Ron Nelson Ever Copied, Used , Cloned the Spracklen?

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IanO
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Post by IanO »

Mike Watters wrote:Chess Computer Reports review Excaliburs several times but Ron Nelson does not get a mention. However in Vol 4, No.2 we get this -
"Excalibur is a spiritual descendent of Fidelity, as its president, Shane Samole is the son of Fidelity's founder and many of the employees at Excalibur have been former Fidelity employees. Moreover, Excalibur is based in Miami, as was Fidelity. However Excalibur unlike Fidelity has so far only marketed inexpensive chess computers. The only models of interest to most CCR readers are the Expert level machines utilizing the H8 processor and programmed by David Levy and associates. These include the hand-held sensory Accolade and peg-sensory Comet, the table-top sensory Legend II and Krypton Challenge....etc.

Time to move on? regards
Mike
That sounds like simple misattribution. It is clear that CXG Accolade, Comet, Legend II and Krypton Challenge were Horvath engines. Though it wouldn't surprise me if Levy were involved on the business side. He seemed to be an engine broker.

I have no qualms with calling Ron Nelson the chief programmer of all Excalibur machines. The bulk of the effort goes to all the UI and extra features that differ between products, not the engine which remains largely the same once licensed. But we need to make a distinction between engine programmer (which we all care about) and lead programmer who makes sure all the bells and whistles work. It seems folks like Ron Nelson and Craig Barnes were more lead programmers than engine programmers.

Ian

P.S. Besides choice of levels, another clue is Horvaths "Why not?" feature in hint mode, which was retained on the Excalibur Grandmaster.
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Steve B
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Post by Steve B »

For those only interested in clickable links as evidence...
I direct your attention to items 36 and 37
http://www.schachcomputer.at/schachc1.htm

Have A Nice Day Regards
Steve
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Post by SirDave »

It seems rather sad that it is often unclear who actually programmed the core engine of many boards. If I had programmed a unit like the GM, I would want everyone to know. It's like a situation where no one is sure who composed some of the major symphonies/concertos.

Unappreciated Authorship Regards,
Dave
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Post by spacious_mind »

Steve B wrote:For those only interested in clickable links as evidence...
I direct your attention to items 36 and 37
http://www.schachcomputer.at/schachc1.htm

Have A Nice Day Regards
Steve
Not to meaning to be contradictive, but at that time pretty much every website had Ron Nelson attached to everything that was Excalibur. Schachcomputer.Info if you go back in to the archive had him listed as well. But as time went by and people who have these computers started playing, comparing and questioning, the doubt set in and the name started to be removed as there is nothing to back it up, while the games themselves cemented doubt.

Excalibur is one of the very few companies that always deliberately avoided providing any kind of technical specification for their products unless it was a copy of a CXG or Krypton or Novag manual that might have had something included. But Krypton and CXG were not much good at it either.

Give me Novag, Mephisto, SciSys and Saitek anyday when it comes to enlightenment. Shamole, Nelson and Co just loved to keep their customers in the dark. Again it is just like not looking you in the eyes when selling you something :) And we keep on buying it! lol

Strange...regards.
Nick
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Steve B
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Post by Steve B »

spacious_mind wrote:

Not to meaning to be contradictive, but at that time pretty much every website had Ron Nelson attached to everything that was Excalibur. .
that's OK Nick
I quote soething told to me by Nelson and it is shrugged away as lacking proof
in rebuttal.. I am quoted something told to some one else..

I am asked for links..I provide links
also..tossed aside as yesterdays rubbish

Novag was so forthcoming with information that nobody knew until just recently that Kittinger has had no involvment with Novag for a dozen years already.. while they still released computer after computer

Sometimes you just cant win Regards
Steve
Last edited by Steve B on Wed Jul 09, 2014 12:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mike Watters
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Post by Mike Watters »

IanO wrote:
Mike Watters wrote:Chess Computer Reports review Excaliburs several times but Ron Nelson does not get a mention. However in Vol 4, No.2 we get this -
"Excalibur is a spiritual descendent of Fidelity, as its president, Shane Samole is the son of Fidelity's founder and many of the employees at Excalibur have been former Fidelity employees. Moreover, Excalibur is based in Miami, as was Fidelity. However Excalibur unlike Fidelity has so far only marketed inexpensive chess computers. The only models of interest to most CCR readers are the Expert level machines utilizing the H8 processor and programmed by David Levy and associates. These include the hand-held sensory Accolade and peg-sensory Comet, the table-top sensory Legend II and Krypton Challenge....etc.

Time to move on? regards
Mike
That sounds like simple misattribution. It is clear that CXG Accolade, Comet, Legend II and Krypton Challenge were Horvath engines. Though it wouldn't surprise me if Levy were involved on the business side. He seemed to be an engine broker.

I have no qualms with calling Ron Nelson the chief programmer of all Excalibur machines. The bulk of the effort goes to all the UI and extra features that differ between products, not the engine which remains largely the same once licensed. But we need to make a distinction between engine programmer (which we all care about) and lead programmer who makes sure all the bells and whistles work. It seems folks like Ron Nelson and Craig Barnes were more lead programmers than engine programmers.

Ian

P.S. Besides choice of levels, another clue is Horvaths "Why not?" feature in hint mode, which was retained on the Excalibur Grandmaster.
Ian

What Computer Chess Reports and other references are alluding to is that the companies manufacturing or purchasing out of Hong Kong were asking Levy to get them a suitable chess program. Levy was either contracting the programmer to write new or amended programs, or taking a suitable program off the shelf. I doubt if the companies actually knew, or cared too much who the chess programmer was so long as the program met their spec and worked. Sometimes people misinterpreted this situation.

As far as one can tell Craig Barnes did the bulk of the chess programming for Heuristic Software and Saitek, working under the direction of Julio Kaplan with other programmers (photo of the team here -
http://www.chesscomputeruk.com/html/sci ... aitek.html)
Saitek also had programmers in the UK working on the features, I/O etc. They liaised directly with Hong Kong to produce the finished article. It was a team effort. I have Julio Kaplan and Craig Barnes down as joint chess programmers of their SciSys machines as a result of the thread on here and emails with Craig Barnes.

Up to now on this forum the chess programmer has been the important guy that we are seeking to identify and acknowledge. Not the corporate guy in charge. Not the rest of the team.

By all means we can acknowledge the important contribution of others like Ron Nelson and Levy but let's not get confused as to their role. Certainly on Schachcomputer.info and other active websites I wouldn't want to see people misled into thinking Ron Nelson was the chess programmer for Excaliburs. As Dave says you want the actual author properly acknowledged.

In that regard Schachcomputer.info is getting more complete and accurate each year.

Mike
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spacious_mind
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Post by spacious_mind »

Here is Test Game 1 which we did a while back:

321 Saitek Advanced Talking Chess Dan & Kathe Spracklen 53.8 67.25% 2018
322 Sharper Image Talking Chess Companion Dan & Kathe Spracklen 53.8 67.25% 2018
323 Conchess S4 Glasgow 3.2 MHz Ulf Rathsman 53.7 67.13% 2014
324 Mephisto MM II Ulf Rathsman 53.7 67.13% 2014
325 Radioshack 2150 Julio Kaplan 53.4 66.75% 2003
326 386SX-16 MHz Rexchess 230 (Rating 2198) Don Dailey & Larry Kaufmann 53.4 66.75% 2003
327 Fidelity Excellence Model 6080 Dan & Kathe Spracklen 53.3 66.63% 1999
328 CXG Advanced Star Chess Attacking Kaare Danielsen 53.3 66.63% 1999
329 CXG Advanced Star Chess Positional Kaare Danielsen 53.3 66.63% 1999
330 CXG Sphinx Titan Aggressive Kaare Danielsen 53.3 66.63% 1999
331 Conchess T6 Amsterdam 5.5 MHz Ulf Rathsman 53.3 66.63% 1999
332 Tasc CM32 512K – 32 MHz – Gideon 1.3 Aggressive Ed Schroeder 53.3 66.63% 1999
333 Tasc CM32 512K – 32 MHz – Gideon 1.7 Aggressive Ed Schroeder 53.3 66.63% 1999
334 Tasc CM32 512K – 32 MHz – Gideon 2.1 Aggressive Ed Schroeder 53.3 66.63% 1999
335 Excalibur Igor-24 Mhz 30S Gyula Horvath/Ron Nelson 53.1 66.38% 1991
336 SciSys Superstar 36K Julio Kaplan 53.1 66.38% 1991
337 Fidelity Chesster Challenger Dan & Kathe Spracklen 53.1 66.38% 1991
338 CXG Sphinx Titan Desperado Kaare Danielsen 53.1 66.38% 1991
339 CXG Sphinx Comet Model CXG-902 Normal Gyula Horvath 53.0 66.25% 1988
340 CXG Sphinx Comet Model CXG-902 Aggressive Gyula Horvath 52.7 65.88% 1976
341 Novag Super Expert C – 6 MHz Selective 5 David Kittinger 52.7 65.88% 1976
342 Conchess T6 Glasgow 5.5 MHz Ulf Rathsman 52.6 65.75% 1973
343 Excalibur Legend II Gyula Horvath 52.5 65.63% 1969
344 Radioshack Partner 1680X Model 60-2428A Julio Kaplan 52.5 65.63% 1969
345 CXG Sphinx Titan Normal Kaare Danielsen 52.5 65.63% 1969
346 Novag Constellation 3.6 David Kittinger 52.3 65.38% 1961
347 SciSys Chess Champion MK V David Broughton & Mark Taylor 52.3 65.38% 1961
348 Tasc CM32 512K – 32 MHz – Gideon 3.0 Aggressive Ed Schroeder 52.3 65.38% 1961
349 Novag Primo David Kittinger 52.2 65.25% 1958
350 Fidelity Designer 2100 Model 6103 5 MHz Dan & Kathe Spracklen 52.1 65.13% 1954
351 SciSys Turbo 16K Julio Kaplan 51.9 64.88% 1946
352 Fidelity Little Chesster Dan & Kathe Spracklen 51.8 64.75% 1943
353 Radioshack Talking Chess 1900L Dan & Kathe Spracklen 51.8 64.75% 1943
354 SciSys Chess Champion MK VI David Broughton & Mark Taylor 51.7 64.63% 1939
355 Excalibur Glass Chess Normal Gyula Horvath/Ron Nelson 51.6 64.50% 1935
356 CXG Chess 3008 Kaare Danielsen 51.6 64.50% 1935
357 Fidelity Excellence Model EP12 Dan & Kathe Spracklen 51.5 64.38% 1931
358 Phoenix Chess – Revelation III-S Glasgow Thomas Nietsche & Elmar Henne 51.4 64.25% 1928
359 Mephisto Almeria 68020 12 MHz Richard Lang 51.2 64.00% 1920
360 Phoenix Chess – Revelation Rebell 5.0 Ed Schroeder 51.2 64.00% 1920
361 Excalibur Phantom Force Gyula Horvath/Ron Nelson 51.1 63.88% 1916
362 Excalibur Alexandra The Great Gyula Horvath/Ron Nelson 51.1 63.88% 1916
363 Excalibur Glass Chess Aggressive Gyula Horvath/Ron Nelson 51.0 63.75% 1913
364 Novag Super VIP David Kittinger 50.7 63.38% 1901
365 Saitek Astral Julio Kaplan 50.6 63.25% 1898
366 Mephisto Rebell 5.0 Ed Schroeder 50.6 63.25% 1898
367 Fidelity Excel 68000 Model 6094 Dan & Kathe Spracklen 50.0 62.50% 1875
368 Mephisto Marco Polo Frans Morsch 50.0 62.50% 1875
369 Excalibur Igor Gyula Horvath/Ron Nelson 50.0 62.50% 1875
370 Fidelity Excellence Voice Model 6092 Dan & Kathe Spracklen 49.9 62.38% 1871
371 Fidelity Excellence Display Model 6093 Dan & Kathe Spracklen 49.9 62.38% 1871
372 386SX-16 MHz Chess Friend Gyula Horvath 49.9 62.38% 1871

Regards
Nick
Nick
Mike Watters
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Post by Mike Watters »

Steve B wrote:For those only interested in clickable links as evidence...
I direct your attention to items 36 and 37
http://www.schachcomputer.at/schachc1.htm

Have A Nice Day Regards
Steve
Yes and if you look at the rest of Kurt's list you will see David Levy down as programming all sorts of machines from the Novag Chess Champion I to the CXG Sphinx 40. That's the trouble with quoting brilliant but ten year old webpages out of context.

Mike
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Post by Steve B »

Mike Watters wrote:
Steve B wrote:For those only interested in clickable links as evidence...
I direct your attention to items 36 and 37
http://www.schachcomputer.at/schachc1.htm

Have A Nice Day Regards
Steve
That's the trouble with quoting brilliant but ten year old webpages out of context.

Mike
Its not as if Kurt is dead and we have stumbled across an old manuscript or something
he is alive and well and still attending schachcomputer tournaments and still paying for his website
i am certain if he felt listing Ron Nelson was misleading he would pull it down..it would take him all of 7 seconds

as for quoting erroneous postings.. i notice the release dates you show for some computers on your timeline differ from the dates shown on the Wiki
does this discredit your site?
does it discredit the Wiki?

Totally In Context Regards
Steve
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Steve B
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Post by Steve B »

Mike Watters wrote: However in Vol 4, No.2 we get this -
The only models of interest to most CCR readers are the Expert level machines utilizing the H8 processor and programmed by David Levy and associates.
Mike
IanO wrote: That sounds like simple misattribution. It is clear that CXG Accolade, Comet, Legend II and Krypton Challenge were Horvath engines.
Mike Watters wrote:
What Computer Chess Reports and other references are alluding to is...
Sorry Mike ...
this is becoming laughable
you quote a clearly erroneous comment from the CCR(shooting yourself in the foot in the process) and then when you are called out upon it..you presume to tell us what they "meant" even though that's not what they wrote

your ideal of Facts and Evidence differ greatly from mine

Thankfully Regards
Steve
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Post by Mike Watters »

Steve B wrote:
as for quoting erroneous postings.. i notice the release dates you show for some computers on your timeline differ from the dates shown on the Wiki
does this discredit your site?
does it discredit the Wiki?

Totally In Context Regards
Steve
It doesn't discredit anyone. All you can do is try to be as accurate and complete as you can. Some people appreciate the efforts and that makes it worthwhile.
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Post by Mike Watters »

Steve B wrote:
Sorry Mike ...
this is becoming laughable
you quote a clearly erroneous comment from the CCR(shooting yourself in the foot in the process) and then when you are called out upon it..you presume to tell us what they "meant" even though that's not what they wrote

your ideal of Facts and Evidence differ greatly from mine

Thankfully Regards
Steve
Steve
Do you have a serious point or are you just being picky about the way CCR expressed themselves?

Yes our ideas about facts and evidence do differ greatly. This is your evidence -

Ron Nelson told me personslly years ago that he was the only programmer for Excalibur
he programed every single one of their computers
LED Chess
Grandmaster
Mirage
Ivan...ALexandra
King Arthur...etc..etc
this of course does not include the few chess computers they sold that were really re-badged computers from other company's like the Karpov 2254


Do you have any published sources that say Ron Nelson programmed Excaliburs. No
Do you have any evidence from Excalibur publicity material, manuals, boxes, anything. No
Do you have any corroborating persons who say Ron Nelson programmed Excaliburs or even the H8 chip. No
Does anyone even remember Ron Nelson being involved in serious chess programming in the 90s. No
Do Excaliburs play in a way which is clearly Ron Nelsons work. No
Are there only a few re-badged Excalibur computers. No

Is there published evidence to say that others programmed Excaliburs. Yes
Have these people said they programmed Excaliburs. Yes
Do those programs appear to be the work of programmers who are not Ron Nelson. Yes

Which all leaves a lot of questions. Hopefully the programmer of each Excalibur will get recognition in time, whoever it is, and Schachcomputer.info can fill in the blanks.

Best regards
Mike
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Steve B
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Post by Steve B »

Mike

as i said in my very first post in this topic
Nelson told me he was the programmer for all Excalibur computers
i also said this does not include re-badged computers
basically all of the points you list pertain to re-badged computers

in my second post in this topic i said you can believe whatever you want given i have nothing other then the mans word to go on

basically we are at a point in this discussion where we are now repeating what we said earlier in this discussion

at the end of the day....
i really have no dog in this race

if one day.. in the near or distant future.. it turns out he was telling it as it is or he lied or exaggerated his role or perhaps he meant something else by the term "programmed"... then so be it

personally i think its time to move past the topic
you can have the last word

Regards
Steve
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Post by Monsieur Plastique »

One observation I would like to add. I think I could successfully argue that I have spent more time actually playing Ron Nelson's Excalibur machines in serious tournament games than almost anyone on the planet, so I have a very good feel for their characteristics, strengths and weaknesses.

Whenever I have played these machines, particularly the last generation Alexandra, Deluxe Talking Touch Chess, etc, there has always been a feeling in my mind: This is what a Fidelity Champion Sensory from 1981 might feel like when it is improved, tweaked, given better level structures, a vastly better interface and better hardware.

The programs on the negative side seem to share that common characteristic of being somewhat incoherent, passive at times, simply having no good idea of what to do at certain times (Fernando was right on the money - the infamous Kg8 to Kh8 sort of stuff). I think I might even have said before that if I did not know what program I was playing, I wouldn't even rule the original Champion out!

On the positive side, they are reasonably good tactically for their rating, have a reasonably good endgame in comparison to other aspects of the game and of course benefitted greatly from Ron's considerable expertise on the human interface and features side of things.

For some time I had always wondered whether Excalibur / Ron had somehow had a license to early Spraklen code and that this loosely formed a basis for the Excalibur machines. On the other hand, these days I am not so sure, since Ron had terrible hardware to work with at Fidelity and his Excalibur programs were all 8 times larger, ran on vastly faster hardware and the later ones used the more efficient RISC processors as opposed to the 6502 used on the machines in earlier days (such as the King Arthur series, etc).

So for me it is not that big a leap of faith that Ron's programs simply attained the reasonably decent 1600-ish sort of strength in the end owing to more years of experience and vastly improved hardware. Some authors such as Frans Morsch and even Craig Barnes (I am thinking of the 8K Saitek Bullet here) attained quite amazing results on very modest hardware but my feeling is that Ron simply needed more space to make things work the way he really wanted them to.

As for the GM, I have great difficulty believing it is Ron's work but am happy to stand corrected. The GM is considerably stronger than all other native Excalibur machines yet the difference in hardware between even an Alexandra and the GM is not huge. Why then, would a machine marketed well before the Alexandra play a far stronger game than the Alexandra when the hardware specification differences simply cannot account for that strength difference? They are both 32K programs, they both use an H8 processor and the GM is only about 20% faster. Nowhere near enough to account for almost 200 points difference in my own testing. So to me it has to come down to authorship.
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Post by Fernando »

Monsieur Plastique wrote:One observation I would like to add. I think I could successfully argue that I have spent more time actually playing Ron Nelson's Excalibur machines in serious tournament games than almost anyone on the planet, so I have a very good feel for their characteristics, strengths and weaknesses.

Whenever I have played these machines, particularly the last generation Alexandra, Deluxe Talking Touch Chess, etc, there has always been a feeling in my mind: This is what a Fidelity Champion Sensory from 1981 might feel like when it is improved, tweaked, given better level structures, a vastly better interface and better hardware.

The programs on the negative side seem to share that common characteristic of being somewhat incoherent, passive at times, simply having no good idea of what to do at certain times (Fernando was right on the money - the infamous Kg8 to Kh8 sort of stuff). I think I might even have said before that if I did not know what program I was playing, I wouldn't even rule the original Champion out!

On the positive side, they are reasonably good tactically for their rating, have a reasonably good endgame in comparison to other aspects of the game and of course benefitted greatly from Ron's considerable expertise on the human interface and features side of things.

For some time I had always wondered whether Excalibur / Ron had somehow had a license to early Spraklen code and that this loosely formed a basis for the Excalibur machines. On the other hand, these days I am not so sure, since Ron had terrible hardware to work with at Fidelity and his Excalibur programs were all 8 times larger, ran on vastly faster hardware and the later ones used the more efficient RISC processors as opposed to the 6502 used on the machines in earlier days (such as the King Arthur series, etc).

So for me it is not that big a leap of faith that Ron's programs simply attained the reasonably decent 1600-ish sort of strength in the end owing to more years of experience and vastly improved hardware. Some authors such as Frans Morsch and even Craig Barnes (I am thinking of the 8K Saitek Bullet here) attained quite amazing results on very modest hardware but my feeling is that Ron simply needed more space to make things work the way he really wanted them to.

As for the GM, I have great difficulty believing it is Ron's work but am happy to stand corrected. The GM is considerably stronger than all other native Excalibur machines yet the difference in hardware between even an Alexandra and the GM is not huge. Why then, would a machine marketed well before the Alexandra play a far stronger game than the Alexandra when the hardware specification differences simply cannot account for that strength difference? They are both 32K programs, they both use an H8 processor and the GM is only about 20% faster. Nowhere near enough to account for almost 200 points difference in my own testing. So to me it has to come down to authorship.
Glad to see at least one person here follows my suspicions of spracklen base of some nelson-Excalibur programs.
As I said in another post, I have had the same feeling of playing an improved Nelson of the 80's. Certainly any excalibur engine plays a better game than even Chess Champion or even Elite by spracklen.

What i differ with you is the idea you are the guy that has played the most these Excalibur plastic machines.
I claim the very same thing :-)

Fern
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