Author: Ian Osgood
Date: 11:11:11 05/20/99
Go up one level in this thread
On May 19, 1999 at 20:42:29, Micheal Cummings wrote:
>Apart from setting the standard for low priced top of the world PC chess
>software which makes other chess makers tremble. Now chessmaster with its
>gameboy chess software will now be able to take control of the hardware market
>for portable chess software.
>
>Lets look at the Novag Sapphire, which cost around $500 where I come from. And
>now look at a gameboy for $79, plus the game $30. If this machine can match the
>top portables, plus you get a screen to play chess with, and a Analysis fuction,
>then it is going to destroy the portable chess market.
>
>And it one company has the power to make a Computer chess chip like the DB one
>being talked about at the moment. I think Mindscape would have the power to make
>it happen more easily that the DB team.
>
>Time for chessmaster to take control of the electronic chess playing world :-)
Don't hold your breath waiting for a strong computer program for the Nintendo
Gameboy.
First, the Gameboy Chessmaster program is not in any way related to De Konig's
engine which is at the heart of the Chessmaster series of programs for PC's.
The target processor and OS is much different, there isn't room in the Gameboy
cartridge for a sophisticated program, and there are many more system
limitations (slow processor, 32K RAM, so no hash tables). The Gameboy engines
were written from scratch (anyone know who by?) and given the Chessmaster brand
name in order to sell more units.
Also note that the Gameboy market is much different from the dedicated portable
chess computer (or PDA program) market. Nintendo is selling to kids who like to
win games and are easily impressed by special effects, not to chess experts who
want to improve their game. That is why Chessmaster for the Gameboy has
animated pieces and says "Check!" with a fanfare of music rather than using the
same amount of ROM and development time to improve the strength of the program.
(This argument also applies to chess programs for game consoles, which is why
chess players found Virtual Chess for the N64 to be disappointing.)
Finally, the most important limiting factor for the strength of a chess computer
is its processor speed. The Gameboy has two versions: Original with 4 MHz Z80,
and Color with 8 MHz Z80. The top rated chess program on the Swedish list which
falls in this speed range is the tabletop Mephisto MM5, using a 5 MHz 6502,
which hit 1974. Here are some other dedicated portable chess computers from the
SSDF list:
Rating + - Games Won Oppo
91 Sapphire II H8 20MHz 2112 36 -35 404 64% 2008
95 Novag Sapphire H8 10 MHz 2090 22 -22 1014 47% 2108
117 Kasparov President/GK-2100 H8 10 MHz 1978 29 -29 581 46% 2006
(118 Mephisto MM 5 6502 5 MHz 1974 19 -19 1374 47% 1997)
136 Fidelity Travel Master H8/330 10 MHz 1897 65 -79 123 22% 2112
138 Kasparov GK-2000 H8 10 MHz 1896 29 -29 593 42% 1952
171 Novag Super VIP 1688 53 -58 174 32% 1817
For comparison, here are the top portables from the Selective Search list:
11.Top portable calculator:
2175 Novag SAPPHIRE2* UK225 pc
12.Top portable plug-ins (peg sets):
2033 Kasparov TRAVEL CHAMPION GK-2100* UK99 pl
2005 Novag AMBER* (13MHz H8) UK139 pl
(Note that strength is usually measured at 40 moves in 2 hours, which is much
slower than the speeds at which people typically play the computer.)
To conclude, if you want a strong portable chess computer with an LCD display
for about $100, buy a used PDA and put a chess program on it. For example:
Palm Pilot (17MHz?) with PocketChess (freeware)
Newton MessagePad 130 (20MHz) or 2000 (160MHz) with Deep Green (freeware)
Psion 3 or 5 (20MHz) with PsionChess, PocketChess, or Purple Software Chess
WinCE device (20MHz and up) with PocketChess, PalmChess etc.
Any of these configurations will blow away Chessmaster on the Gameboy.
Faster and newer used PDA's will run over $200, but give you a stronger
opponent.
Ian Osgood
Operator of NewtonChess and SapphireII on FICS
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