this word in my dictionnary, but I'm not sure it is the right
one), like the one you can find in harbours. The "hand" was hanging from
this portico, as I remember.
>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.
I can swear that I played against what seems to be the Boris Handroid
computer in Beziers, France, in 1981, 1982 or 1983 (don't remember the
year precisely).
>This infos came from Mr. Bauerle, who was the distributor in Europe
>(seated in Munich) for some years.
>
>Karsten
Thanks for the data!
Christophe
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