Author: Alan Grotier
Date: 10:47:52 06/30/99
In 1984 I purchased the Mephisto Mondial XL rated at around 1970 Fide. It has a Motorola 68000 16bit processor at 12MZ and one of the best pressure sensitive boards I have seen.The features are rather limited - one playing style, no tournament time controls, fixed selective search etc. The play is rather quiet and positional.It does have tactical ability but will not go out of it's way to provoke tactical situations and can be prone to sacrifices on the King side.But it does have agood end game. Dispite it's age I find it very strong and cannot boast many wins at my favorite level game/30". In 1993 I purchased the Mephisto Vancouver with the exclusive wooden board (Mephisto Genius1 was based on this program)rated at around 2100 Fide. It has the same processor as the Mondial XL.It is pure luxury to play and abounds with features and playing levels.Selectivity can be varied from 0 to 12, it has three playing styles-solid,active and risky and a choice of six different opening books. I have not been able to win one game against it. Recently I purchased Fritz 5.32 primarily for game analysis. I did play some games against Fritz but this was akin to hunting bear with a potato peeler;your going to get mauled. So I think I will stick to playing my dinosaur chess machines.There is still lots of life in them and plenty to learn from them. When I really get fed-up with losing I drag out the Fidelity Chess Challenger7 from it's torn and used box and teach it a lesson. An inveterate chess enthusiast.
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