HIARCS Chess Forums

The manual will be sold separately for $50 missing pages 5 and 14.

Thanks Larry. Lucky for me, it wasn’t the Jade II or the Amber. Btw, regarding using a portable chess unit on a plane, it turns out that, even though the Jade II is the epitome of pocketable chess computers, it turns out that the Amber is far better on a moving vehicle. The Jade II pieces tend to fa...

Since I just added yet another Novag Jade II (my 3rd) to my collection which for the first time is in near new condition and comes complete with everything, I decided to return to more frequent playing of the Jade II and Amber, my two favorite portables. Thus, I thought I would review their Openings...

This is interesting. If you click the link below, the Zircon II manual PDF is there in full. Perhaps the library of manuals still exists. Here’s hoping the main site being down is only a temporary problem. If something more serious, I hope Alain can transfer the manual PDFs to another site. Afaik, t...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/284297782945? It’s pretty much the ideal travelling chess computer, just right for those aircraft tables. The pressure required to operate the squares is perfect. Kick-butt playing strength. Larry Hi Larry! Where are you going to put that board when the attendant comes by w...

I would avoid the Radio Shack 2250xl. I sold mine years ago. It had an interesting game and the author and programming has been the topic of many discussions, but I found it to be a big, heavy albatross. Worse was the difficulty in registering moves. You could do it by pushing hard with the edge of ...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-EXCALI ... SwtM1fzVEB

Excalibur Mirage with no pieces. Works!

Well, the LCDs work. Trust me on the rest.

I’m no expert on the HIARCS app for iPad, but I wouldn’t take the 77 Elo seriously. In my experience, Chess apps on the whole aren’t likely to do very well calculating Elos. Of course, I could be biased since I’m sure they always underestimate mine.

sorry to hear after one year in Japan your daughter could not find the Japanese version there, but still you found some fantastic english/ clone versions so that is good! I like these other versions :) The point I make is rare handheld chess computers are cheaper than rare chess board + pieces comp...

You’re not going to find a like-new Zircon II like that very often these days. I think it’s a reasonable price and am willing to bet it will sell fairly quickly at that price. If it does take a little longer to sell, it will be because shipping is limited to the U.K.

The Novag Amigo (ELO circa 1500) is a portable version of the Novag Mentor 16 just as the Jade and Jade II (ELO circa 1900+) are portable versions of the Zircon and Zircon II. The Amigo and Jade units look exactly the same except keys that are orange on the Amigo are red on the Jade. The design is p...

The RS 1680X used the normal 30 sec/move setting: H5, which should be the strongest. I wanted to check if the Saitek Sensor XL played the same moves, but I have trouble finding it, my attic is a mess... Hi Paul, I was waiting with interest to see whether the Sensor XL responded exactly the same way...

If one of these sold for $500 recently, then $548-$600 is not an unreasonable price. These units and ones like them come up so rarely on eBay, the ‘fair’ price is what the market will bare.

$1200 for a Fidelity CC1 http://www.ebay.com/itm/FIDELITY-ELECTRONICS-CHESS-CHALLENGER-GAME-YOU-AGAINST-THE-COMPUTER-VINTAGE-USA-/142493584784?hash=item212d478d90:g:axYAAOSwc49Y7ve8 I Dont think so however the auction is not a total waste for those that track CC1 serial Numbers... Eighth Photo From...

It's nice to see this mystery finally solved once and for all since I started this thread over 5 years ago. I often wondered how a company could market a board and then, all of a sudden, change it to something completely different even though externally it looked exactly the same as did the packagin...