Power Chess by Sierra. ..Any of you?

[Fernando]

I have tried several times to get again PowerChess 98, the Sierra program of the year 98 with Kittinger Wchess engine and a lot of very attractive features, including the voice of the lady that incarnate the Queen. I have not been capable. Here and there the program is offered divided in two parts for download, each suposedly to make an ISO disk. No way. Or I am an idiot or I became too old or whatever,I cannot put it to work, so...

So, if any of you have this program in some kind of vehicle -disk, USB, whatever platform- capable of working in my W10 machine or in in one of my W11 machines, I am prepared to pay a juicy amount of money for it. I am talking of no less than three bucks and my thanks....

I have the files I have downloaded from the Archive Internet site, in Zip format, but. as I said, I cannot make them work. Looks like the format is too old or something.

Fern

[pennine22]

Hi Fernando

Your query piqued my interest as have just finished repairing a cheap Toshiba 486/50 laptop from the mid 90s running Windows 95 and enjoying running WChess and Rebel Decade on original kit rather than an emulator in a modern Windows OS.

Noticed the Power Chess 98 original CD outfit on eBay UK for less than £4 so have bought and see if can get working and report back. Also an opportunity if it works to see if any compatibility Mode for Windows 10/11 works.

There's a couple on eBay US as well in single figures but silly postage charges if not in the US.

David

[Larry]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=7PewfiVEGXY
For what it’s worth…best of luck.

[Fernando]

Thanks Larry, but the intructions to perhaps get it working are longer than the pilot checking of a Jumbo jet......
Fern

[Fernando]

Hi Fernando

Your query piqued my interest as have just finished repairing a cheap Toshiba 486/50 laptop from the mid 90s running Windows 95 and enjoying running WChess and Rebel Decade on original kit rather than an emulator in a modern Windows OS.

Noticed the Power Chess 98 original CD outfit on eBay UK for less than £4 so have bought and see if can get working and report back. Also an opportunity if it works to see if any compatibility Mode for Windows 10/11 works.

There's a couple on eBay US as well in single figures but silly postage charges if not in the US.

David

David, I hope you will be succesfull

Fern

[pennine22]

Hi folks

Reporting back on trying Power Chess (dated 1996) on a Win 10 laptop in case of interest. 

- initial source of disc 1 (Install) and disc 2 (Play) CD drives were iso images created using Afterburn from the original 2 CD set have just bought.

- installed open access Oracle Virtual Box on laptop which allows older OS's to run within a virtual environment.

- within Virtual Box installed Windows 98 using an iso image of the install disc from the Internet Archive site.

- Power Chess installed successfully in Windows 98 in Virtual Box from disc 1. (It did not install using a virtual Windows XP, with Windows ME it did install and run but only supports VGA with 16 colours.)

- when installed, the iso of the Play disc has to sit in the virtual CD drive as prog accesses this.

- with default Virtual Box video driver this gives VGA 16 colour which gives basic functionality.

- downloaded a virtual display driver set to give 256 colours (optimal for the Power Chess) and 1024 screen.

- seems to work fine with various features so far, an autoplay did hang but a repeat with shorter time chugged along fine, classic games played to end with the Queen's sultry dialogue.

- to check playing OK to mate, Power Chess Queen mated Chess Tiger Pro in 29 moves at novice 1100 ISO level.


Power Chess 98
- noticed the two disc images of this on Internet Archive site mentioned in thread. Virtual Box did not recognise the install disc as a valid file set. So not installed.

- there is a two disc Power Chess 98 download on a Russian site, these also installed fine but inspection of About is dated 1996 v1.0 so seems to be the original software.

Was running Windows Defender and Zone Alarm for all downloads / installs and nothing amiss detected but following above is at own risk.
Did notice from a back search of this forum after, that successful running in Virtual Box and Win 98 has been previously reported by 'BenRedic' with occasional glitches.

So still rather convoluted as is the other link in thread, but at least no deep diving and switching off Defender and altering Registries. There may be ways of running directly in a Compatibility mode but own trials were not successful.

David

[pennine22]

Update. The two discs for Power Chess 98 on the Internet archive site were in a bin disk image format, which Virtual Box did not recognise on my Windows 10 setup.

Downloaded a small freeware program called WinBin2Iso which converts the bin file to an iso format disk image.

Virtual Box running Windows 98 did recognise these and successfully installed Power Chess. The About page confirms this is the 98 version. Menus seem better laid out and intuitive otherwise not sure what the differences were.

David

[Fernando]

All this is like chinese for me. I wonder if you can send me a file where all that has been acomplished and i just must put the thing to run.
I know it is a lot to ask, but at my age it is a good day when I remember where the toilet is...
Fern

[Bryan Whitby]

If your not prepared to try and follow David's excellent instructions then why not just play Power Chess on an online emulator like this.

https://www.retrogames.cz/play_435-DOS.php?language=EN

[pennine22]

Hi Fernando

Unfortunately there is no easy way of bundling the way used to run. What I can do is see after installation of Power Chess 98 on Windows 98 in Virtual Box if the files it installs can be ported out of that virtual system back into Windows 10 and then try Windows 98 Compatibility mode.

The problem for me was that neither the Power Chess original discs that I have or the 98 version disc images online would not install in Windows 10 so could not get past first step.

Bryan, that DOS prog seems to be an earlier prog with the same name. Power Chess with the WChess engine was released 95/96 and then an update with Power Chess 98


David

[Quintrian]

I have the double cd box of Power Chess for windows 95. I don’t suppose this would be of use to any revival attempts? I’ve kept it because it was a sheet delight to play, and I have always hoped that somehow I could play the Queen again. I rather fell in love with her voice, even though she beat the heck out of me.

[Fernando]

If your not prepared to try and follow David's excellent instructions then why not just play Power Chess on an online emulator like this.

https://www.retrogames.cz/play_435-DOS.php?language=EN

This is not the power chess i am talking about. This I already have, no relation at all with Kittinger master piece

fern

[pennine22]

Replying to Quintrian, if you have those two discs, the same as mine, converting them to iso images will run if prepared to install Virtual Box, Windows 98 within it and then install Power Chess.

The two Power Chess 98 discs on the Internet Archive site will also work by the same method but need to convert bin to iso format eg with bin2iso software free online.

David

[Quintrian]

Thank you David… it sounds simple the way you tell it! I will give it a go, and if successful, buy you a pint.

[mclane]

As an alternative Wchess 1.05 in franz hubers dos box is similar concerning engine.