Novag Secondo Manual or Level Info

[SirDave]

Is it just me or would once expect that when an eBay chess board is advertised as New In Box that one would expect the manual to be enclosed. Ordinarily, it is my practice to ask about the presence of the manual before buying on eBay, but I only saw it a few hours before the end of the Buy Now time so I assumed that NIB meant that everything was included.

I've always wanted to get the Secondo because I have a special interest in portables and it seemed to have a very good form factor. As it turns out it does and it would have been nice if Novag had put a stronger program in it.

Anyway, the Novag Secondo I bought is in very good shape and the pieces are still in the original wrappters, but there is no manual. Does anyone know what the Levels are for the Secondo? All I know is that there are 64 Levels and that it has the same program as the Novag Allegro 4. Any help would be appreciated.

[Monsieur Plastique]

Is it just me or would once expect that when an eBay chess board is advertised as New In Box that one would expect the manual to be enclosed.

Nope. It's just you Dave. You got the unit and the box, exactly as advertised

On a serious note, I seem to remember the Secondo we owned was only 8 levels, or maybe 8 levels plus an infinite. I might ask my brother if he remembers next time I speak to him.

Edit: Spacious mind website says 16 levels plus a (mate solving?) one.

http://www.spacious-mind.com/html/secondo.html

Hopefully Nick will see your post as I assume he has the manual for his (if he still owns it). I actually think the Secondo is the portable version of the Uno though (which does have the 16 levels). In which case, here is the Uno manual from Alain's site:

http://isabelle.zanchetta.free.fr/NovagUnoUS.pdf

[klute]

I was going to bid on that Secondo. I contacted the seller, but he only ships within the US.

The Secondo is an interesting machine. It was the only Novag model to use that housing and also had the largest opening book Kittinger ever stuffed into a 4K program - 1,650 ply. Program-wise, it was basically a Novag Solo on steroids. It was capable sometimes of playing impressive moves for what it was, but all too often would ruin a good position by playing something inexplicably stupid, even for a 4K machine. Yes, it had 16 levels (The Uno is the same thing in tabletop form) and they were quite interesting.

Despite (or perhaps because of) its quirkiness, I still miss mine from a quarter of a century ago. About 10 or 15 years ago there were lots of new ones running around on eBay. I still suspect there may be a cache of new ones hidden somewhere - Novag churned out a fair few of these babies.

If anyone comes across the Secondo cache, I'll take two or three please! They must of course come with their pieces still on sprues and in nice crisp boxes - with manuals of course!

[SirDave]

Jon & Klute, thanks for the replies and info. It does look like the Novag Uno manual will work. For instance, when I was trying out the Secondo on my own, it took awhile to figure out how to set a Level (though I didn't know what the Level itself would be). Every time I set the level to, say, A7, when I pressed NewGame, the level would revert to A1. I found out that you must press NewGame, press SetLevel until you reach A7 then immediatly enter your first move.

When you read the UNO manual, it says: 'To set to any of these playing levels, press SET LEVEL and you will see the current level setting. If this is not the level that you wish to use, please press SET LEVEL key until the level you require is reached... Now you must enter your first move... If you press the NEW GAME key the level of play will always be set to 1.'

So the manual confirms what I found and my guess would be that the 16 Levels described for the UNO should match those of the Secondo. None of the later Novag portables that I have lose the selected Level when NewGame is pressed so this characteristic of the Secondo must be the same for the Novag portables of that time period.

I played around with the Secondo a bit today. No doubt, it's a relatively weak program, but still fun to knock off a quick game. And as Klute mentioned, it is surprising to see that it actually has some basic openings. It really is a nice design- it's a shame that Novag didn't do more with it.

[Monsieur Plastique]

It really is a nice design- it's a shame that Novag didn't do more with it.

It was also an extremely solidly built unit. The case was very rugged and the plastic used was strong and thick whilst being exceptionally wear and impact resistant. For that reason alone it was one of the very best beginner's portables ever produced. I consider the Secondo to be the cockroach of dedicated chess computers. After Armageddon, there will be cockroaches, McDonalds cheesburgers and Novag Secondos (probably without boxes and manuals though).

Enjoy the machine.

Enjoy the plastic.