Author: Karsten Bauermeister
Date: 03:41:09 02/02/99
Go up one level in this thread
On February 01, 1999 at 17:02:45, Charlie GOLD wrote: > > Portable II, 1982 is a hand-held, mains/batteries operated key-in with >infinite levels of play, take back all moves, hint, show move, force move, time >and evaluations by an LED Screen. It can be hooked to the auto-sensory, wood >board with wood pieces(there is a led on every square)-the ESB 3000 or the ESB >6000. They both have drawer for the pieces and the portable. ROM: 16K, RAM: 2K, >MHz: 2 > Portable III, 1983 is an update of the II above...but it is actually >weaker. It has all the features of the II. > MM III, 1984 is a module/cartridge that will fit in any of 3 boards: >Plastic Modular-batteries/mains, press-sensory, medium wood board(Exclusive),.. >and the large wood board(Munich). They both operate on mains and are >auto-sensory with wood pieces. ROM: 32K, RAM: 4K, MHz: 4. Hi Charlie this time I have many objections against your posting, so I will try to write a short history about Mephisto Chess Computers. First ever produced chess computer was Mephisto (I): 1980. Prototype was a silver hand-held, except of the color identical to later produced units in black. It used a 1802-prozessor with 3,5 MHz. 8K ROM, 2K RAM It allowed to take back up to 2 plys and moves were told over a big LC-Display (four units.) You can identify this model by only one switch on the top. Second Mephisto was Mephisto II (now officially named as number II) of 1981. The program grewed up to 16K ROM, 2K RAM and run still on the 1802-prozssor with 3,5 MHz. Later there were a faster version with 6,1 MHz. You can identify this faster ones by their "beeps", which sound different (higher). Now the computer had two switches on the top. Christmas 1982 one could buy the big wooden Auto Sensory board ESB 6000. First ones for plugging the hand-held-computer on contacts in the drawer. Later there were a newer version, which were connected to the board by a cable. Using the board required a special ESB II-modul, which contains the software for using the board an a larger opening book with 350 variations instead of 300 in the hand-held. Christmas 1983 there were the famous Mephisto III. As a portable like the others and as moduls for the modular and exclusive-housings. The board "München" (munich) came in 1985 with the successor-modul Mephisto B+P. The moduls were a little bit faster than the portables. 8 MHz to 6,1 MHz. Now the Nitsche/Henne-program needed 32 K ROM and 8 K RAM. The most fascinating feature was the slowness of the program. It only evaluated 1-2 positions per sercond! Even less than the program Mephisto II. Later there were faster versions of this program running on the first ever used 16-Bit-prozessor in a chess computer: Mephisto Excalibur (1983) and Mephisto Exclusive 'S' (Glasgow-version 1984). They calculated 4-5 positions and 6-7 positions per second. Nevertheless it was not as weak one could think: Mephisto I played at 1250-1300 European-elo and the normal Mephisto II and III played at about 1500 swedish elo (last with 1-2 positions per second!). There seemed to be equal, perhaps there was slightly a little advantage for the Mephisto II. This program was the first one, which used a menu-system for presenting several informations during calculations (evalution + comments INFO+A1, clocks INFO+B2, depth, nodes INFO+C3. The 'S'-version additionally showed the branch it braines. Both showed a short main-line of four plys. First models of the modular and exclusive could be powered by main and batteries, later exclusive (around 1985/86) loose the fourth (!) modul-shaft and the possibility to use batteries. The only modul ever produced for this fourth shaft were the HG 170 opening-module, which make the opening book of the Exclusive 'S' (6000 plys) compatible for using it with the normal Mephisto III-program. Karsten
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.