Market profile for New bath of dedicated units

[Fernando]

I wonder if someone has bothered in investigating which is the potential market for new dedicated units. With "new" I do not imply just one really new product, with a new program and/or casing, but also any model already existent, including very old ones. I wonder how difficult would be to interest some companies to produce, say, a new bath of mephistos, Granmasters or whatever. Today is not so hard as before. New technologies make possible to market not necessarily thousands of units to get a profit. The blue prints surely are in the hands of old makers, gathering dust in a drawer. I can imagine new Champion Challenger equal to the 1981 recipe, but with faster processor and lot more RAM. Same with any other.

I am sure there is a decent market for that revival regards
Fern

[Larry]

I wonder if someone has bothered in investigating which is the potential market for new dedicated units. With "new" I do not imply just one really new product, with a new program and/or casing, but also any model already existent, including very old ones. I wonder how difficult would be to interest some companies to produce, say, a new bath of mephistos, Granmasters or whatever. Today is not so hard as before. New technologies make possible to market not necessarily thousands of units to get a profit. The blue prints surely are in the hands of old makers, gathering dust in a drawer. I can imagine new Champion Challenger equal to the 1981 recipe, but with faster processor and lot more RAM. Same with any other.

I am sure there is a decent market for that revival regards
Fern

I have thought the same thing myself over the years. With a lot of third world
countries raising themselves to our lifestyle there should be a market. It would
not cost all that much to set up the production mechanism. As you say, the
'blue prints' would be still around somewhere, or easily re-made. As for
the circuit boards, they would be much smaller nowadays. Eg, inside the
voice champion is a big crowded mainboard. That would be replaced now
with a small board with just a few components. Most of the action now is
inside IC's. The playing strength now could range from elo800 to elo2800
with a simple options menu. Maybe one day....
L

[Fernando]

I wonder if someone has bothered in investigating which is the potential market for new dedicated units. With "new" I do not imply just one really new product, with a new program and/or casing, but also any model already existent, including very old ones. I wonder how difficult would be to interest some companies to produce, say, a new bath of mephistos, Granmasters or whatever. Today is not so hard as before. New technologies make possible to market not necessarily thousands of units to get a profit. The blue prints surely are in the hands of old makers, gathering dust in a drawer. I can imagine new Champion Challenger equal to the 1981 recipe, but with faster processor and lot more RAM. Same with any other.

I am sure there is a decent market for that revival regards
Fern

I have thought the same thing myself over the years. With a lot of third world
countries raising themselves to our lifestyle there should be a market. It would
not cost all that much to set up the production mechanism. As you say, the
'blue prints' would be still around somewhere, or easily re-made. As for
the circuit boards, they would be much smaller nowadays. Eg, inside the
voice champion is a big crowded mainboard. That would be replaced now
with a small board with just a few components. Most of the action now is
inside IC's. The playing strength now could range from elo800 to elo2800
with a simple options menu. Maybe one day....
L

The point is nowhere we can find a real number about that probable market. All we can say for sure is that guys from this sites and some other of similar composition would purchase, but, how many we are? Perhaps 1000 person' perhaps more. In Germany are a lot of madmen as us. Well, being optimistic perhaps there, in the world, 500 thousands purchasers. You know, in China there are lot of manufactures that take an order for almost anything, provided they have 1000 customers....
BUT nobody has a number to show.
I say 5000, other can say that at most 500....

[fourthirty]

This could be an opportunity for a Kickstarter project. The market would determine if there was interest.

[Brian B]

In realistic terms, this effort would have to be taken up by an existing manufacturer of toys, board games, or electronic devices. There isn't enough opportunity in this market to entice anyone to create a new company with a singular purpose of selling dedicated chess computers. Otherwise, wouldn't Novag and Excalibur still be in business?

Is there a need in the market for computer chess programs? Sure. Is it currently being met by cheap third party applications on phones, tablets, and other electronic devices? Probably. OTOH, I wonder what tools beginners use to develop a greater understanding of the game?

Until someone experiences the charm of a dedicated chess computer, they really don't know what they are missing and a computer screen is just fine.

One caveat, if chess takes off and becomes a mainstream activity, then things could become very interesting.

Regards,
Brian B

[Cubeman]

I have thought about this opportunity possibility but really think that the age of the dedicated chess computer is history and never will be repeated. Main reasons are the who and why questions that must be asked (market research) of why someone would buy a dedicated machine today. In the old days (1980's- late 1990's) there was no internet so to speak of and the only way for a person keen on chess to get a game was to either play at their local chess club or play a dedicated machine, but now days you can get a game against a human 24/7 in the comfort of your own home on any of many free internet chess servers, and any $5 2nd hand iOS/android device loaded with any of the free engines would play better than any dedicated machine that ever existed in history. Also with auction sites like eBay there is always a market of 2nd hand units for sale that stop new purchases being made (which is where a manufacturer makes their money). The high prices on eBay for old dedicated machines just reflect a supply and demand issue and a certain nostalgia that people that remember those times will want to relive. I would like to say it aint so but Mr Reality says it is.

[Larry]

Even if it were to happen that some manufacturer went ahead with a
dedicated chess computer, they would not be starting a series of models,
ie, there would not be a "next year's version", just like the old days. This
would be because all the optional whistles and bells would be included, and
there is simply nothing to add next year.
There is a "Rolls Royce" dedicated chess computer coming out of
Holland, but most find it simply too expensive. The one I had in mind would
be fairly simple and user friendly, and inexpensive for the masses. It need
only be a pressure sensitive table top unit which takes batteries or adaptor.
I personally feel that a production run of 2000 units would be absorbed into
today's global market.
Of course SteveB would be right up front of the queue asking for
production serial #0001.
L

[Steve B]

Of course SteveB would be right up front of the queue asking for
production serial #0001.
L

Amen Regards
Steve

[Cornersquare]

A board computer, as it would pleasure me, should have the following features:

- be as strong as the Atlanta
- be of the size and the design of the Atlanta
- must not cost more than the Atlanta

(hehe)
... and since I have an Atlanta already, I don't need another one. Clever, what?

[Fernando]

I have thought about this opportunity possibility but really think that the age of the dedicated chess computer is history and never will be repeated. Main reasons are the who and why questions that must be asked (market research) of why someone would buy a dedicated machine today. In the old days (1980's- late 1990's) there was no internet so to speak of and the only way for a person keen on chess to get a game was to either play at their local chess club or play a dedicated machine, but now days you can get a game against a human 24/7 in the comfort of your own home on any of many free internet chess servers, and any $5 2nd hand iOS/android device loaded with any of the free engines would play better than any dedicated machine that ever existed in history. Also with auction sites like eBay there is always a market of 2nd hand units for sale that stop new purchases being made (which is where a manufacturer makes their money). The high prices on eBay for old dedicated machines just reflect a supply and demand issue and a certain nostalgia that people that remember those times will want to relive. I would like to say it aint so but Mr Reality says it is.

Clearly the days of dedicated units are thing of the past, BUT the same can be said of vinyl record and nevertheless a sufficient market appeared to tempt some records houses to produce a sizable amount of vinyl record today. Of course, as someone said, this would not be done by a dedicated industry, as Novag or Excalibur, but by any existent toy maker that can get the blue prints and produce some thousands of them. When the Chinese industry scenery is studies, it is amazing to discover the enormous number of electronic companies more than willing to produce at order anything you want, provided you have that 1000 customers numbers at hand.
The great mystery to me is this: what Novag, Excalibur, etc has done or will do with the blueprints and patents they have?

[IanO]

I've given this some thought, since I work with hardware designers and have access to a university prototyping lab. Indeed, you can make electronics more powerful than the best chess computers of yesteryear, in small batches so that you can sell each unit for $100 or so. In large part, this is because you can fit the entire functionality on one chip (thank you ARM cellphones!) The problem is all the surrounding chessboard interface. Display, 64+ high-reliability buttons/reed switches, magnetic chess pieces, case: all those add up to a lot of parts and labor, which drives the price way up for a small manufacturing run.

I think the only real hope for such a project is to make use of an existing board with a pluggable engine module, like DGT board + PicoChess or cell phone. The only way to keep prices down is to use a really cheap board, like that $20 rollup USB board that was available a few years ago.

(I also have grandiose dreams for new boutique chess computers. Imagine a steampunk-themed chess board, encrusted with brass fittings, and a steam engine driven arm to move the pieces. Spinning regulators, clanking, hissing... playing it would be quite the experience!)

[Fernando]

I've given this some thought, since I work with hardware designers and have access to a university prototyping lab. Indeed, you can make electronics more powerful than the best chess computers of yesteryear, in small batches so that you can sell each unit for $100 or so. In large part, this is because you can fit the entire functionality on one chip (thank you ARM cellphones!) The problem is all the surrounding chessboard interface. Display, 64+ high-reliability buttons/reed switches, magnetic chess pieces, case: all those add up to a lot of parts and labor, which drives the price way up for a small manufacturing run.

I think the only real hope for such a project is to make use of an existing board with a pluggable engine module, like DGT board + PicoChess or cell phone. The only way to keep prices down is to use a really cheap board, like that $20 rollup USB board that was available a few years ago.

(I also have grandiose dreams for new boutique chess computers. Imagine a steampunk-themed chess board, encrusted with brass fittings, and a steam engine driven arm to move the pieces. Spinning regulators, clanking, hissing... playing it would be quite the experience!)

I like a lot that idea of a Victorian technology style...Many wheels, steam, bands, etc. Kind of The Turk revival...

[IanO]

I think the only real hope for such a project is to make use of an existing board with a pluggable engine module, like DGT board + PicoChess or cell phone. The only way to keep prices down is to use a really cheap board, like that $20 rollup USB board that was available a few years ago.

Another idea to keep the price of the manufacturing low is to replace the switch-based board sensor technology. Nowadays, every cell phone also has a camera and a very fast processor. This should enable image recognition of the state of a chess board, and allow use of any chess set not forcing you to build one into the chess computer. I've tried getting my local university interested in chess board image recognition as a senior capstone project (since we have a professor who specializes in image recognition), but so far nobody has taken the bait.

[Steve B]

As a collector I am not so thrilled by the notion of a dedicated chess computer revival
the value of the oldies is partly predicated on the fact that there were limited quanties of these relics made and then no more
everyone is bidding on a finite number of units

flood the market with new ,stronger dedicated computers at a low or reasonable price and the value of the oldies will be negatively impacted

what would happen to the value of a Rembrandt or Picasso if suddenly they were to be reincarnated and started grinding out painting's on a daily basis?
paintings that sold for 10's of millions of dollars would now be worth $10 and a pizza

nay..its best to let the past be

Status Quo Regards
Steve

[Fernando]

As a collector I am not so thrilled by the notion of a dedicated chess computer revival
the value of the oldies is partly predicated on the fact that there were limited quanties of these relics made and then no more
everyone is bidding on a finite number of units

flood the market with new ,stronger dedicated computers at a low or reasonable price and the value of the oldies will be negatively impacted

what would happen to the value of a Rembrandt or Picasso if suddenly they were to be reincarnated and started grinding out painting's on a daily basis?
paintings that sold for 10's of millions of dollars would now be worth $10 and a pizza

its best to let the past be

Status Quo Regards
Steve

So with the purpose to keep the price of your collection you are prepared to oppose the desire and passion of many thousands?
SHAME on you!!!

...running to sell NOW my little collection regards
Fern