Milton Bradley Phantom Upgrade?

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trontreez

Milton Bradley Phantom Upgrade?

Post by trontreez »

I've recently acquired my first Milton Bradley Phantom Chess Computer. After playing through a game on level 6 (1min/move avg.) it didn't seem as weak as the 1309 rating given to it by the SSDF? After reading the last page of the user guide I find the following mentioned:

"Phantom is a tough chess opponent capable of beating most chess player. However, if you have mastered him at the top level at the top level and would like him to give you an even stronger game, contact us for details on how his playing strength can be upgraded"

Does anyone know if the upgrade was available and the nature of this upgrade?

Super Phantom Regards,

Your Pal
tt
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Steve B
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Post by Steve B »

Good Observation
I never heard of any upgrades

I wonder if the MB Grandmaster or MB Milton manuals make the same comments?

Hmmm Regards
Steve
trontreez

Post by trontreez »

Steve B wrote:Good Observation
I never heard of any upgrades

I wonder if the MB Grandmaster or MB Milton manuals make the same comments?

Hmmm Regards
Steve
Well I‘m guessing you have all three in mint condition so maybe you can check ;) I‘m guessing maybe MB could be upgraded to a fidelity par excellence program for a fee. Possibly as part of the deal to allow fidelity to use the MB phantom board/mechanics.

Speculative regards,

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tt
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Bryan Whitby
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Post by Bryan Whitby »

How about Mark Taylor's 'Chess Champion Mark VI' which also runs on a 6502 processor and is slightly stronger than the original MB?
Maybe Mike Watters can advise?
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Post by Steve B »

trontreez wrote:

Well I‘m guessing you have all three in mint condition so maybe you can check ;)
I do and i did
interestingly i see that comment in the little yellow box on the next to last page in the manuals for both the Phantom and Milton
however there is no such comment in the GM Manual

Now Isn't That Something Regards
Steve
trontreez

Post by trontreez »

Steve B wrote:
trontreez wrote:

Well I‘m guessing you have all three in mint condition so maybe you can check ;)
I do and i did
interestingly i see that comment in the little yellow box on the next to last page in the manuals for both the Phantom and Milton
however there is no such comment in the GM Manual

Now Isn't That Something Regards
Steve
Can I postulate that GM was possibly released in USA prior to both Milton and Phantom in Europe, 6-12 months maybe. Due to the rapid advance in CPU playing strength at the time and possibly also customer complaints from stronger players about playing strength an upgrade was offered to the European market.

Now I do agree the likely candidate would be Mark Taylor's Chess Champion Mark V but the question still remains was did MB ever make good on their offer of an upgrade? I think not.

Surely some documentation or personal account of someone getting an upgrade would have been made known to community members by now.

There does still however exist the possibility of contacting Mark Taylor and asking for the updated program and book for the Phantom or a CC Mark V Phantom compatible program.

Former Australian test cricket captain regards,

Your Pal
tt
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Post by Steve B »

trontreez wrote:
Can I postulate that GM was possibly released in USA prior to both Milton and Phantom in Europe, 6-12 months maybe. Due to the rapid advance in CPU playing strength at the time and possibly also customer complaints from stronger players about playing strength an upgrade was offered

the question still remains was did MB ever make good on their offer of an upgrade? I think not.
.
your hypotheses sounds reasonable to me as does your conclusion

as for myself..i am not very good at speculation
we have far better speculators here in the forum than I
:P Regards :P
Steve
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A possible answer?

Post by !Mike! »

Sorry for exhuming :roll: this subject, but I prefer rather than creating a new topic.

:arrow: Why simply not use Linkedin to ask somebody of MB Electronics whether there was such a module or it was ever a prototype?
I do not have an access but through Google, I found somebody who was in MB Electronics and then Hasbro.

I read in all European versions of the manual a reference to this upgrade.
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Milton Bradley: Update

Post by !Mike! »

trontreez wrote:
Steve B wrote:
trontreez wrote:
Now I do agree the likely candidate would be Mark Taylor's Chess Champion Mark V but the question still remains was did MB ever make good on their offer of an upgrade? I think not.

Surely some documentation or personal account of someone getting an upgrade would have been made known to community members by now.

There does still however exist the possibility of contacting Mark Taylor and asking for the updated program and book for the Phantom or a CC Mark V Phantom compatible program.

Former Australian test cricket captain regards,

Your Pal
tt
I read that "they had been working on an upgraded software program that would raise the rating substantially, but it never made it to production under their name."
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Post by mclane »

First I think the normal MB grandmaster is weaker then my mkv/VI .

It sometimes plays some strange moves.

Second I would say david broughton wrote the mkv/vI engine. Mark taylor maybe translated it either from one hardware platform to another or from one language into another.
(Vega Chess was developed in assembler on a z80a hardware platform. Mkv/VI was a 6502 machine. Somebody had to transfer the z80 machine code into something the 6502 understands. This person was IMO Mark Taylor.)


But I doubt he wrote the mkv/mkVI that is based on David’s Vega chess engine,

I played with mark vi in the Easter tournament and saw some brilliant games, with blunders, and also 1 horrible game, I think with black in Aljechin defence hunter variation. But overall a very good performance.

I am very disappointed that this engine was not continued.

We are searching for parker brothers pc version of chess engine because we think it could be David broughtons engine. The Atari 800 version is there but maybe the PC version is stronger ?

Help us.

And let us search for David broughtons machines/engines.

Maybe prototypes still exist.
Or data about it.


And the major question remains. How much mkv/vI IS IN THE CXG SPHINX.


And again, remember the game Sargon 2.5 versus mkVI from the Easter tournament: if this is not interesting chess....

[Event "Casual Correspondence game"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/lbzXKbVu"]
[Date "2020.04.07"]
[Round "-"]
[White "kblaubaer"]
[Black "mclanecxantia"]
[Result "1-0"]
[UTCDate "2020.04.07"]
[UTCTime "17:54:22"]
[WhiteElo "2101"]
[BlackElo "1500"]
[Variant "Standard"]
[TimeControl "-"]
[ECO "B01"]
[Opening "Scandinavian Defense: Modern Variation"]
[Termination "Normal"]
[Annotator "lichess.org"]

1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Nf6 { B01 Scandinavian Defense: Modern Variation } 3. Bb5+ Bd7 4. Bxd7+ Nbxd7 5. c4 e5 6. dxe6 fxe6 7. Qe2 Nc5 8. Nc3 Be7 9. Qe3 Ng4 10. Qf3 Nd3+ 11. Ke2 Ngxf2 12. Qh5+ g6 13. Qb5+ c6 14. Qxb7 O-O 15. Qxc6 Nxc1+ 16. Rxc1 Qd3+ 17. Ke1 Nxh1 18. Qxe6+ Rf7 19. Nf3 Rf8 20. Nd5 Bh4+ 21. Kd1 Qf1+ 22. Kc2 Qxc4+ 23. Kb1 Qd3+ 24. Ka1 Nf2 25. Nxh4 Qxd2 26. Ne7+ Kg7 27. Qe5+ Rf6 28. Qc7 R8f7 29. Nf3 Qe3 30. Nd5 Qe4 31. Qe5 Qxe5 32. Nxe5 Rd6 33. Nxf7 Rxd5 34. Rf1 Ng4 35. Kb1 Nf6 36. Nh6 Ne4 37. Rf7+ Kxh6 38. Rxa7 Rd1+ 39. Kc2 Rd2+ 40. Kc1 Rxg2 41. h3 Nf2 42. Ra3 Rh2 43. Re3 Nxh3 44. b4 Rh1+ 45. Kc2 Rh2+ 46. Kb3 Nf4 47. a4 Kg7 48. Re4 Rh3+ 49. Kc4 Ng2 50. b5 Ra3 51. Kd5 Ne3+ 52. Kd4 Nd1 53. Kc5 Nb2 54. Re7+ Kh6 55. Kb4 Rd3 56. b6 Rd8 57. b7 Nd3+ 58. Kb5 Nf4 59. Kc4 Ng2 60. a5 Rf8 61. a6 Rf4+ 62. Kd3 Rf3+ 63. Ke2 Rf8 64. a7 Nf4+ 65. Kd2 Rd8+ 66. Kc2 Nd5 67. b8=Q Rxb8 68. axb8=Q Nxe7 69. Qf8+ Kh5 70. Qxe7 h6 71. Kd3 { Black resigns. } 1-0
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Here we have a fairy tale of the day after tomorrow....
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Post by Mike Watters »

mclane wrote: Help us.

And let us search for David broughtons machines/engines.

Maybe prototypes still exist.
Or data about it.
Hi Thorsten

On my website there is a fair amount of information about David Broughton and his programs. Specifically the webpage on the SciSys Mark V Prototype which was mainly David Broughton's own work before Mark Taylor translated (and upgraded??) the program to the 6502 processor for the released Mark V.
The prototype is a Z80 machine as you can see -
http://www.chesscomputeruk.com/html/sci ... otype.html

I mention Vega and the 1984 Parker Brothers IBM PC program of David Broughton's in my UK Story article ( http://www.chesscomputeruk.com/html/che ... story.html ). I have not seen the IBM PC program myself.

Here is a link to Bernhard Drexler's interview with David Broughton - https://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/i ... ton,_David
which would suggest that apart from a contribution to the Mark VI there are not any other Broughton chess programs out there.

As for the Milton Bradley's I never heard of an upgrade seriously pursued. As usual in the heady computer days of the early 1980s the reference to an upgrade in a manual was probably more to do with assessing demand than any practical action to provide one.

All the best
Mike
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mclane
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Post by mclane »

Thanks for all the interesting information.
I will reread it and maybe ask new questions.
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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Milton Bradley: Update of GRANDMASTER

Post by !Mike! »

mclane wrote:Thanks for all the interesting information.
I will reread it and maybe ask new questions.
:D the previous two answers does not concern the subjet of this thread (MB GRANDMASTER and the update of its software)
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Post by Mike Watters »

Hi !Mike!

This is a translated extract from a passage in Hein Veldhuis' article on the MB Milton -

"The program regularly makes (gross) positional and tactical errors. Too bad that Milton plays so weak. In the fall of 1983, there was always talk of Milton Bradley coming up with a stronger playing program in early 1984. This more powerful program would then be built into the older Milton models free of charge - at the factory in Ter Apel. A free service was added on top of that. Unfortunately it has remained with these empty promises, which is actually a great pity! With an approx. 150 Elo points stronger program, this versatile robot would have been much more attractive at the time …"

Tim Harding in "The New Chess Computer Book" (1985) Page 77-78 wrote -
"The machine as initially launched is aimed at the average player. It has a program from Intelligent Software for which the company marketing the machine in Ireland and the UK claim a rating of round 1540, but saying that it would later be possible to send the machine back for a stronger program when this was developed. The magic figure of 2000 ELO was
mentioned, but I wonder... The Phantom may, if they can afford it, encourage many people to take up or resume playing chess - people who find even ordinary sensory board machines off-putting. Why would such people want a strong program? This is the luxury machine for people who do not want to be beaten by their computer nearly every time - it even has a level (level one) in which it will play normally until it is in immediate danger of beating you, when it will start giving away all its pieces and only beat you if it cannot avoid doing so!"

In the early/mid 1980s it was quite common for computer manufacturers to announce new machines and upgrades that had not even been designed, let alone developed or built. So suggestions or even promises of upgrades could be taken with a large pinch of salt. That's my take on it for what it's worth. I haven't found any references in the literature of the time to suggest that an upgrade was produced.

All the best
Mike
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Post by mclane »

David Broughton did the engine that is in the mkv.
He wrote it in z80a assembler.

Mark Taylor translated the machine code for z80a into the 6502 world.

Z80a is half that fast then 6502 with similar speed.

Alone this gives an advantage.

I doubt Taylor changed the code with own stuff.

Of course we can ask him. We SHOULD do this until he is there.
We missed all chances to ask David broughton,

Maybe somebody can contact Mark Taylor.

The MB GM I have is IMO weaker then my mkV and weaker then the MKVI.

It’s maybe a different programmer.
Or they stripped of Important routines.

The phantom with the spracklen program is the successor of the MB GM . And the spracklen engine is around 1900 US ELO.

But I don’t need yet another fidelity engine. I have zillions.

I am more interested in mkv/mkVI and CXG Sphinx because they play different.


If parker chess is also made by Broughton, kind of software version of the Vega engine, we should find out which version (Atari 800 or PC) is the best and try to relate it with known dedicated chess computer.

As we did e.g. with Sargon 2.5 or III or 4 with the dedicated chess computers by relating games and behaviour,
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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