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Subject: Re: CM7000 -- a lemon?

Author: Dave Gomboc

Date: 09:24:22 10/08/99

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On October 08, 1999 at 05:34:42, Micheal Cummings wrote:

>On October 08, 1999 at 04:08:18, John R. Menke, Sr. wrote:
>
>>Greetings again,
>>
>>I was testing CM7000 using games recorded with CM5000 and CM6000. That's part of
>>the problem. Apparently they are incompatible. CM7000 doesn't know which color
>>(white or black) is next to move, in some such games. That's apparently why I
>>couldn't get it to "wake up" and start thinking, because it was the wrong side's
>>turn to move!?
>>
>>I'll note one further bona fide bug:  Regarding the VCR controls on the move
>>list, with a game loaded, click the leftmost button to return to the starting
>>postion, then click the rightmost button to goto the final position, and it
>>crashes the system.  I haven't seen that kind of thing for a long time.  It
>>reminds me of how the old Sargon and first Chessmaster used to crash my
>>Commodore 64.  It must be very amateurish, un-debugged code.
>>
>>My benchmark position took 19 minutes with CM7000 but only 13 minutes with
>>CM6000.  That's enough for me!  MC7000 is a lot slower on my system.  Adios --
>>CM7000 no es mi amigo!  It goes...
>>
>>My only problema now is that I have uninstalled everything possible but there is
>>still 9MB of junk hidden somewhere, probably DirectX crap.  I've also got a
>>joystick controller now, but I never wanted one!  Oh well, I'll weed it all out
>>little by little over the coming months, a good reminder not to trust Mindscape
>>stuff again.  I really like CM5000-CM6000, and am sorry (personally
>>disappointed) that CM7000 is a lemon (in my hands).
>>
>>It may work OK for some people. Some are reporting that it does. But there are
>>also those who, like me, are finding it very buggy. That is the challenge of
>>software writers, to make their product compatible with the very broad range of
>>computer equipment in current use. The final statistics are yet to be known, but
>>chalk me up (and Michael Cummings above) on the negative side.
>>
>>--JRM
>
>Yep you are right, very hard to trust CM7000 again, and even further Chessmaster
>products from them.
>
>I have never had any trouble before, and I always supported them fully, Well the
>King engine and the stregnth of it at least. The interface always had some bugs.
>
>But if a program burns me this badly once, I am very untrusting to using it
>again.
>
>Let me just say from my experience it is not just the program having a few bugs,
>all Chessmaster programs have that, but when it start hitting at my core
>settings and stuffing up important other porgrams that are vital to me and my
>work then it is enough for me to say stuff Mindscape forever.
>
>Chessmaster bugs I can handle as long as they do not interfer with me playing a
>game of chess. But when it goes beyond the chessmaster program and into my other
>programs and running my system then well it is just not worth it anymore.

IIRC, this happens every time CM releases a new version.  There's always a
DirectX being installed.  There's always some video drivers getting clobbered.
There's always a pile of people (not just here, also people that I speak to in
person) who complain that it's quite broken.

But every year, people buy the next CM... so Mindscape must be doing something
right.

Dave



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