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Subject: Re: The Novag Star Sapphire isn't available yet...

Author: Steven Schwartz

Date: 10:37:32 10/21/01

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On October 21, 2001 at 03:28:58, allan johnson wrote:

>On October 20, 2001 at 17:53:47, Steven Schwartz wrote:
>
>>On October 20, 2001 at 15:09:34, Christophe Theron wrote:
>>
>>>On October 20, 2001 at 11:34:38, Steven Schwartz wrote:
>>>
>>>>On October 20, 2001 at 08:39:57, O. Veli wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On October 19, 2001 at 10:46:34, Steven Schwartz wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>Where did they get Star Sapphires? The chips to manufacture them
>>>>>>will not be available till late December, and product won't be
>>>>>>available until January?
>>>>>>http://www.icdchess.com/cgi-bin/store.cgi?page=8/80-N13.html&item=80-N13&cart_id=2600247.17861
>>>>>
>>>>>  Is there any concrete evidence for this? Star Sapphire was supposed to come ou
>>>>>t in Summer 2000, then Christmas 2000, and now January 2001. Wasn't Novag
>>>>>renamed as Perfect Technologies? I look forward to this product, but have no
>>>>>hope of seeing it in my hands.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>The chips were supposed to be available in early November so that
>>>>the product would be available for Christmas. However, we received
>>>>word about a week ago that the chips were delayed until late Decmeber.
>>>>So, January delivery looks good. However, we have learned from 23 years
>>>>in this business that new product is delayed more than it is on time.
>>>>We will know for certain that they are here when they get here. But
>>>>right now January is as good a guess as any.
>>>>Steve (ICD/Your Move Chess & Games)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>I don't want to sound harsh, but in my opinion this product is dead before it is
>>>born: you can just buy a PDA and download a good chess program for it and you
>>>get a better combination than the Star Sapphire.
>>>
>>>Even if the unit is cheaper than a PDA of the same speed at this time, it's just
>>>a matter of months before PDAs are cheaper and faster. And naturally they are
>>>more flexible.
>>>
>>>If this product had been released when it was first announced, something like 2
>>>years ago, it would have been a winner. But 2002 is too late. I don't understand
>>>why investors would put money in this anymore (unless they are blind).
>>>
>>>I must certainly be missing some piece of important information about the unit.
>>>But what?
>>>    Christophe
>>
>>
>>Having sold $10,000 and $6,000 and $2,000 and $1,000 chess computers
>>in pretty high numbers in the past, I can never predict what our
>>customers will and will not like. We have started taking pre-orders
>>for the computer. I will let you know in a month or two just how
>>successful or unsuccessful a venture it is going to be.
>>
>>I think the success of failure of the Star Sapphire and Star Diamond
>>will be a pretty good predictor of whether the stand-alone high end chess
>>computer market will ever attract a sizeable number of customers again. It
>>should be interesting.
>>
>>Steve (ICD/Your Move Chess & Games)
> Steve: I have 3 stand alone chess computers the best being the Risc 1.How
>much better will the Star Saphire be than the Risc1?
>Al


Al,
I do not know  what a Risc 1 is. There has never been a commercial
machine in in the U.S. called by that name. There must be another name.
Who made it?
Steve (ICD/Your Move Chess & Games)



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