Ron Nelson Ever Copied, Used , Cloned the Spracklen?

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Fernando
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Re: Ron Nelson and H & G Projects

Post by Fernando »

ChessChallenger wrote:I was finishing The Kishon Chesster project, and Helmut Weigel had asked for his own development unit for testing in Munich.
Dr Prommer approved the request and told me to deliver it to Munich so I could also meet the H & G team.

I did, and it was a very enjoyable visit. During my visit, I was asked to sit in on a Product Development meeting.
It was somewhat interesting and then Dr Buckhart (I think that was his name) head of Research & Development, said they wanted to develop an ARM processor chess product.
He wanted permission to hire an outside firm to design it. I held up my hand and said I would design it. He asked if I had ever designed anything with an ARM processor and I said no.
Dr Prommer turned to me and asked me if I could do it, and I said yes. So I got my first H & G project.

Then I went back home and started researching what the hell an ARM processor was. I called the chip sales rep who gave me an ARM development board on permanent loan.
I designed the hardware (after reading an awful lot) wrote the I/O code (LCD & Sensory board and beeper) with Ram Rom test code.
It was designed for a Fidelity Designer LCD housing, and I sent the working unit and source code to Munich but never learned what they did with it.

That success led Dr Prommer to ask me to design a high speed 68020 module for their modular system.
He wanted me to work with Richard Lang to get Richards program on it. I contacted Richard to discuss my Fast Code Slow Code hardware design. He had no problem with it.
I told him the test unit I had for him was layed out for two 68020’s. Did he want me to deliver a fully populated PCB so he could play with multi-processing.
He had no interest, so I just populated one half of the large PCB development unit that worked with their autosensory hardware.

I then also finished the layout of the production PCB for the module using my type of hardware design, I sent it to Munich to sample and build and await Richards “partitioned” software.

When my wife passed away in 1992, I went to Europe to visit friends and to visit H & G in Munich.
One of their good technicians, whom I had met on my previous visit, came up to me and said my fast speed module design was the most solid design he had seen. He said they had very few returns of modules using that design.

So that is the end of all the things I wanted to relate.
Ah, Mr Nelson, but WE want some others things to be related by you if that is possible!
Everyone here has many questions or at least ONE of his tastes or interest.
When I had the Chess Challenger 7 I sent a letter to Fidelity asking about the way the enfine searche and I received an answer without signature, perhaps you did it, telling me how the 7 levels of CC7 were settled. If I do not remind badly, the level "experienced" searched three ply full width. Superior levels has the first two ply at full width and then something like 5-3-2, which by then I supposed were selective ply and where 5 meant that 5 lines were searched between the many available and so on.
Was I right?
Festina Lente
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mclane
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Post by mclane »

It seems to me that fidelity was a big fish for H+G and that the problems occurred by eating the big fish.
Also it's not sure if dr. Prommer wasn't one puzzle that helped to kill H+G.

In the end we know that the dedicated chess computer companies had big trouble fighting against the PC hardware market and the fact that hardware development increased and increased and software on the pcs was able to handle that much faster.

Today we know all dedicated chess computer companies went bankrupt.
H+G was capable to rescue a little part with the millennium company
And today surprised the market with the millennium chess genius.

How will it continue? I am sure millennium will produce another machine.
And maybe another company will also try to sell something so we get competition.
What seems like a fairy tale today may be reality tomorrow.
Here we have a fairy tale of the day after tomorrow....
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Steve B
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Re: Ron Nelson and H & G Projects

Post by Steve B »

ChessChallenger wrote:.

So that is the end of all the things I wanted to relate.
Thanks Ron for your recollections
you have cleared up many questions for the community

Best Wishes Regards
Steve
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Cyberchess
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Re: Ron Nelson & Talking Chess Computers

Post by Cyberchess »

ChessChallenger wrote: Texas Instruments was working and introducing their own talking product, Speak & Spell, at about this same time. Dr. Mozer’s compression was done in the Time Domain and Texas Instruments was done in the Frequency Domain.
This explained why TI’s was a little more human sounding compared to Dr Mozer’s Cylon Robotic voice.
Very interesting research and comparison, Ron!
This brings to mind the Laplace Transforms we were required to study. My favorite feature of these early talking units was the very cool Cylon type voice.

Reciprocal Relationship Regards,
John
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Bryan Whitby
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Post by Bryan Whitby »

And as they say, RON HAS NOW LEFT THE BUILDING and has given me permission to post a recent Facebook photo of himself and the CC1 drawing he mentioned in one of his posts.
Thanks
Ron

Image


Image
Reinfeld
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Post by Reinfeld »

I just want to thank Ron for a lifetime of wonderful work and the willingness to jump into this forum and grace us with recollections and history. Kudos and again, thank you so much. Your efforts have brought me many hours of enjoyment.

- R.
"You have, let us say, a promising politician, a rising artist that you wish to destroy. Dagger or bomb are archaic and unreliable - but teach him, inoculate him with chess."
– H.G. Wells
bataais
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Post by bataais »

Dear Ron Nelson,
thank you so much for all your amazing posts you share with us electronic chess addicts. You offer us so much insight into the history.
Instead of talking about GM/Mirage/Igor/Ivan/Alexandra I want to put your 2K 8049 program into focus, of which you are justly proud. If I'm correct, it was inside the Fidelity Micro Chess Challenger, then revised in Fidelity Eldorado and was then ported to 6805 (2K version, faster clock), for Fidelity Chess Mate. This is still the strongest 2K chesscomputer in the world, and the only one that can solve mate-in-3. Quite an achievement.
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Post by ChessChallenger »

bataais wrote:Dear Ron Nelson,
thank you so much for all your amazing posts you share with us electronic chess addicts. You offer us so much insight into the history.
Instead of talking about GM/Mirage/Igor/Ivan/Alexandra I want to put your 2K 8049 program into focus, of which you are justly proud. If I'm correct, it was inside the Fidelity Micro Chess Challenger, then revised in Fidelity Eldorado and was then ported to 6805 (2K version, faster clock), for Fidelity Chess Mate. This is still the strongest 2K chesscomputer in the world, and the only one that can solve mate-in-3. Quite an achievement.
Thank you for your comments.

The Eldorado was interesting because it was produced for me (Fidelity) with my 8049 chip by CXG, Eric White's company in Hong Kong.

I have put the Fidelity Chess Mate and Avanti on my updated product development timeline, since it seems they say programmer UNKNOWN on these computer chess history online databases.

The 2Kbyte 6805 program in the Chess Mate, with only a 2 digit display, was upgraded by me to a 4K version that was used in my early Excalibur Electronics chess products.

I was thinking of publishing the 2K 6805 program source code and make a Windows simulator to run it. I tested all my software with simulators, including Fidelity Spracklen 6502 and 68000 programs.
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Post by Mike Watters »

bataais wrote:Dear Ron Nelson,
thank you so much for all your amazing posts you share with us electronic chess addicts. You offer us so much insight into the history.
Instead of talking about GM/Mirage/Igor/Ivan/Alexandra I want to put your 2K 8049 program into focus, of which you are justly proud. If I'm correct, it was inside the Fidelity Micro Chess Challenger, then revised in Fidelity Eldorado and was then ported to 6805 (2K version, faster clock), for Fidelity Chess Mate. This is still the strongest 2K chesscomputer in the world, and the only one that can solve mate-in-3. Quite an achievement.
Hi bataais

In fact the Fidelity Micro Chess Challenger 12-key (1987) seems to have been an exact clone of the CXG Pocket Chess (1986). See Hein Veldhuis's database. The 2K program in that machine is, on good evidence, attributed to Mark Taylor and David Levy.

All the best
Mike
bataais
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Post by bataais »

Hi Mike,
you're right, I meant Fidelity Chess Challenger Mini Sensory.
And Ron, publishing the 2K 6805 source would be great, it's a piece of art. I certainly would try to grasp it.
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Re: Ron Nelson Chess Challenger 10

Post by ChessChallenger »

spacious_mind wrote:
ChessChallenger wrote:
The Mirage was completely designed by me state side. Please do not mention Eric in the same sentence as The Mirage.
When Eric White copied my CC10 ROM bit for bit and started selling CC10's in the States made in Hong Kong, I grew a dislike for him. He was stupid enough however to buy them from our Stateside ROM vendor. I called them and said, look they are buying a copy of the ROM you make for us. They looked, they compared and that was the end of Eric White's CC10 in a plastic housing.
He didn't care, it got him into the business. It irked me no end that I had to work with him on producing the Ivan for us in HK.
I know you asked me not to mention the unnamed, so I won't but the collector part is getting the better of me now :)

Are you saying that there were Fidelity CC10's sold in the US from Hong Kong made in Hong Kong or the CC10 ROM was used in a foreign manufacturer's computer. Do you happen to recall which computer it was. I can visualize the two below as a possibility:

Best regards
Hi Nick,

I found a reference to the Chess Challenger 10 that was duplicated (the ROM I mentioned).
It was The CXG Computachess I. I stopped it from shipping into the US but it seems Eric sold it as Chess Mate in Europe.
Here is info from the website I found.

CHESS MATE

This Chess Mate was in a box in English and French, without trademark, year or country origin. it was bought in 1981. However, the operating manual logo looks like the CXG Computachess one.

A simple comparison of the playing levels and the keyboard, shows that it's a Chess Challenger 10 clone, with a lower speed. In fact, the user manual is optimistic: the Chess Mate is two time slower than a Chess Challenger 10; the processor is a Z80 / 2MHz instead of 4.

Image
Level comparison

Image
Keyboard comparison.

Image
The unit

Regards,
Ron
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spacious_mind
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Re: Ron Nelson Chess Challenger 10

Post by spacious_mind »

ChessChallenger wrote:
spacious_mind wrote:
ChessChallenger wrote:
The Mirage was completely designed by me state side. Please do not mention Eric in the same sentence as The Mirage.
When Eric White copied my CC10 ROM bit for bit and started selling CC10's in the States made in Hong Kong, I grew a dislike for him. He was stupid enough however to buy them from our Stateside ROM vendor. I called them and said, look they are buying a copy of the ROM you make for us. They looked, they compared and that was the end of Eric White's CC10 in a plastic housing.
He didn't care, it got him into the business. It irked me no end that I had to work with him on producing the Ivan for us in HK.
I know you asked me not to mention the unnamed, so I won't but the collector part is getting the better of me now :)

Are you saying that there were Fidelity CC10's sold in the US from Hong Kong made in Hong Kong or the CC10 ROM was used in a foreign manufacturer's computer. Do you happen to recall which computer it was. I can visualize the two below as a possibility:

Best regards
Hi Nick,

I found a reference to the Chess Challenger 10 that was duplicated (the ROM I mentioned).
It was The CXG Computachess I. I stopped it from shipping into the US but it seems Eric sold it as Chess Mate in Europe.
Here is info from the website I found.

CHESS MATE

This Chess Mate was in a box in English and French, without trademark, year or country origin. it was bought in 1981. However, the operating manual logo looks like the CXG Computachess one.

A simple comparison of the playing levels and the keyboard, shows that it's a Chess Challenger 10 clone, with a lower speed. In fact, the user manual is optimistic: the Chess Mate is two time slower than a Chess Challenger 10; the processor is a Z80 / 2MHz instead of 4.

Image
Level comparison

Image
Keyboard comparison.

Image
The unit

Regards,
Ron
Hi Ron,

Thanks for the clarification. I had forgotten about the Chess Mate. I have not gotten around to doing a webpage for my Toytronic.

It is correctly listed in the link below. It looks like there is a typo on that page though as the quartz shows 2.0 MHz but it is specified as 2.5 MHz. There is a picture of it opened as well.

http://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/in ... lectronics

Best regards
Nick
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Steve B
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Re: Ron Nelson Chess Challenger 10

Post by Steve B »

ChessChallenger wrote:

I found a reference to the Chess Challenger 10 that was duplicated (the ROM I mentioned).
It was The CXG Computachess I. I stopped it from shipping into the US but it seems Eric sold it as Chess Mate in Europe.
Well we shall now consider the ChessMate /ComputaChess I as Illegal Clones
let all web sites across the land record this

another well know illegal clone of one of your programs is the Brazilian made Splice Byte XD300
it is a clone of your CC7 Program

Image

Actually the computer is a highly sort after collectors item
showing that sometimes collector's can be ...

Ruthless Regards
Steve
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Re: Excalibur Electronics

Post by 12voltios »

ChessChallenger wrote:I am the one whose name is on US Patent 4,235,442.
I am the one who programmed every line of code for every chess game produced by Excalibur Electronics. There was no team. Just me.
I designed every schematic, every circuit board, every housing.
I wrote and desktop published every Instruction Manual.
I designed everything about the Excalibur LCD Chess. It's new housing design was later copied by Sony in their Walkman Bean.
I designed and programmed the Excalibur Gametime Chess Clock.

The Excalibur Grandmaster design is totally my work. I wrote the H8 code.
The book openings for all the Excalibur Chess Games was designed by Larry Kaufman. Larry Kaufman is a most brilliant Chess Master that understood computer chess search. He would explain to me how Franz Moerch evaluated positions, just by playing his program. He was incredible. He wrote a list of things for an evaluation function and how to balance it. His piece weightings were different than the Spracklens.

mmm Chess Engines...Look at the published Z80 Sargon code, When the 6502 code was demoed at Fidelity, Dan couldn't stop saying how fast it was.
There was a dramatic software design change. All static eval and fast search,
When I finally saw the source code I cried. It was the most unprofessional program I had ever seen, Because of the Apple II development limitation all comments were skipped. All labels brief. Only Dan could maintain and add code. But Dan explained it was the Attack Bitmaps that was the major improvement. In 1981 at the California ACM Computer Chess Tournament, Kathy introduced me to their friend Ken Thompson. I asked him about his Belle hardware chess machine, and he was quick to explain how the Hardware Attack Bitmaps worked. I realized that attack bitmap approach was now in a Chess Challenger, but in software. I used the Belle Attack Map generation on my H8 program.
I have a Grandmaster Excalibur 747K that was working fine. I pressed the off button to pause a game and the game will not start any more. I have reviewed many of the available sources and cannot find schematics to help me troubleshoot. Would welcome any help from the audience in guiding me on how to perform this repair. All squares were functioning fine with the magnetic pieces and the board has not sustained any hard hits. I think that me leaving some batteries for a long time may have caused some corrosion but I cleaned the contest and this appeared to not cause any damage. I opened the board and find that the on button is receiving 2.0 volts when I press it. Not sure what happens next or were the signal goes to but I want to bring it back to life. The reset button is not doing anything either. Any help or comments welcomed and I can be reached at dannyt1 at hotmail dot com for any suggestion. I can also be reached by phone at 407 802 8875. my name is Daniel.

Thank you!
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Re: Ron Nelson Chess Challenger 10

Post by Graham Banks »

ChessChallenger wrote:Image

Regards,
Ron
The first chess computer I owned. :)
Lovely looking unit with nice wooden pieces, but t wouldn't castle though.
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