Author: Michael Watters
Date: 08:39:52 01/03/05
An Intelligent Chess machine arrived in the post the other day. http://i7.ebayimg.com/03/i/03/07/b3/fc_1_b.JPG These machines were developed by David Levy and Kevin O'Connell, two gentlemen prominent in the popularising and development of computer chess. The Intelligent Chess machines were one of the first chess computers manufactured by the Hong Kong company Scisys, later to become Saitek. It was released in 1980. One of the things which make the early machines fascinating for me is the wide variety of ideas and design solutions tried. Companies were experimenting to find out what the public wanted, apart that is, from stronger play. As far as I know Intelligent Chess is the only dedicated chess computer which has a LCD display,a TV display outlet and an audio tape recorder. This put it somewhere in between the games consoles and hobby computers of the time and the more conventional chess computers being sold e.g. Fidelity Sensory Voice Challenger, Mephisto 1 and Boris Sargon 2.5. The tape recorder was used to store and retrieve games. Tapes of grandmaster games could be played out before your eyes on your TV screen. It seemed like a great idea at the time and I had one briefly in the early 1980s. The one in the photo arrived damaged. I have been sticking it back together and getting it working. Because the tape recorder flap kept jumping open I stuck the nearest old tape to hand into it and pressed play. Not only did it keep the flap closed but Stevie Wonder blasted out of the speaker. I can now play chess on my TV and listen to tapes (not Stevie Wonder)at the same time. The chess is slow and not very good, but hey you can't have everything. All the best Mike
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