Rasem Frakem Catalog with Dedicated Machines in it

[HPC]

So, the USCF sends me their 2013 catalog and like dummy I flipped through it. I get to page 110 (I knew I should have stopped by page 30) and there are pictures of dedicated machines and what do I see:

• Novag Citrine - I have one. I love it. Especially, connecting to a PC to play my engines.
  Saitek Mephisto Master Chess Computer - claims 2200+ USCF
  Novag Obsidian - No rating claim
  Novag Carnellian II - rating claim 1900
  Star Aquamarine - rating claim 1850 USCF
  Saitek Mephisto Chess Challenger - rating 1800 USCF

Now the handy guys

• Saitek Mephisto Expert Travel Chess Computer Handheld - rating claim 2000+ USCF - neat looking in the picture
  Saitek Mephisto Advanced Travel Chess - claimed rating 1600 - 2000 USCF
  Saitek Mephisto Travel Chess Computer Handheld - rating claim less than 1500 USCF"

Some pieces of paper have thinking of buying more dedicated units!

Some are not on the Wiki ( http://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/in ... -Elo-Liste ) like Carnellian II and the Star Aquamarine. Are these machines new or nobody wants them ?

Also, when is the annual dedicated machine tournament? If the timing is right I'd like to enter, but only via online. Trips to Europe are a bit expensive. I heard Alain is moving to the US? Maybe, some of us could gather in the US and play online against the Europeans?

[SirDave]

So, the USCF sends me their 2013 catalog and like dummy I flipped through it. I get to page 110 (I knew I should have stopped by page 30) and there are pictures of dedicated machines and what do I see:

• Novag Citrine - I have one. I love it. Especially, connecting to a PC to play my engines.
  Saitek Mephisto Master Chess Computer - claims 2200+ USCF
  Novag Obsidian - No rating claim
  Novag Carnellian II - rating claim 1900
  Star Aquamarine - rating claim 1850 USCF
  Saitek Mephisto Chess Challenger - rating 1800 USCF

?

The Novag Star Aquamarine & Carnellian II are out of their league among this list. M. Plastique makes a good case for the fact that these 2 boards have much the same firmware as the Novag Star Opal and that their ELO is not much more than around 1500:

http://www.hiarcs.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2736

[Larry]

Saitek Mephisto Master Chess Computer - claims 2200+ USCF
Novag Obsidian - No rating claim
Novag Carnellian II - rating claim 1900
Star Aquamarine - rating claim 1850 USCF
Saitek Mephisto Chess Challenger - rating 1800 USCF

Some chess comp rating claims are outrageous. If they want people
to believe the Carnelian is 1900, why not just make it 1900?... I mean
how much more would the production cost be?
I think USCF = ELO + 200, or thereabouts. The difference reduces as
the strength rises. Probably high time USCF was abolished and we just
run with elo worldwide?
Larry

[Peter Grayson]

Probably high time USCF was abolished and we just run with elo worldwide?
Larry

I guess the USCF may argue the other way around? According to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system
...
"The USCF implemented Elo's suggestions in 1960,[3] and the system quickly gained recognition as being both more fair and accurate than the Harkness rating system. Elo's system was adopted by the World Chess Federation (FIDE) in 1970. Elo described his work in some detail in the book The Rating of Chessplayers, Past and Present, published in 1978."

So USCF were the first to adopt the Elo system and it was devised by Arpad Elo for the USCF.

PeterG

[Harvey Williamson]

Probably high time USCF was abolished and we just run with elo worldwide?
Larry

I guess the USCF may argue the other way around? According to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system
...
"The USCF implemented Elo's suggestions in 1960,[3] and the system quickly gained recognition as being both more fair and accurate than the Harkness rating system. Elo's system was adopted by the World Chess Federation (FIDE) in 1970. Elo described his work in some detail in the book The Rating of Chessplayers, Past and Present, published in 1978."

So USCF were the first to adopt the Elo system and it was devised by Arpad Elo the for the USCF.

PeterG

It is a bit like the USA going 1st with NTSC for their TV system and the rest of the world going with PAL. PAL is better but they stuck with NTSC. Luckily now nearly all have 1080 lines and HD

[Peter Grayson]

Probably high time USCF was abolished and we just run with elo worldwide?
Larry

I guess the USCF may argue the other way around? According to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system
...
"The USCF implemented Elo's suggestions in 1960,[3] and the system quickly gained recognition as being both more fair and accurate than the Harkness rating system. Elo's system was adopted by the World Chess Federation (FIDE) in 1970. Elo described his work in some detail in the book The Rating of Chessplayers, Past and Present, published in 1978."

So USCF were the first to adopt the Elo system and it was devised by Arpad Elo the for the USCF.

PeterG

It is a bit like the USA going 1st with NTSC for their TV system and the rest of the world going with PAL. PAL is better but they stuck with NTSC. Luckily now nearly all have 1080 lines and HD

The NTSC system was superior to the original UK 405 lines that I can still remember. The 525 (485 viewable) lines of the NTSC were determined by a number of factors using the best technology of the day and was based around different criteria to that in the UK. The different alternating current frequencies of 50 Hz and 60 Hz for UK and US respectively played a significant role that made the different systems incompatible. As I recall not all of the PAL 625 lines are viewable with about 40 being used for teletext data transmission. As is usually the case the later, more up to date systems are better and no doubt 1080 lines gives very good resolution. My old and ancient CRT TV does not support that so I have not enjoyed the benefit yet.

Doubtful the comparison is analogous with chess ratings though because generally the rating differences are more likely to do with offset from minimum Elo starting points. In my playing days, at club level it was noticed that FIDE ratings for players were always significantly higher despite the grading systems being similarly defined but as long as the players' differential Elo is representative of the result probability then it does not make much difference. The thing about numbers though is that where high numbers are better, everyone wants a higher number. The USCF system seems to have obliged.

But here's a thought ... Perhaps always making the current best player have a rating of zero and then everyone with a value above zero would be worse by the appropriate Elo differential would provide more consistency and likely have everyone clamouring for lower ratings. No more arguments as to whether Kasparov was better then Alekhine. They would both have been rated at zero reflecting they were the champions of their time:-D

PeterG

[Harvey Williamson]

Going off at a slight tangent how did we all end up with the inferior VHS system when Betamax was far better and became the broadcast industry standard?

[Peter Grayson]

Going off at a slight tangent how did we all end up with the inferior VHS system when Betamax was far better and became the broadcast industry standard?

I always though it was cost; it certainly influenced my decision buying my first video recorder. However, reading the history of the format wars on the Wiki it seems there were a number of contributory factors, not least that Sony failed to determine "what the customer wanted" ... always a bad business mistake.

Did the BBC use a high speed disk system for their live football "action replays"? It seemed quite remarkable to have an "action replay" just moments after the actual event!

PeterG

[Harvey Williamson]

Did the BBC use a high speed disk system for their live football "action replays"? It seemed quite remarkable to have an "action replay" just moments after the actual event!

PeterG

Not something I was ever involved in. I did do the radio equivalent which involved razor blades and sticky tape A skill I have not used for many years now but one I will ever forget. The speed we used to be able to edit tape without chopping our fingers off was really amazing but as a new bod at the BBC I spent most of my 1st 2 years doing little else.

Edit: I just found this site which is run by someone I worked with in my early days at the BBC http://www.orbem.co.uk/

[SirDave]

Going off at a slight tangent how did we all end up with the inferior VHS system when Betamax was far better and became the broadcast industry standard?

That's always been an interesting subject to me and one which I've always felt had a fairly simple answer (having spent a fair amount on VCRs in those days).

The Sony Betamax hardware was always superior to VHS, but not in ways that the average consumer noticed or cared about. The typical consumer cared about tape capacity for both practicality and expense reasons not the pure differences in recording quality which couldn't be appreciated on TVs of the day. The first Betamax tapes only had a 1 hour capacity which was fairly useless considering the fact that in the 1970s & 80s, 2-hour TV movies were common and very popular.

Long forgotten is the fact that not long after the 1-hour consumer Betamax machines came out and before VHS, Sanyo came out with the 2-hour V-Cord system which is what I bought first. It was a no-brainer: Tapes were extremely expensive in those days and using two 1-hour Betamax tapes for a 2-hour movie was both impractical and ridiculously expensive!

Then the first VHS machines came out offering 2-hour recording capability at standard speed. How did Sony respond? It came out with a 1 1/2 hour capability which, again, was still useless for 2 hour movies. And then, subsequently, VHS manufacturers offered 3 hour (LP) and 5 hour (EP) per tape formats. Sony never offered anywhere near that capacity per tape. Consumers bought VHS machines by the boatload and Sony could just never get it thru its head that consumers wanted inexpensive recording capacity with reasonable, not necessarily professional, quality.

Sony has had a long history of producing quality hardware, but sticking to highly proprietary formats that consumers end up rejecting, but Sony just continues sticking with them long after the public has moved on. Cases in point are its minidisc audio player system that used a highly non-standard ATRAC recording format and the handheld PSP gaming system.

[Peter Grayson]

Edit: I just found this site which is run by someone I worked with in my early days at the BBC http://www.orbem.co.uk/

Thanks for link. Spent an hour looking at the equipment and descriptions. Not too dissimilar to the electronic equipment I recall when I started in engineering. Included great link to a comical audio interview with Stanley Unwin as a sound expert that turns out he was. For me ... Fascinating!

PeterG

[Monsieur Plastique]

On the subject of the original post, I would be interested to see how many people with a USCF rating of 1800 could defeat the Mephisto Chess Challenger in a 10 game match....

I remember the days when the USCF was obsessed with accurate machine ratings and you would have thought the earth was collapsing if the latest claimed machine rating was a few points awry of reality. But those days were a lot more fun than today, where any guess is good enough and no one really seems to care (except us).

[ricard60]

On the subject of the original post, I would be interested to see how many people with a USCF rating of 1800 could defeat the Mephisto Chess Challenger in a 10 game match....

I believe this rating of 1800 USCF for Chess Challenger is wrong. This machine is a clone of the the Expert travel chess wich has a claim rating of 2000+ USCF

[Monsieur Plastique]

Actually that is what I meant, but you did not qoute the rest of my post which should have made it obvious to anyone I was alluding to the inaccurate rating. No 1800 player would win a match against it. I am well aware of what the machine is and that the rating is incorrect. What it means though is that - as I say - the USCF is a far cry from the 80s when they really took care to obtain and correctly cite accurate computer ratings.

They have also overrated Carnelian II by around 400 points, the Star Aquamarine by at least the same. They did get "Travel Chess Computer Handheld" right though. It is indeed below 1500 USCF. The only problem is that is about 800 points below that. But we wont quibble.

[ricard60]

Probably the USCF did not do enough games for those machines and came up with that unproper rating.
Expert travel chess, mephisto chess challenger and MMVI are clones i believe there are more clones of this software. The difference is in their oppening book

More games for elo regards
Ricardo