OLD COMPUTERS, DOS, DOSBOX & EMULATORS RATING TESTS

spacious_mind · Post by **spacious_mind** » Sun Mar 06, 2016 2:41 pm

With Bryan B having recently tested Psion 2 from Richard Lang in DOSbox, I thought I would do the same with an Atari ST emulator.

Bryan's Test: http://www.hiarcs.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7627

Here is what an Atari ST looks like:

ATARI ST - ATARI INC - 1986

http://www.spacious-mind.com/html/atari_1040_stf.html

It has an 8 MHz Motorola MC68000 16 Bit processor with 512 KB RAM expandable up to 4 MB.

Since I wanted to test performances between Bryan's DOSbox test and the 68,000 processor, I decided to use the STEEM emulator to test Atari ST Psion 2.0.

STEEM ATARI ST EMULATOR 8 MHZ 4MB RAM

The above picture shows the standard Atari ST configuration that I set up with maximum RAM of 4 MB. STEEM does not provide the operating system TOS ROM. Therefore you really need to get the ROM from your Atari ST to operate the STEEM emulator.

STEEM ATARI ST EMULATOR 8 MHZ 4 MB RAM - PSION 2.0 - RICHARD LANG - 1986

PSION V. 2.0 3D VIEW

PSION V. 2.0 2D VIEW

The 3D view is a little cumbersome so I always play in the 2D view regardless of what operating system. By turning on the ANALYSIS you can also follow the current thought process of Psion Chess.

STEEM ATARI ST 8 MHZ 4 MB RAM PSION 2.0 RATING TEST RESULT

STEEM Atari ST emulator finished with a score of 2011 ELO. This is 21 ELO less than Bryan's DOSbox test score.

Next I tried to run STEEM at full speed to see how much improvement you could get out of Psion 2.0.

STEEM ATARI ST EMULATOR 128 MHZ 14MB RAM

The maximum configurable setting is 128 MHz and 14 MB RAM which is exactly 4 times faster than the standard Atari ST.

STEEM ATARI ST 128 MHZ 14 MB RAM PSION 2.0 RATING TEST RESULT

Atari at 128 MHz, Psion 2.0 finished with a rating score of 2242 ELO! That is 231 points better than standard Atari ST at 8 MHz. If you divide 231 points by 4 you get 57.75 points per speed doubling.

Bryan's DOSbox Psion 2 test scored 21 points better than standard ST therefore 21/57.75 = 36.36%. Therefore Bryan's DOSbox played at the approximate equivalent of an Atari ST Psion 2 running at 11 MHz.

The 68,000 processor running at 128 MHz is approximately the equivalent to:

6502 processor running at 50 MHz
68020 processor running at 72 MHz
68030 processor running at 60 MHz
I286 processor running at 13 MHz
I386 processor running at 10.5 MHz
I486DX2 processor running at 3.6 MHz

Therefore interesting is that the Mephisto Berlin Pro 68020 24 MHz program that is related to Genius 2 scored 2253 in these tests which is an approximate speed doubling reduction of 1.5. Therefore if you take the Atari ST score of ELO 2242 ELO and deduct 87 ELO, you get a score of 2155 ELO for Psion 2. Therefore you could estimate that if Genius 2 and Psion 2 were to run on a 68020 24 MHz processor, that Genius 2 plays better by 98 ELO. (Genius 2 improvement over Psion 2 on a 68,020 24 MHz).

Best regards

spacious_mind · Post by **spacious_mind** » Sun Mar 06, 2016 8:49 pm

Here is a test game between Steem Atari ST 128 MHz 4 MB RAM Psion 2.0 against Novag Scorpio which is a 68000 16 MHz.

Test Game 1

[Event "Computer Test Match"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2016.03.06"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Novag Scorpio, 30S AV."]
[Black "Atari ST Emu 128 MHz Psion 2, 30S AV."]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B15"]
[WhiteElo "2039"]
[BlackElo "2242"]
[Annotator "Milicev,Nick"]
[PlyCount "124"]
[EventDate "2016.03.06"]
[EventType "match (rapid)"]
[EventRounds "4"]

1. e4 c6 2. Nc3 d5 3. d4 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nf6 5. Nxf6+ exf6 {Novag Scorpio out of book} 6. Be2 {STEEM Atari ST 128 MHz 14 MB Psion 2.0 out of book} Be6 7. Nf3 Bd6 8. O-O O-O 9. Re1 Re8 10. c3 Nd7 11. Be3 Bf5 12. Bd3 Bxd3 13. Qxd3 Qc7 14. c4 c5 15. Rad1 cxd4 16. Qxd4 Re6 17. Qd5 Nb6 18. Bxb6 Rxe1+ 19. Rxe1 Qxb6 20. Re2 Rd8 21. Qe4 Bc5 22. Qc2 h6 23. a3 a5 24. Qa4 Bf8 25. Qc2 Qc6 26. Re4 Bc5 27. Re1 Qd7 28. Kh1 Qd6 29. Qe2 Qb6 30. Kg1 Qb3 31. h3 Qb6 32. Qc2 Qc6 33. Kh1 Qc7 34. Re2 Qb6 35. Kg1 Qc6 36. Rd2 Rxd2 37. Qxd2 Bb6 38. Qd5 Qc5 39. Qxc5 Bxc5 40. Ne1 Kh7 41. g3 Kg6 42. Nd3 Bd4 43. Kg2 a4 44. Kf3 f5 45. h4 Kf6 46. Ke2 g5 47. Kd2 Kg6 48. hxg5 hxg5 49. f3 g4 50. Ke2 gxf3+ 51. Kxf3 Kg5 52. c5 f6 53.
Kg2 Kg4 54. Nf2+ Bxf2 55. Kxf2 f4 56. gxf4 Kxf4 57. Ke2 Ke4 58. Kf2 Kd3 59. Kf3 Kc2 60. Ke4 Kxb2 61. Kd4 Kxa3 62. Kc3 f5 0-1

Psion 2.0 outplayed Novag Scorpio in the endgame.

[fen]8/1p6/5p2/2P2pk1/p2b4/P2N1KP1/1P6/8 w - - 0 53[/fen]

Psion 2 maneuvered Novag Scorpio into a nice Zugzwang.

Novag Scorpio is rated at ELO 2039 at Schachcomputer.Info. Based on this first game I suspect that Psion 2 with 128 MHz is a little too strong for Scorpio.

Best regards

Bryan Whitby · Post by **Bryan Whitby** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 9:34 am

Hi Nick

I remember standing in WHSmith's in Chester back in 1984 looking at a promotional video for the new Sinclair QL featuring the Psion Chess program. I never did buy the QL as it was out of my price range.

I did however own a Sinclair Spectrum 48K and managed to produce my first chess program called the 'Chess Data System' which provided me with a graphical chess database of all my International and National correspondence tournament games.

This is Sinclairs latest offering for 2016 which you can read about here;
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the- ... -console#/

Retro regards
Bryan

spacious_mind · Post by **spacious_mind** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 1:18 pm

Chessmaster Ireland wrote:Hi Nick

I remember standing in WHSmith's in Chester back in 1984 looking at a promotional video for the new Sinclair QL featuring the Psion Chess program. I never did buy the QL as it was out of my price range.

I did however own a Sinclair Spectrum 48K and managed to produce my first chess program called the 'Chess Data System' which provided me with a graphical chess database of all my International and National correspondence tournament games.

This is Sinclairs latest offering for 2016 which you can read about here;
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the- ... -console#/

Retro regards
Bryan

Hi Bryan,
Yes the Sinclair Vega looks pretty good. I might have to see about getting one.
You had mentioned before that you had created a chess program for the Spectrum. Do you still have it?

The first home computer I ever saw was a Commodore Vic 20 which someone had. I remember playing one of those Infocom Adventure games on it. It spurred me to want to buy a home computer myself. I remember buying at Dixon's a Spectrum 48K which cost around 100 GBP which was cheaper than the Commodore 64 that was selling at about GBP 140 or 150. Anyway I took the Spectrum home and played it over the weekend and I disliked it because of the flickering screens that it had on some games. So on the Monday morning I took it back and talked the shop into letting me upgrade it to the Commodore 64. A couple of years later I bought the Commodore Amiga and Sinclair QL. The Sinclair QL was good but it only had a few games on it which was of course Psion Chess and an Adventure game called The Pawn. So the Amiga really ended up being my games machine.

The QL however I used a lot for several years because it had this superior spreadsheet software called Abacus and word processor which I think was called The Quill.

I used to take the QL to work because of the spreadsheet which was superior to the Spreadsheet software we had at work running off a Mainframe business computer. So I created a lot sales catalogs and price lists and production cost calculations on the QL. It kind of taught me to be a guru with spreadsheets. Even MS-Excel today is hardly better than what Abacus was on the QL.

Funny is that nowadays I do have a Spectrum 48K and +3 as well as a Timex Sinclair which is the U.S. version of the Spectrum 48K. I also have pretty much all the chess software that was ever made for it.

Believe it or not recently I bought an Oric Atmos, Dragon 32 and Acorn Archimedes to add to my computer collection with chess programs

ps. I also still have the Sinclair QL with Psion Chess. Some other British computers that I have are a couple of Amstrad's and BBC Master and Electron and of course all the chess software that was written for them.

Best regards

Bryan Whitby · Post by **Bryan Whitby** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 1:43 pm

Very interesting Nick, some great names from the past.

No I don't still have a copy of my chess database but one here's one interesting memory about it.

When I started new games in the British Correspondence Chess Society tournaments, I would always ask my opponents if they owned a Sinclair Spectrum. If they did then I would tell them about my graphical chess database and ask them if they would like to play the game via it. If they agreed then the moves where relayed on the cassette tape. I would make my move on the Spectrum and save it then send the cassette in an envelope to my opponent. My opponent would then load my 'Chess Data System' into his Spectrum and there would be my move waiting for him. He would analys my move then save his move onto the cassette and post it back to me and so on.

You have to remember that we where in the very early days of affordable home computers and graphical chess programs where still quite rare not like today.

Regards
Bryan

spacious_mind · Post by **spacious_mind** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 1:16 am

Here is another test result for the STEEM Atari ST Emulator.

ATARI ST EMU 8 MHZ 4MB RAM - CHESS PLAYER 2150 - CHRIS WHITTINGTON - 1989

The above picture is the 3D chess board view of Chess Player 2150.

ATARI ST EMU 8 MHZ 4 MB RAM - CHESS PLAYER 2150 TEST RESULT

Surprisingly Chess PLayer 2150 scored a little better than Psion Chess with final score of 2023 ELO

I also ran the same test with the Atari Emulator running at 128 MHz (4 times faster)

ATARI ST EMU 128 MHZ 14MB RAM - CHESS PLAYER 2150 - CHRIS WHITTINGTON - 1989

The above picture is the 2D view of Chess Player 2150.

ATARI ST EMU 128 MHZ 14 MB RAM - CHESS PLAYER 2150 TEST RESULT

At 128 MHz Chess Player 2150 finished with a final rating of 2179 ELO. At this speed it performed not quite as well as Psion Chess.

At 4 times faster Chess Player 2150 improved its rating by 156 ELO which equals an improvement of 39 ELO per doubling.

Best regards