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You'd be interested to know Jon that I just tested the Obsidian again to see what forcing moves the Obsidian would respond to with my d4 queen pawn opening. The results were interesting.
I got d5 and Nf6 about 10-12 times before the Obsidian replied with c6!!!
Hmmm
Lets try narrowing this down a bit Boys and Girls...
it seems those Obsidians WITHOUT the NEXT BEST feature have opening books that NEVER reply to 1.d4 with a 1..c5
i wonder if Obsidians that do have the NEXT BEST feature will get the result Pogal got with a 1/20 2..c5 after 1.d4?
Pogal ..does your Obsidian have a NEXT BEST feature that works?
if it does its possible the Obsidian with NEXT BEST has a more varied opening book and should therefore rightly gain the title of
THE BEST Obsidian Regards
Steve
I do have the Next Best button on my machine. Does the presence of this function by itself indicate the superior Obsidian? Are there models that don't?
OK, now I am starting to really get excited about Obsidians again
Another thing that we should be watching out for: a little sticker on the cardboard outer box. If it works like my Star Opal boxes, there will be a tiny black sticker (possibly on the back of the box) approximately 10 mm long by 4mm high. I am told this actually provides the week and year in which the machine was built.
So, for example, one of my Star Opal boxes has the sticker "10W47" which means November 2010. I have a much later one as well but they are identical.
I am hoping that this "sticker" scheme applies to all the orange / white boxed Novags (they all obviously came from the same factory in China anyway).
That being the case, I would be very interested to know what the sticker says on various boxes and we can cross-reference this to the machine opening behaviour (I am not 100% certain that serial numbers are always in perfect sequence in respect of actual build dates).
Chess is like painting the Mona Lisa whilst walking through a minefield.
You'd be interested to know Jon that I just tested the Obsidian again to see what forcing moves the Obsidian would respond to with my d4 queen pawn opening. The results were interesting.
I got d5 and Nf6 about 10-12 times before the Obsidian replied with c6!!!
Hmmm
Lets try narrowing this down a bit Boys and Girls...
it seems those Obsidians WITHOUT the NEXT BEST feature have opening books that NEVER reply to 1.d4 with a 1..c5
i wonder if Obsidians that do have the NEXT BEST feature will get the result Pogal got with a 1/20 2..c5 after 1.d4?
Pogal ..does your Obsidian have a NEXT BEST feature that works?
if it does its possible the Obsidian with NEXT BEST has a more varied opening book and should therefore rightly gain the title of
THE BEST Obsidian Regards
Steve
I do have the Next Best button on my machine. Does the presence of this function by itself indicate the superior Obsidian? Are there models that don't?
Oh Yes there are Obsidans that dont
begin reading here...
appleshampogal wrote:
I do have the Next Best button on my machine. Does the presence of this function by itself indicate the superior Obsidian? Are there models that don't?
Excellent! And yes, some apparently do not. A couple of members here have machines where the function apparently does nothing and they even have inserts in the instruction manual confirming the same.
Chess is like painting the Mona Lisa whilst walking through a minefield.
appleshampogal wrote:
I got d5 and Nf6 about 10-12 times before the Obsidian replied with c6!!!
Thanks very much for that feedback Kat. It is greatly appreciated. So your machine has now played c6, c5, d5 and nf6 in response to d4. This is significantly better than all earlier reports that suggested next to no variety - at least in terms of the "choices" made by the machine left to it's own devices.
Given you have only recently acquired the machine (and I assume it is brand new), it is likely a later build - possibly the "final" build given the company no longer actually makes any chess computers.
You're welcome Jon!
I feel fortunate. I was a little concerned about the opening book after poking around on the Hiarcs forum regarding the Obsidian, but it seems I lucked out! I wonder if Dave Kittinger created the program specifically for the Obsidian or if the program running on it has a PC equivalent. Fritz 1 plus runs on the MCC, Sargon runs on the Par... We can rule out WChess since that is running on the Star Diamond. Another user on here ("IA" I believe his name was) mentioned that the Obsidian program resembled Fritz 9 with its speculative play.
Monsieur Plastique wrote:OK, now I am starting to really get excited about Obsidians again
Another thing that we should be watching out for: a little sticker on the cardboard outer box. If it works like my Star Opal boxes, there will be a tiny black sticker (possibly on the back of the box) approximately 10 mm long by 4mm high. I am told this actually provides the week and year in which the machine was built.
So, for example, one of my Star Opal boxes has the sticker "10W47" which means November 2010. I have a much later one as well but they are identical.
I am hoping that this "sticker" scheme applies to all the orange / white boxed Novags (they all obviously came from the same factory in China anyway).
That being the case, I would be very interested to know what the sticker says on various boxes and we can cross-reference this to the machine opening behaviour (I am not 100% certain that serial numbers are always in perfect sequence in respect of actual build dates).
I second your excitement! I can't elaborate on what the box would have shown, but I do have the serial number... Perhaps that would provide a clue as to when it rolled off the assembly line?
That being the case, I would be very interested to know what the sticker says on various boxes and we can cross-reference this to the machine opening behaviour (I am not 100% certain that serial numbers are always in perfect sequence in respect of actual build dates).
OK Jon i will inspect my box for the date sticker when i get home
will post the mysterious date code if the sticker is still there
i think there is a link between NEXT BEST and a more varied book
the serial numbers did not provide much information about the two Obsidian versions
perhaps the dates will offer a hint
appleshampogal wrote:
I do have the Next Best button on my machine. Does the presence of this function by itself indicate the superior Obsidian? Are there models that don't?
I Just Re-read your reply PoGal
ALL Obsidians have the button
but on some Obsidans the Button does not work ..as you can see from the prior threads here about this
please TEST the NEXT BEST feature to insure it works
and post your results in earnest
appleshampogal wrote:
I do have the Next Best button on my machine. Does the presence of this function by itself indicate the superior Obsidian? Are there models that don't?
I Just Re-read your reply PoGal
ALL Obsidians have the button
but on some Obsidans the Button does not work ..as you can see from the prior threads here about this
please TEST the NEXT BEST feature to insure it works
and post your results in earnest
Perhaps we were a bit ...
Premature Regards
Steve
I followed the instructions and the next best function appears to work!
That being the case, I would be very interested to know what the sticker says on various boxes and we can cross-reference this to the machine opening behaviour (I am not 100% certain that serial numbers are always in perfect sequence in respect of actual build dates).
OK Jon i will inspect my box for the date sticker when i get home
will post the mysterious date code if the sticker is still there
i think there is a link between NEXT BEST and a more varied book
the serial numbers did not provide much information about the two Obsidian versions
perhaps the dates will offer a hint
Cracking The Enigma Code Regards
Steve
OK
The Mysterious Cryptic Date code on the box is as follows:
82-N16
Also...
i played 1.d4 and after about three ...1..d5's and three..1..Nf6's and one 1..g6...it popped out a 1..c5..
Between PoGal's posts and now mine we can confirm that
Obsidian's with NEXT BEST working ...seem to also have a more varied book
establishing firmly that it is the Superior Obsidian
Thanks Steve and everyone else. So much for the box date thing. I have no idea what that means. Perhaps the week / year sticker is only a Star Opal thing.
Nevertheless, looking back through the forum archives and the first (indirect) evidence as to the possibility of there being two versions of Obsidian was discussed in July 2010. This was the first time a member noted that another Obsidian was simply not playing the same opening responses as his own.
Although the discussions since have been long winded they never really been definitive. I think that now, however, we can agree that there is a direct relationship - as Steve says - between the functionality of Next Best and the openings book. The only thing we cannot be certain of is how to distinguish the two types of Obsidian sight unseen, since we have no way to establish build dates it seems, nor would I necessarily rely upon serial numbers. We cannot rely on the presence or absence of the explanatory addendum in the instruction leaflet either, since it is most likely Novag began inserting them after they discovered what I will call a bug, rather than from the very outset of initial production. Furthermore, owners lose things over time and that insert could be one of them.
But at the very least we do appear to have a test that can be carried out and it seems given Kat's experiment above, that it does not take many attempts at all to cajole the "improved" Obsidian into coming up with c5 in response to d4 - something you will seemingly never get the original version to do.
I'm now curious about the possible ramifications of the Random key used in conjunction with Next Best, etc on the improved version but those are experiments I would be happy to do myself if I decide and am able to acquire a unit (I had never entertained the thought until now because of the opening book issues).
The "good" news is that given the early discussions I alluded to above happened in mid 2010, it is quite likely that anyone buying a brand new Obsidian today will get a "good" one, since I think it is quite possible that the issue was resolved relatively early in production. Mind you, I bought two spare Star Opals last year (brand new) and they both had the Week 47, 2010 date on the boxes. But even so, assuming Novag in the final years built these things in batches, maybe there was a significant production run consisting of various Novag machines in the closing weeks of 2010 and that these bugs had been ironed out by then, given that there is strong evidence the "improved" Obsidian existed (perhaps in very limited numbers) as early as July 2010.
I think I am now correct in saying that all three final "premium" Novag machines (Citrine, Obsidian and Star Diamond) all were initially delivered with issues / bugs and that subsequent versions exist of all three with those issues largely eradicated. Whilst we could chastise Novag for bringing out buggy machines at least on the bright side it does prove that Novag were tweaking things (with assumed good intentions) right to the very end - for better or worse.
The Good Obsidian Regards
Chess is like painting the Mona Lisa whilst walking through a minefield.
I am a bit surprised no one else seems to have mentioned it. It goes against the grain of all tests that I am aware of published here, including a test of 1 d4 conducted twenty times, where all replies were 1..d5.
I am very close to being convinced there are two versions of the Obsidian out there. One with (possibly) slightly different functionality and a different openings book (or if not a different book then different weightings).
So unless Appleshampogal's game was a one in a hundred "lucky" one where it played c5 (and it won't for the next 50 years), then the evidence is starting to become quite compelling. Afterall, there were two versions of the Citrine I think, as well as different Star Diamonds I seem to recall, yet the average "layman" buyer of these devices would not be aware of this.
The question then becomes, how does one distinguish a "good" Obsidian from a "bad" one.
Greetings Jon!
It’s good that you recalled RadioSmall’s 2010 post pertaining to this very issue. I had commented that I would personally find the lack of opening variety far more disconcerting than the lack of the [Next Best] feature.
My comments weren’t based on actual experience, as my Novag ownership evolution sidestepped the Obsidian: Forte (B version); Super VIP (portable unit); Diamond; Star Diamond. The latter generation of Novag’s were all apparently plagued with some sort of bug that required rectification in the post production phase. My favorite Novag, the Star Diamond, was one such early unit containing the dreaded “French Bug”. Fortunately, I obtained this unit for far less than I paid for the original Diamond by way of an I.C.D. (Chess USA) ebay auction.
On another topic, based on my collective experience with the aforementioned units, I recall that there were 3 randomness settings: [random]; [random -]; [random =]. I distinctly recall setting all of my machines to the [random -] setting so as to reduce the occurrence of repeat performance issues without severely compromising playing strength with the [random =] setting. Based on my interpretation of the Novag user manuals and those of similar units, I believed that this feature pertained to evaluations of moves when the machine was out of opening book moves. Apparently, according to the findings of other board members, this is simply not true; the randomness setting applies equally to stored book moves. Would this also be the case with other brands (ie Siatek, Mephisto, etc.) of units featuring a randomness adjustment setting?
appleshampogal wrote:...but I do have the serial number... Perhaps that would provide a clue as to when it rolled off the assembly line?
"120910"
Hi Kat. Thanks for sharing.
I am searching for an Obsidian with a working "Next Best" feature. Received Obsidian #2 in the mail yesterday evening:
The manual is coded 85-661-004
manual copyright-2002
Serial number 212636
I did attempt a few quick openings after unpacking the unit. With the unit set to the max average time (as you did earlier), the Obsidian responded with 1..d5 100% of the time (10 out of 10). I'll attempt some more in-depth testing this evening.
fourthirty wrote:
The manual is coded 85-661-004
manual copyright-2002
Serial number 212636
Hmmmm
I think I can crack this date code
if we take the manual code and divide it by the serial number
take the square root of the result and subtract the manual copyright date we get....
Hey wait a minute...the end result is the exact year of Fernando's Birth!
