Author: Robert C. Maddox
Date: 20:17:45 08/25/99
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On August 25, 1999 at 09:22:37, Steven Schwartz wrote: >Fidelity used my article (if you wish to reprint >it here, please do so) as their "proof" that I was >trying to hurt Excellence sales because I suspected >some attempt by Fidelity and the U.S. Chess Federation >to push ICD out of the chess business so the Federation >could have it all to themselves. Paranoia? I don't think >so. Well, OK. Below is the article I refer to. I've tried to reproduce it exactly as it appeared in CCR. However, I've using block style paragraphing - this was just easier for me. Assume all typos, missing comma's, misspellings, etc., to be my errors. This article is from Volume 3, No.1 of CCR, First Half 1992 Review, pages 21 - 23. ================== Now It Can Be Told By Steven Schwartz I think I would never have made this story public if the chess computer industry had not been turned inside out these past two years. As indicated elsewhere in this issue by Larry, Excalibur is a company that consists almost entirely of people who used to work at Fidelity. Fidelity is owned and controlled by its former arch enemy, Mephisto. The programmers who were responsible for every sophisticated program marketed by Fidelity are now working for Saitek, and the company that distributed Novag in the last year (having taken that job over from Fidelity no less) has stopped doing so. You can't even tell the players any more if you DO have a scorecard, and that is just on the surface. Below the surface are the manufacturers in Hong Kong and China that create many of the machines that are part of our industry. Some of these entities go in and out of bankruptcies more than our very own U.S. air carriers. Nevertheless, getting back to the story. Some of you who have been following computer chess for the last decade or so are familiar with and probably even may own a rather nice and inexpensive little chess computer called the Excellence. The year was 1985 and Fidelity began touting the little bugger to its distributors and retailers just as the year began - cautioning all along that it would not become available until the August/September time frame. Everything that Fidelity claimed about the "revolutionary" new computer seemed believable. After all, even back then it was not so unusual for a chess computer to play above the 2000 rating level. What WAS unbelievable, however, to us at I.C.D. at least, was that Fidelity said THIS chess computer was going to SELL FOR UNDER $100!!!! Why such skepticism you ask. Well, the immediate predecessor to the Excellence was a machine named the Sensory Challenger 9, a unit which was unanimously believed to play at an 1800 level and cost the consumer about $170, so how was it that six months later Fidelity could introduce a machine selling for close to half the price and playing 200 points better! When I.C.D. posed the above concerns to Fidelity in early 1985, we were assured that the Excellence was a technological breakthrough and that we would receive samples of the unit for testing purposes so that we could, in good faith, promote the product as playing "over 2000". Frankly, having been inundated by exaggerated manufacturer's claims (certainly not limited to just Fidelity - see some of my earlier "Pity the Poor Computer Chess Buyer" articles in earlier Reports) for years prior to the Excellence introduction, we were not inclined to believe the ratings estimates that Fidelity was spewing forth. In February of 1985, we received a visit from the President and National Sales Manager of Fidelity for the express purpose of promoting the coming introduction of the Excellence. Further hoopla took place in June at the Chicago Consumer Electronics Show. Here Fidelity at their booth showed to the trade (distributors and retailers) the Excellence once again. And again made the claim of "over 2000" playing strength. I.C.D. once again made it clear to Fidelity that they would have to prove such claims before I.C.D. would associate itself with such a claim. Once again promises of forthcoming test units were made. Events began to heat up substantially when an ad for the Excellence appeared from the U.S. Chess Federation in the month of May. Claims of strength approaching 2000 were made in the ad, and when we saw the ad, we called both Fidelity and the U.S.C.F to find out what proof existed of the claim especially since no computers were yet manufactured. The answer from the Federation was that "Fidelity told us it played that well"; Fidelity's answer was "it will play that well". Nothing terribly scientific was done by anyone to validate these claims. Now the pressure was on. People reading Chess Life were, for the first time, being "informed" that a new product, the Excellence, was on the way, and one could buy a close to 2000 rated unit for $99. Yes, it was an advertisement, but it was a Chess Federation advertisement and to some people that was as good as if the Almighty, himself, had ordained it. The fact that they did not have the product, had never played the product, and did not know anything about the program in the product, was unimportant. The Chess Federation said 2000 so it WAS 2000. I.C.D. received loads of phone calls from the chess playing public who were less likely to follow blindly what the advertisement was promoting (after all, they were SELLING weren't they?). Our answer, was that we were highly skeptical, and our recommendation was for everyone to wait until proper testing had taken place. We think the great majority heeded our advice. When the deadline for the Chess Life issue coming out in June arrived, I.C.D. decided it was time to promote the Excellence because even if it only played 1700, it was still the least expensive unit to ever do so, and therefore was likely to be a best seller. We put an ad in that issue (still continuing to request samples of the Excellence for testing from Fidelity and still not receiving any) proclaiming that I.C.D. would guaranty that the unit would play "Over 1800 for Under $100". Since the machine had a limited profit margin, we chose to have the Excellence ad share a page with Scisys (now Saitek) TurboStar which we proclaimed played "Over 2000 for under $200". We again ran the same ad to appear in the month of July. As each ad showed, we received calls both from customers wanting to order the product, and others wanting to know why our ads were proclaiming a rating 200 points lower than the Federation's claim. Our answer: "the Excellence has not been made available to anyone as of the time the ads were submitted and the Federation chose to believe the manufacturer and we chose not to." The deadline for the issue appearing in August was fast approaching, and I.C.D. chose, once again, to submit the same 1800 ad, but about two weeks after our ad deadline for that issue, we got wind of a very interesting piece of news. Fidelity had entered a unit at the U.S. Open in Florida that it claimed was the Excellence. It was entered for the purpose of receiving a rating. This was a real curiosity for Fidelity for three reasons. The first curiosity was that Fidelity never informed us that it was doing this (after all, we were their biggest and best customer); the second was that if they could find their way clear to produce 8 machines for this tournament, why couldn't they create 9 of them and send one to us for testing; the third was that they were SELLING MACHINES DIRECTLY TO THE PUBLIC - hundreds of machines right there being sold to end users at THE VERY SAME TIME I.C.D. WAS BEING TOLD THAT IT COULD NOT RECEIVE EVEN ONE UNIT FOR TESTING!!!!! Pretty weird, eh!? As the tournament went on, we were receiving daily reports from a customer, who every morning would call us and relate the results of the night before, and were so disparaged by Fidelity's inability or unwillingness to supply us with test Excellences that we had him buy units at the tournament and ship them to us. More weirdness! Nevertheless, as the tournament progressed through the fourth and fifth day, we learned two very interesting facts. First, the units performing there were not doing terribly well. After the first five rounds, they had a provisional rating of about 1900, but more importantly, due to some truly sleek detective work on his part, we found out something that it appears Fidelity really did not want anyone to know: the units performing at the tournament were operating at 8 megahertz not the 3 megahertz of the commercially available units!!!!! As the story goes, when the person who was guarding the tournament machines with his life, had to go to the men's room, he unknowingly asked our customer to watch over the Excellences for him. The customer, knowing what we know about faster units playing stronger than slower units, ran a mating problem on one of the tournament machines, and it solved the problem 2.67 times faster than the units being sold to the public at the tournament! We could now use this information to conclude that the commercially available units were not even the 1900 that the tournament units were proving to be, but about 1725 because they were running at a much slower speed. Having now realized that even our "Over 1800" ad was perhaps misleading, when Chess Life called us that day to discuss some other issue, we requested that our ad (which had been submitted some three weeks earlier) be changed to reflect our newly found degradation. The discombobulated Chess Life representative agreed that they would change the ad to reflect a new I.C.D. guaranty that the Excellence would play "over 1725". One week before that "Over 1725" issue was mailed to the readers of Chess Life, I.C.D. received a letter from Fidelity indicating that it understood that I.C.D. was going to run an ad denigrating its new Excellence, and such a denigration would be so damaging to the product that Fidelity would stand to lose millions of dollars in sales. Well, since it was too late to stop the publication of the ad - since the issue was already printed, and due to the fact that the games played at the U.S. Open had borne out our estimate of 1725 or something not too much higher, we did not feel any urgency in caving in and promising a 2000 rating (which the Federation pretty much continued to do throughout this entire process). Lo and behold, the ad appeared and so did a lawsuit from Fidelity claiming damages of approximately 1.5 million dollars as a result of our ad. Interestingly enough, it has always amazed us that our one ad which had not even been in the hands of the readers for more than 10 days was responsible, according to Fidelity, for all that damage, not to mention the fact that Chess Life was only distributed to about 45,000 people and even if all of them were turned off by our ad, Fidelity would not have lost such a large sum of money. However, this is America, and in America anyone can sue anyone for anything. I.C.D. stopped buying product from Fidelity and the two companies were not on speaking terms for about two years until both realized that it was to the economic benefit of both to go back to business as it had been before the incident, but the situation moved inexorably toward trial with depositions taken from all concerned including just about everyone from the Federation. And to this date they have not divulged how it was that Fidelity knew about I.C.D.'s "Over 1725" ad before it was even released from the printer. Nor has it been adequately explained why ads from the Federation continued to boast the 2000 rating and "Class A or better" despite evidence to the contrary. To make a very, very long story reasonably short, the trial date kept being put back for one reason or another. Perhaps the federal judge in Fort Lauderdale, Florida was of the opinion that his drug and murder trials took precedent over our case. How silly! After 6 years of preparation, the trial took place. It lasted 3 1/2 weeks. There were three lawyers for each side, and we have been told that the bill for I.C.D.'s lawyers alone over the six years and 3 1/2 weeks was over $500,000. If one were to add this to the bill for the Fidelity legal staff plus the money that the U.S. spent on the judge, courtroom, bailiff, stenographer, court officers, jurors, etc., it is likely that well over $1,000,000 was spent in total. There were about 15 witnesses as well as a dozen or so depositions at the trial. There were dozens of displays, exhibits, charts and hours and hours of testimony from all involved including a rather long cameo appearance from Larry Kaufman who was called upon as an expert. And the result? Well, after both sides had their closing arguments, the jury left to deliberate the fate of the issue. Forty-five minutes later they returned with a verdict - ICD was NOT guilty. 20/20 hindsight is wonderful. Now after 7 years and 1000's of games, Excellence 3 MHz might possibly be an 1850-1900 performer, but in early 1985, I.C.D., I am proud to say, went to extraordinary lengths to uncover the "truth" only to be rewarded with an expensive and time consuming suit. So you thought the Chess Computer business was boring. Well, take it from one who has been immersed in it for 15 years, things may be calm on the surface, but there is ALWAYS something going on beneath - even now, but I will save that for some future issue. =================
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