Playing the Vintage Chess Computers.

Mephisto Academy.

Year 1989.

Rating 2136

The computer played a near flawless game. 

Novag Accord

Year 1987

Rating Unknown.

Play was very weak, and the computer got crushed.

The Novag Super Constellation one of the all time great chess computers. And was one the best chess computers in the mid 1980's

I still remember buying the Super Connie at Labate's chess center in the 1980's

Novag Super Constellation

Year 1984

Rating 1900 USCF

This is a nice, dedicated thread I am not into machine play at all, old or new, but I think it is an important topic and your format is a great contribution. Do you have any of your old chess computers left or will you play them emulated? My memories from the early 80ies: A thing with moves displayed in writing, thinking long time and losing to us kids.. later a c-64 program called grandmaster which my daddy called grandmother because it only had one, not very sharp mode. And next, colossus chess which had stronger levels than us. But it didn't feel right to play a board game against a silent opaque opponent, anyways. We rather fell for arcade games like galaxians or burning rubber. The programmers kept going, the engines are running, we are playing. Where do we go, where are we?

I have owned many of the computers, and have tested even more of them.

But I sold off my old computers before the turn of the century. The last one I purchased was the Chess machine.

Most of the great chess computers companies went out of business or were sold off. As the PC market became much faster. And the dedicated computers could no longer keep up....

Great post. I love the look of those old high end computers.

I’m a bit frustrated … given the eclectic nature of my collecting - I sort of want an old workable chess computer and had my eye on a Novag Super Constellation for months … and alas, I pondered too long and it was gone … many others appear but I was taken with the Connie. Oh well….
For one hot second I was taken by the Mephisto Phoenix https://computerchess.com/en/Mephisto-Phoenix-chess-computer-module/M920

as it seemingly can emulate so many historical chess computers but it’s well above my price range… as good as I am sure it is. 😊

The Phoenix is not worth the price. I would not recommend it.

If you want to play on a E BOARD. That can be done for free on my set up. Minus the board.

The Novag Super Expert C.

Year 1990

Rating 1950

One of the nicest looking chess computers ever produced. I would have purchased this Novag computer, except for some reason Novag never updated the CPU to a 16 bit CPU. So I opted for the Fidelity EAG also in a auto sensor wood chess board. But not nearly as nice looking as the Novag Super Expert line of chess computers.

I almost won.....but the super expert was too strong in defense. And I was forced to bail out to a draw.

The Fidelity Chess Challenger 7

Year 1980

Rating 1200

This was my first chess computer I purchased back in 1980. I remember purchasing the Chess Challenger 7 at Sears in the toy department. Even as a kid this chess computer was very easy to trick, and beat. But the CC7 could play chess!

I thought it would be interesting to show how far chess computers have advanced in the last 30 years.

Here we will match the Legendary Tasc R30 Chess Computer verses Stockfish.

The Tasc R30 was the strongest dedicated chess computer of the mid 1990's. And was powered by The King 2.5 chess engine running on a ARM6 32bit RISC processor at 30 mhz, and costing about $2000.

The Tasc R30 was rated about 2350 to 2400 Elo.

Stockfish will be using my high end desktop powered by a AMD Threadripper CPU and OC to 4.5 Ghz. Stockfish Elo rating on this computer is about 3900 to 4000 Elo.

To make the game more interesting the Tasc R30 will be given a time advantage of 60,000x

The time controls for the game.

The Tasc R30 chess computer will have a thinking time of 3 minutes a move.

Stockfish will have a thinking time of 3 milliseconds a move.

Here is the game...

Stockfish still easily crushed the Tasc R30 chess computer will a 60,000x time disadvantage.

Here is my game with the Tasc R30.

The Tasc R30 chess system is an incredibly strong chess computer despite the Stockfish result. And played way above my class. I got wrecked....