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Jose
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Post by Jose »

Hi Robert,

puhh, what a reading trip i now have! :wink:
But i can absolutely confirm with your term, but if i want to write this like you, i would write 2 weeks at this large thread and 50% were wrong written!
Yes Steve, i remember your generous offer some time ago and i was thinking about it, but i came to the conclusion, that perhaps somebody else would be more happy about it than me! Although my English is not bad, it is still not easy for me to read an English speaking magazine...
this was also my argument - but my english is really bad :D

Just playing chess Regards
José
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Post by Steve B »

hi Robert and Alain

i will reply to you both in the same post as you both agree

the online tournaments are of course NOT World Championships in the same way the D.A.C.H tournaments Are not and the Leiden tournaments are not
for both of these tournaments collectors from several countries participate using every model of chess computer ever released and they do not call themselves WORLD Championships

in fact NO tournaments should be called this title because there is no officially recognized independent formal body to oversee these events

it is not enough for moderators in .info to declare this to be a world event and then expect all collectors to go along with the title
and if you want to say as Jose did that it is only a word..then why use this word if not to bring some sort of official status to your event?
(which by the way was not even won last time by an officially released ..authorized by the company that manufactured it.. dedicated chess computer.. and one of the sections was not even won by a dedicated chess computer but by a PC chess card no less..so i do not even know what the tournament is for to begin with)

i played several matches online against Harvey here and Uniacke
perhaps 20-25 games in total(against dedicated computers and various early versions of Hiarcs)
should i call these matches the US-UK dedicated-PC Championship?
:P

you guys exist in a bubble and you declare yourselves the World body now?
i dont think so
:wink:

as to the Selective search lists

i see you freely admit that you knew nothing about these lists which have been published since 1985 and yet you set out 5 years ago to rate all of the computers from scratch as if nothing existed before you

I am also guessing you guys knew nothing about the CCR lists when you set up the .info site(or very little about it)

more bubble thinking
:wink:

you can declare yourselves the Authority on dedicated chess computers and you can hold all of your events and rate all of the computers you want

but you should keep in mind that there are collectors from all over the world who do not and will not recognize your self proclamations
:P

with warmest regards
Steve
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Alain
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Post by Alain »

Hi Steve,
Steve B wrote:hi Robert and Alain

i will reply to you both in the same post as you both agree
no, I am not sure that I agree with Robert on all points, I share your views on some of them :

1) Elo list
I feel more comfortable with the approach of Schachcomputer.info and have updated my web site several months ago to give the wiki elo for each computer displayed.
I like the openness of this list as well as its completeness, even if it may be "less accurate" (i.e. may be less games ?) than Selective Search' or SSDF for some machines.
But I don't pretent that one is better than the other, just that I prefer myself to use it as my referential.


2) World Championship
Here I fully agree with you Steve and I don't consider the online tournaments of Schachcomputer.info as World Championships, even if I follow the results, watch some games and regret not to have time to participate (there is another thing in these tournaments which is strange but I will not start another thread about it).

1-1 regards,
Alain
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Post by Robert Weck »

Hi Steve,

Steve B wrote:hi Robert and Alain

i will reply to you both in the same post as you both agree

the online tournaments are of course NOT World Championships in the same way the D.A.C.H tournaments Are not and the Leiden tournaments are not
for both of these tournaments collectors from several countries participate using every model of chess computer ever released and they do not call themselves WORLD Championships
but these tournaments deserve the term "World Championship" more than all the other events called "WCCC"; as i said, i see nearly all past WCCC's as a joke.

And there will always be discussions, if a World Championship deserves this term, for example, if the expected favorite does not take part?

As José wrote: it is only a word and not worth to discuss it so much...
i played several matches online against Harvey here and Uniacke
perhaps 20-25 games in total(against dedicated computers and various early versions of Hiarcs)
should i call these matches the US-UK dedicated-PC Championship?
:P
why not? As long as there is no official institution, that claims these titles for themselves and has the copyrights for this, you can call it whatever you want! :wink:
as to the Selective search lists

i see you freely admit that you knew nothing about these lists which have been published since 1985 and yet you set out 5 years ago to rate all of the computers from scratch as if nothing existed before you

I am also guessing you guys knew nothing about the CCR lists when you set up the .info site(or very little about it)

more bubble thinking
:wink:
its not us, that live in a bubble, it is SS and CCR! Everybody can contribute games to our lists and see the results for free.

If i want this with SS, i have to pay 25 GBP. And as Alain stated, there seems to be too few about dedicated computers in SS, to make it worth the money for him and me.

For many years, i was a subscriber of the German "CSS" magazine, but as soon there was too much about PC programs in there, i unsubscribed (with a little tear in my eye :cry: )

As i said before: if Eric would show his complete list on the web and make it transparent, this would be something different, but not this way...

At the moment he is managing a list only for his subscribers, not for everyone!

And he does not have an Active Chess list, does he?

And we know nothing about his list e.g. regarding double-checking; does he show the statistical variation? (i mean, how much the rating can be seen as accurate!), how reliable are the games, that are contributed from elsewhere and much much more would be interesting...
you can declare yourselves the Authority on dedicated chess computers and you can hold all of your events and rate all of the computers you want

but you should keep in mind that there are collectors from all over the world who do not and will not recognize your self proclamations
:P
that's free for everyone (without subscription! :lol: )

Btw.: where did we declare us to be the authority? If you and others see it this way: this was not intended!

Its the same like i cannot see Eric Hallsworth as an authority as i know nothing about him. This is not meant disrespectful! Perhaps he knows more about chess computers than we all together! I just don't know! But for me, Steve, you and many other collectors are more authority than Eric, as i know, how experienced you and the others are! I just have no comparison... :wink:

But you never know, if there isn't somebody in the whole wide world, who has more knowledge about dedicated chess computers than we all here together... :wink:


all the best,
Robert
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Steve B
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Post by Steve B »

hi Robert

for you to say i can call my matches a championship is silly just as you calling your tournaments a World Championship is silly

for you to not recognize Eric Hallsworth as a leading authority on chess computers is not only silly but only shows exactly what i have been saying all along in this thread
if you guys never heard of him..well then he must not even exist

yes the SS is not free..but sometimes you get what you pay for
:wink:

as to the coverage on dedicated computers
this changes issue by issue
in the last issue more then half of the magazine was devoted to dedicated computers with interviews of Ruud Martin and coverage of the Leiden tournament both by Rob Van Son
as to the statistical information..yes he shows the total number of games played .. the Elo .the Standard Deviation +/- ..etc etc.
he even has ratings for the very very old computers because he has been compiling the lists for over 22 Years
if i were to add up all of the games used in the rating's it would add into the hundreds of thousands of games
but he does not show this information every issue
only about every year or so
for normal issues he only shows the computer(with clones on the same line) and the rating
you should pay for one issue..it is only 5 Euro
who knows Robert,,even you might learn something
:wink:

as to questioning the integrity of the lists..well each issue shows games that were used in the lists .complete with analysis and diagrams

i guess i could question the integrity of the .info ratings as well
two collectors playing chess computers online with Rybka or Hiarcs nereby for when the position gets difficult
:wink:

seriuosly though i do not question the integrity of the .info ratings ..i only question the need to start all over when the work has already been done before ..and as far as i know the SSDF lists are all online and free
so why not start with only the computers not rated by SSDF(ie ..the Citrine by way of example?)

i think you guys start all over from scratch because you either did not know all of the work was done before or you choose to ignor it

but i think it does not make sense to continue the discussion because it is not really a serious discussion at this point

dont get me wrong though...i very much enjoy the Wiki pages and i often go to the .info site to read what i can manage to understand

but i (and other collector's) simply do not recognize you guys as an official authority nor do we recognize your tournaments as World Championships

My Best
Steve
Last edited by Steve B on Wed Sep 19, 2007 7:07 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by Steve B »

Alain wrote:Hi Steve,
Steve B wrote:hi Robert and Alain

i will reply to you both in the same post as you both agree
no, I am not sure that I agree with Robert on all points, I share your views on some of them :

1) Elo list
I feel more comfortable with the approach of Schachcomputer.info and have updated my web site several months ago to give the wiki elo for each computer displayed.
I like the openness of this list as well as its completeness, even if it may be "less accurate" (i.e. may be less games ?) than Selective Search' or SSDF for some machines.
But I don't pretent that one is better than the other, just that I prefer myself to use it as my referential.


2) World Championship
Here I fully agree with you Steve and I don't consider the online tournaments of Schachcomputer.info as World Championships, even if I follow the results, watch some games and regret not to have time to participate (there is another thing in these tournaments which is strange but I will not start another thread about it).

1-1 regards,
Alain
Hi Alain
well 1 ottta 2 aint bad
:wink:
50% Regards
Steve
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Post by Harvey Williamson »

Hi All,

Interesting discussion. If the recent FRC 960 World Championship, in Mainz, which consisted of 4 invited engines only one of which was in the top 5 of the only FRC ratings list compiled by CCRL then I guess anyone can call any tournament a World Championship.

Best Wishes,

Harvey
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Post by Steve B »

Harvey Williamson wrote:Hi All,

Interesting discussion. If the recent FRC 960 World Championship, in Mainz, which consisted of 4 invited engines only one of which was in the top 5 of the only FRC ratings list compiled by CCRL then I guess anyone can call any tournament a World Championship.

Best Wishes,

Harvey
Good point Harvey

now i am assuming of course that YOU have heard of Eric Hallsworth?

:wink: Regards
Steve
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Post by Steve B »

Hi Robert and Jose and Alain and Nick and anyone else that thinks there is not much about chess computers in the SS magazine

Robert Weck wrote:
And as Alain stated, there seems to be too few about dedicated computers in SS, to make it worth the money for him and me.
i hold in my hands the most recent issue ..131.
of the 40 pages in it 20 have information regarding dedicated computers
here is a summary of some of the articles in it:
on the cover..a photo of Ruud with his Revelation at Gebriukers in Holland.

a want ad from a mysterious collector from the USA looking for some rare schachcomputers.

Results of some Citrine Games submitted by regular magazine contributors( i do not want to mention their names without permission ).

a 6 page round by round account of the 15th Gebruikers tournament held in Holland in May 07..complete with games,analysis and diagrams not to mention photos of some of the participants and some of the computers.

a five page article about a match played between the Citrine and the Saitek Expert complete with analysis of the games(3) and photos of both computers and Frans Morsch..this is a continuation of a 10 game match started in the last issue.

a five page interview with Ruud Martin discussing his Revelation..his Resurrection I and II and his future plans with the Phoenix company
and of course again more photos of Ruud.

finally a page showing the latest rating list with more then 200 computers listed.


my only complaint is that i think there are too many photos of Ruud
:P

i would much prefer to see photos of other collectors like this one..

Image
now who is that tough looking guy in Black Regards?
Steve
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Post by spacious_mind »

Steve B wrote:Hi Robert and Jose and Alain and Nick and anyone else that thinks there is not much about chess computers in the SS magazine

Robert Weck wrote:
And as Alain stated, there seems to be too few about dedicated computers in SS, to make it worth the money for him and me.
i hold in my hands the most recent issue ..131.
of the 40 pages in it 20 have information regarding dedicated computers
here is a summary of some of the articles in it:
on the cover..a photo of Ruud with his Revelation at Gebriukers in Holland.

a want ad from a mysterious collector from the USA looking for some rare schachcomputers.

Results of some Citrine Games submitted by regular magazine contributors( i do not want to mention their names without permission ).

a 6 page round by round account of the 15th Gebruikers tournament held in Holland in May 07..complete with games,analysis and diagrams not to mention photos of some of the participants and some of the computers.

a five page article about a match played between the Citrine and the Saitek Expert complete with analysis of the games(3) and photos of both computers and Frans Morsch..this is a continuation of a 10 game match started in the last issue.

a five page interview with Ruud Martin discussing his Revelation..his Resurrection I and II and his future plans with the Phoenix company
and of course again more photos of Ruud.

finally a page showing the latest rating list with more then 200 computers listed.


my only complaint is that i think there are too many photos of Ruud
:P

i would much prefer to see photos of other collectors like this one..

Image
now who is that tough looking guy in Black Regards?
Steve
:D Steve

Now you are painting us with the same brush. I never said the dedicated chess info was too little that was Alain :D I said it was not well enough advertized and grumbled about it not being free. Robert said he never heard of Eric :D and Jose said he had not heard of it :D

So you see we all said something different!! :P JK!!

In all honesty I have admiration for everyone who is trying to do something for our hobby so I cannot think of anything bad about SS and who knows perhaps I will subscribe sometime soon in order also support these efforts.

But for the rest I stick to my guns which is CHOICE IS HEALTHY !!

btw what do you think of this title can I keep it?

FIRST INTER-CONTINENTAL MASTER CHESS COMPUTER CHAMPIONSHIP 2007

ICMCCC for short. A friend of mine in Germany and I playing this tournament weekends online for fun. It will take us for ever to complete.

But what do you think about the title does it meet approval?? :P

All the best

Oh btw... great photo who are the 2 gentlemen? I will pleade ignorance because in all honesty I have looked at your collection but I have not tried to look at your face :D Is it you or Eric? Sorry for pleading ignorance my eyes are on the computers !! So perhaps that gives me an excuse....
Nick
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Post by Steve B »

spacious_mind wrote:
[Oh btw... great photo who are the 2 gentlemen? I will pleade ignorance because in all honesty I have looked at your collection but I have not tried to look at your face :D Is it you or Eric? Sorry for pleading ignorance my eyes are on the computers !! So perhaps that gives me an excuse....
actually Nick..i think you are onto something here
i think perhaps we have the beginnings of our next contest question
:)

Robert Weck would not be allowed to enter that contest Regards
Steve
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Jose
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Post by Jose »

Steve B wrote:i hold in my hands the most recent issue ..131.
of the 40 pages in it 20 have information regarding dedicated computers
here is a summary of some of the articles in it:
on the cover..a photo of Ruud with his Revelation at Gebriukers in Holland.

a want ad from a mysterious collector from the USA looking for some rare schachcomputers.

Results of some Citrine Games submitted by regular magazine contributors( i do not want to mention their names without permission ).

a 6 page round by round account of the 15th Gebruikers tournament held in Holland in May 07..complete with games,analysis and diagrams not to mention photos of some of the participants and some of the computers.

a five page article about a match played between the Citrine and the Saitek Expert complete with analysis of the games(3) and photos of both computers and Frans Morsch..this is a continuation of a 10 game match started in the last issue.

a five page interview with Ruud Martin discussing his Revelation..his Resurrection I and II and his future plans with the Phoenix company
and of course again more photos of Ruud.

finally a page showing the latest rating list with more then 200 computers listed.


my only complaint is that i think there are too many photos of Ruud
:P

i would much prefer to see photos of other collectors like this one..

Image
now who is that tough looking guy in Black Regards?
Steve
Hehe, now i know something more about that english written magazine! Thanks :D And you have nice fotos in your foto collection... Much cable and cablerolls and small chess computers between, okay the Corona (Salut, Scoll, Prost) from Robert is not small it is one of the large versions... :wink:
Now my question - who is the blue dressed man beside Corona winning game! :)

Electro Smog Regards
José
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Post by Robert Weck »

Hi Steve,
Steve B wrote:hi Robert

for you to say i can call my matches a championship is silly just as you calling your tournaments a World Championship is silly
ok, it looks like we won't come to an agreement (not for the first time! :wink: )

Maybe as a closing point: we at .info do not take this term for so serious as you seem to do. Rest assured, that the admin would have never suggested this name for the tournament, if he would have known before, what discussions would arise!
for you to not recognize Eric Hallsworth as a leading authority on chess computers is not only silly but only shows exactly what i have been saying all along in this thread
if you guys never heard of him..well then he must not even exist
if he would take part in the discussions here, this could help to know him better! but if he is not interested or has no time, that's not our fault...

it was about 3 or 4 years ago (when i started collecting), when i first heard of him here on the net; before that time i was not so much interested in dedicated computers to investigate on the net. And at my first period of interest in dedicateds (1979-1987) there was no chance for me to hear from him! (or perhaps my English was not good enough, to be interested in reading English speaking magazines? :wink: ) I was just happy to have "CSS"!

2 years ago i had contacted him by email and even phone(!), as i wanted to order one single issue of SS (yes, i did! :wink: ) At that time, it was not intended to order single issues (that has changed as i saw yeasterday) and when i told him on the phone, that i only wanted one single issue, he said something like: "Oh boy, so much work for so few money!" :shock:

I was not sure, if it was meant as a joke or not, but at that moment i had a very bad feeling in my heart to give this man so much work for just a few GBP! (i'm not kidding here!)

I would have preferred, if he had said "No, that's not possible!"

I told him, if it's not acceptable for him, that i would be willing to withdraw my request, but he said, that it would be ok. Maybe he hoped to get another subscriber... :?
But i was really very much interested in this issue, so i ordered it...

Btw.: at this time there was also a problem with the payment as the only possible way for me was by credit card (here in Germany credit cards are not so popular as in the US, but i have one, as i relatively often buy shareware over the net)

The problem was, that his website, where you had to enter your credit card number and so on, was not secured! :!: And this was too much risk for me (but we found another way! a little more complicated, but it worked)

And this did not change until today...
yes the SS is not free..but sometimes you get what you pay for
:wink:
yes, but the question is: is it, what i want? :wink:
as to the coverage on dedicated computers
this changes issue by issue
the problem is, that there is too few to write about new dedicated computers; we all know this and have complained about it more than one time!

If he would write something about the older dedicateds (e.g. doing some clone testing; e.g. if the Modena really has a modified Dominator program; perhaps then you will be convinced? :wink: ) this would be much more of interest for me (and surely many other collectors)

If at least 50% of every(!) issue would cover dedicateds, then i would be thinking about subscribing...
as to the statistical information..yes he shows the total number of games played .. the Elo .the Standard Deviation +/- ..etc etc.
that's ok!
but he does not show this information every issue
only about every year or so
ok, not a big problem, but i wonder why?
for normal issues he only shows the computer(with clones on the same line) and the rating
you should pay for one issue..it is only 5 Euro
see above... :wink:
who knows Robert,,even you might learn something
:wink:
that's for sure! I always like to learn something new!
i guess i could question the integrity of the .info ratings as well
of course! as you do not know most of the contributors, this is only reasonable!

Even the integrity of the SSDF list was doubted by many(!) people...

Only when you play all the games on your own, you know, what you have! But then anybody else could doubt your integrity! :wink:

you never can be absolutely sure...
seriuosly though i do not question the integrity of the .info ratings ..i only question the need to start all over when the work has already been done before ..and as far as i know the SSDF lists are all online and free
so why not start with only the computers not rated by SSDF(ie ..the Citrine by way of example?)

i think you guys start all over from scratch because you either did not know all of the work was done before or you choose to ignor it
ey, Steve, i wonder, if you read my previous posts? :?: or was there something you could not understand?
I posted all the reasons! :shock:

And why shouldn't we do our own list? Even i for myself had been thinking about doing this with my own games! (about 1500 at the moment)

But then the idea of a general list came up in the .info forum, and so it all began!

Why should we only use computers not listed yet? That's not reasonable for statistical reasons as you have to have a basis, from where you can calculate the new ELOs. It is much better for accuracy, if the Citrine is playing against many (well known) opponents, but only against one or two new ones.

There aren't so many computers in our collections, that are not already covered by SSDF. Not every contributor has so many computers in his collection, as we do (i think, i have about 250, not to mention yours or Karsten Bauermeister's) to deliver such games!
And as i wrote before, we doubted some results of the SSDF, so we wanted to confirm or disprove them...
but i think it does not make sense to continue the discussion because it is not really a serious discussion at this point
ok, maybe that's the best option here! :wink:

We have many much more interesting topics to discuss here, do we? :twisted:


agree not to agree again regards,
Robert

P.S.: I recently did a Modena-Dominator comparison... :wink:
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Post by Steve B »

but he does not show this information every issue
only about every year or so
Robert Weck wrote: ok, not a big problem, but i wonder why?
this i cannot say..
but he shows the detailed listing more often then the .info rating lists are updated
:wink:
Robert Weck wrote: And why shouldn't we do our own list?
oh i dont know..
perhaps because it has already been done before ..3 times already
:P
Robert Weck wrote: But then the idea of a general list came up in the .info forum, and so it all began!
yes and so it began
lets us all do a rating of the old computers...because no one has this information!..oh my..what a great idea!
and to make games for this list ..we will run online tournaments.. and we will declare it is the Online World Championship from all chess computers ..and we will call ourselves.. Champions ..Yes.. We are the Champions ..of the World!
:P

seriously though,much time and effort has been spent on repeating information already known...i think perhaps it would have been better to spend all of those man hours to add something new to the hobby rather then to repeat or replicate what has already been done...3 times before

by way of example..instead of re-doing rating lists you guys could have been scouring the globe for old chess computers and then perhaps you would have discovered before i did that the Red Castle was not even a chess computer ..which would have saved me thousands and thousands of Euros!
:oops:

but i think it does not make sense to continue the discussion because it is not really a serious discussion at this point
Robert Weck wrote: ok, maybe that's the best option here! :wink:
FINALLY we can agree on something!
:P

QUEEN Sends Their Regards
Steve
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Post by LuckyPoster »

spacious_mind wrote:Following this thread about the Mephisto Atlanta ...

The 81 games that Atlanta played is more games than any other machine listed above. I think 5th place for a machine that some people would not buy for a $100 is astonishing dont you think? ...
I've just discovered this post and must say that it is likely the finest and wisest post I've ever read on a chess computer forum. Thanks s_m!
"I am thankful for all of those who said NO to me. It's because of them I'm doing it myself."
- Some people claim, Albert Einstein, the famous German physicist, had made this statement ...
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