Author: Richard A. Fowell (fowell@netcom.com)
Date: 19:57:12 01/04/99
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On January 04, 1999 at 19:39:21, Bill wrote: >Greetings, > >I am attempting to locate some chess training software for my 8 year old nephew >that will run on his Mac. (68040 Mac/OS 8.1 CD/ROM). He has a very basic >understanding of the game. Rating about 450. > >Thanks for any suggestions, > >Bill Your best fit is probably the Chess Mates CD. When I shopped around for this before Christmas, MacZone (1-800-248-0800) had it for under $20. Chess Mates uses animation and digitized voice to teach chess. There are three modules - the times I quote are the time it took me (a USCF master) to rip through them - your child's time should be much longer. Target audience is 9 yrs old and up. • Learn: Teaches the piece moves and other rules in less than a hour • Puzzle: Teaches basic tactics like fork and pin in three to four hours • Play: Lets you play White against the computer or another human I wrote a review of this for Inside Mac Games, but, alas, they have the copyright, or I'd post it here. It's very entertaining. Mac Requirements: 68030 or better, 256 colors, 8MB RAM, 10MB disk System 7 or higher, double speed CD ROM ==================================================== The next rung up is "Maurice Ashley Teaches Chess", which you can get from several places. It is more aimed at teens. I bought my copy at Cyberian Outpost: http://www.outpost.com/, which lists it as Outpost # 95682, and lists the requirements as: Mac: LCIII or better 8 MB RAM 7.0 or later 2x CD ROM 256 colors 17 MB free (only for hard drive install) Please note that there are two version of "Maurice Ashley" out there - the original, published by Davidson, which does not run on Macs, and the more recent version, published by Simon and Schuster, which does (it says on my CD - "3 formats on disc: Windows 95, Windows 3.1, Macintosh") ICD sells the Mac version too, though they list a price that is more than double what Cyberian Outpost is charging. You might ask them if they'd match the price, though. I also saw this listed at http://www.shopping.com, but I've never dealt with them, and there was no product description. I've had good luck with both Cyberian Outpost and ICD. At some future date, when your kid has outgrown the above), you can try Chess Mentor (Mac demo at http://www.chess.com). Richard A. Fowell (fowell@netcom.com)
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