Collection Q & A and observations, no particular order

[Reinfeld]

Observation: The best thing about this hobby, apart from the money you can spend, is the speed with which you can spend it.

I'm sure Steve would agree. Doubtless he'd also say the mania never dies entirely - it only hibernates. However, I can say with some certainty that I'm nearing the spot where I can slow down.

Caveats:
- I am not in the market for early curiosities that don't play well, though they're very cool.
- I don't care about voice features, though they're fun.
- I don't care about robots
- I don't look for clones, though I have a few.
- I'm not hung up on high-end wood. I love strong machines, but the Fidelity Elites, the Mephisto modules and the TASC models are too rich for my blood, and too fragile for the degree of care I can manage.

Here's where the tally stands, after several months of hard-core activity, in rough order of strength:

Mephisto Berlin Pro 68020 - arriving in three weeks (I don't know if it contains the London upgrade, but that's OK.)
Novag Star Diamond
Mephisto Master Chess
Novag Citrine (arriving in a day or two)
Radio Shack 2250XL (Just got it - what an enormous machine this is.)
GK 2100
Radio Shack 2200X
Mephisto Explorer Pro
Mephisto Chess Challenger
Novag Obsidian
Fidelity Designer 2265 (in beautiful shape)
Radio Shack 2150L
Fidelity Designer 2100 Display (with briefcase!)
Excalibur GM
Excalibur Igor
Fidelity Chesster Challenger
Fidelity Par Excellence (in a few days)
Fidelity Designer 2000 Display
Fidelity Designer 2000
Fidelity Excellence

The rest, a dozen or so low-end machines, include older Fidelitys (including CC7 and a Mini-chess Challenger), a smattering of early Excaliburs, a Kasparov Team-Mate and ye olde Mattel handheld.

The key remaining items on the wish list:

Saitek RISC 2500 (Montreux would also be acceptable - the only two de Koning machines outside of TASC)
Fidelity Designer 2325 (or Excel Mach IV)
Mephisto Nigel Short (one Schroder machine would be nice)

Question 1: Is a machine with modules a dedicated machine? I have some ambivalence about this.

Question 2: Certain machines (Berlin Pro, Citrine, RISC 2500) don't take batteries and run on adaptors. Why?

Question 3: Complicated -

Given machines of (roughly) equal strength, has anyone tried to match programmer v programmer in isolation? In a round-robin setting, what would we find?

Example:

Lang vs Morsch/Kittinger/Spracklen/de Koning/Schroder

Who comes out on top in such contests? Would Lang perform better against Morsch or Kittinger, for example? If true, what might the reasons be? What are the similarities and differences among these programmers?

My (limited) take -

Closer to human style:

Kittinger/de Koning

Tactical/brute force, computer-style:

Morsch/Schroder/Spracklen

Strong endgames:

Lang

What's wrong with these sweeping generalizations?

- R.

[Larry]

Hi Reinfeld, Nice collection. Yes, you seem to have been bitten
by the chess computer bug. Sorry, the only cure is a complete
collection. In answer to your questions,
1. Yes, a machine with modules is dedicated, because it will
do nothing but play chess.
2. In the cases of Berlin Pro and RISC2500, you'll probably find
that because of the power drain of these processors it was not
feasible to run them on batteries, ie, the batteries would not last
long enough. Citrine, being a wooden machine, is not portable and
for that reason alone there seemed little reason to include a battery bay.
3. This question is not so easily answered, and I for one don't have
the patience to play lengthy matches. My guess is that the Lang
programs prevail at longer time controls while the Morsch programs
will be better at blitz. Morsch seems to get better performance
from his hash tables. The deKoning programs are right up there
with them, but the Spracklen programs are lagging a little behind,
unless you modify them with a 68060 processor, for example.
all the best,
Larry

[Steve B]

The key remaining items on the wish list:

And therein lies the Rub
you are never truly cured of the hobby ..once smitten
i cant tell you how many times over the years ..when closing in on all of the computers on my current "wish" list ..that i simply drew up a new "wish" list of additional chess computers i just had to have

of course ..in those days they were releasing dedicated computers consistently.. whereas today virtually nothing new is released any longer
so the universe of possible acquisitions is in a way more fixed now
i am down to about a dozen "must have's"
the sad part for me is these computers are very rare and it is highly unlikely i will ever find any of them
a few on the list have one known owner and they will most likely go to their graves with the computer buried with them

It Never Ends Regards
Steve

[ricard60]

Reinfield wrote:

Given machines of (roughly) equal strength, has anyone tried to match programmer v programmer in isolation? In a round-robin setting, what would we find?

Example:

Lang vs Morsch/Kittinger/Spracklen/de Koning/Schroder

Who comes out on top in such contests? Would Lang perform better against Morsch or Kittinger, for example? If true, what might the reasons be? What are the similarities and differences among these programmers?

On this link you will see a group of machines from Kittinger,Lang,Schroeder,Spracklens and Kaplan that are playing each other:
http://meca.mundoforo.com/vii-torneo-ol ... t1279.html

and on this link you can see the games:
http://meca.mundoforo.com/partidas-vii- ... t1298.html

hope you enjoy it.
Olympiad tournament regards
Ricardo