Novag Star Sapphire vs Sapphire vs Sapphire II

[vonderlasa]

A Star Sapphire just sold for GBP 163.90,
approximately US $264.83 on Ebay. Wiki has a 35 point ELO spread between Star Sapphire and Sapphire [2126 vs 2091]. The Sapphire II, which runs faster then either Sapphire version [32 MH vs.26,6 MHz (Version 1994: 20 MHz)], is rated at 2108 on their info page. However, the Wiki-Elo-Liste has them rated at 2183, 2149 for Sapphire, and 2134 for Sapphire II, which also has more ROM and a larger opening book than Sapphire [which might be disadvantageous?].
Any comments to explain these disparities?
And how do you tell if you have a 26.6 MHz or 20 MHz Sapphire?

Thanks in advance!

[Steve B]

Hi Vonderlasa

the Wiki ratings are based upon their own testing by playing matches against other computers
this is different then the SSDF ratings which are a result of their own games played

Selective Search ...a British publication which has been rating chess computers since 1985 rates them as follows based upon their own games:

Sapphire I-2082
Sapphire II-2120
Star Sapphire -2175

the folks over at Schachcomputer.info conduct the games for the wiki ratings
try asking you question there about the details of their ratings
they are very friendly and knowledgeable and will be more then happy to answer your questions

http://www.schachcomputer.info/forum/

as to the clockspeed for the Sapphire I
The Instruction manual will show the clock speed
i have the Sapphire I from 1994 and the manual shows 20 Mhz
here is the manual for the Sapphire I from 1996
scroll down to page 22 in the manual
the manual shows 26.6 Mhz

http://isabelle.zanchetta.free.fr/SapphireFR.pdf

Best Regards
Steve

[SirDave]

If I am recalling the same Novag Star Sapphire that was up on the UK eBay, it was in excellent condition with box and manual likewise. It was tempting, but I was reminded of the fact that this model was an example of some of the dismaying decisions Novag made in production (among others being the beautifully designed Star Opal with its less than stellar firmware).

By most accounts the Star Sapphire had the top software ever released by Novag. So how could it have released it with the most amateurish representation of pieces on the LCD screen ever devised? To make it worse, the first advertising for it showed a nice bright screen with nicely designed, easily recognized pieces, but that turned out to be nothing more than a mock-up since what was released was not even a semblance of the advertising pictures. Not only that, but these units had short battery life and you would lose all memory when changing the batteries. Perhaps those new-fangled devices called capacitors were a mystery to Novag...

This was all particularly sad and exasperating seeing as how around this time (late 90s), palm pilots and pocketpcs were being released with relatively nice LCD graphics. My guess is that Novag got into a production budget mess and had to release the Star Sapphire even though they had to know that the graphics sucked and that there was a problem with the energy-demand of the hardware (and of course, an apparent absence of a simple capacitor)!

[Larry]

By most accounts the Star Sapphire had the top software ever released by Novag. So how could it have released it with the most amateurish representation of pieces on the LCD screen ever devised?

Yep Dave...Star Sapphire performance rox but the graphix sux.
This is probably what gives SS it's cult following... the human is
a strange animal. I actually swapped one of my two Novag Universal Chess Boards for a Star Sapphire. The SS, which came from England, is mint.
It's not suitable for use with batteries... even the battery cover has the
annoyance of needing a screwdriver to remove it.

Larry