Author: Steve B
Date: 07:29:20 02/19/05
For those members interested, here is a listing of some common fallacies regarding dedicated chess computers: 1)the more playing levels the better actually computers with 300 or 400 levels are usually weak and targeted for the non chess player looking for a toy the best chess computers will have a user definable level where the number of moves N can be programmed to be played in Y minutes or hours 2)Tabletop computers are better then portables while the very top of the line computers are all Tabletops ,many very powerful or feature rich portable handhelds were released over the years ,some with features and playing strength far superior to many desktops a few examples: CXG Advanced Star chess(largest Library feature of any portable ever released and even more then most tabletops) Mephisto Mobile Roma II(an actual World Champion program in a handheld unit) Novag Sapphire II(for many years the strongest portable and far stronger then many tabletop units) 3)the first chess computer was invented by Sid Samole(owner of Fidelity Electronics) while it is true that Samole came up with the idea after watching an episode of Star Trek,it was Ron Nelson who invented the working and sellable prototype he remains today as the lead chess programmer for Excalibur Electronics and his programming is featured in all of their computers(GM,Mirage,Touch Chess,etc,) 4)Todays PC Chess Software is so strong that it makes buying a dedicated unit a foolish decision while it is true that no dedicated unit can compete against todays screaming dual opteron processors(or whatever the current cutting edge processor is at this minute)several units were released that play well into the 2000-2400 Elo range far stronger then most human chess players on earth if you are interested in actually playing chess against a computer there are many units available either brand new or used(Ebay) that will give you a powerful game Best Steve
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