Ron Nelson Ever Copied, Used , Cloned the Spracklen?

[ChessChallenger]

I have seen a few questioning postings on Chesster, which I will address.

But first I wanted to talk about the start of Talking Chess Computers.

In early 1979, in one of my Design Electronics magazines, I read about a Talking Calculator for the blind. The article explained how Dr. Forrest Mozer had invented a voice compression algorithm and had the algorithm designed into a dedicated chip. I told Sid Samole and he contacted Dr. Mozer and arranged a meeting with him at UC Berkley in California. We had a wonderful meeting, and worked out a deal with him and TeleSensory Systems to buy the voice chip. The voice data was in an external ROM and I worked on making the chess voice vocabulary, sent it to Dr. Mozer, who used his equipment to create the ROM data and sent it to me for testing and masking. I also eventually did the same in French, Spanish & German.

Texas Instruments was working and introducing their own talking product, Speak & Spell, at about this same time. Dr. Mozer’s compression was done in the Time Domain and Texas Instruments was done in the Frequency Domain.
This explained why TI’s was a little more human sounding compared to Dr Mozer’s Cylon Robotic voice.

If you are interested in a detailed reading on the Talking Calculator here is a link:
http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/ ... eech-.html

Fast forward to 1989, Kathy wanted to develop something along the educational lines for computer chess. So she started creating a script of what could be said during a game of chess.
I received her script and we had a marketing meeting, where I presented the idea. It was liked but they wanted more personality with perhaps a wisecracker persona. Names were thrown out and Chesster was a favorite.
All during the discussion, Teri Everett (the first Chess Challenger sales person hired after the CES in 1976), who is a doodler, showed the impish figure she had doodled on her note pad. It was the graphic we used for Chesster.
(off topic, Teri was very capable and was Sid Samole’s protégé. When H & G bought Fidelity, she was passed over to run the company (perhaps because she was a woman) a big mistake in my opinion.)

For the voice system, I again went back to Dr. Mozer. He had started a company call Sensory, Inc, which was now run by his son Todd. But instead of a chip, they now offered a 65c02 software solution.
That was an ideal solution for me, so all was in place but….H & G bought Fidelity. Kathy told me she would not work for a company who called their product The Devil (Mephisto)…
and Saitek made Kathy & Dan an offer to work on a Spark CPU to compete in the World Micro Chess Computer Tournament and win back their title. So no Kathy to do the programming.

So Sid asked me if I could do it. Of course I said yes, and it was my first project in to my 12 month contract. It was not easy, as I had mentioned the Spracklen 6502 code had very few comments, so it was not easy designing a voice system that melded into a chess engine.
I came up with a clever software scheme where the voice events were coded in line with the code, and not arranged in tables. The scheme was designed for 4 languages.
I finished the English and I believe it went into production.
Then I started the French & Spanish, but H & G wanted Kishon to do the German translation and actual recording. While still in development, Helmut Wiegel, from H & G, came over to the USA to start testing the German portion.
I had designed an Apple development system to display all voice as text. So he spent a number of days with me testing and modifying the German voice design.

Helmut liked the development system and wanted to continue testing back in Germany. So I was commissioned to build a second unit and bring it to Munich.
I did and my trip to Germany led me to two projects for H & G, which I want to write about in a separate post.
Helmut Wiegel was the product developer for Tiny Chess, Fidelity imported from H & G. Helmut and I talked about that product, since I was impressed by it. He told me he hired a software company (of two I think) in Belgium to write the software for the single chip.

One of my last projects at Fidelity/H&G was Little Chesster. The goal was to cost reduce Chesster.
The LCD was eliminated, a single chip MCU with external Rom & Ram was used. A three chip solution which allowed a single sided PCB for further cost savings.
The engine & voice code of Chesster was preserved but some of the voice data was removed since it wasn’t used.

Fast forward to 1996, where I am working for Excalibur Electronics. I had finished my H8 chess engine and used it on my Mirage moving chess piece robot design. But we wanted a talking product too.

So I worked on my own compression algorithm. I had done my Master’s Thesis in grad school on a computer voice recognition technique, so I enjoyed getting back into computer voice “research”. So now I had full control, from the studio recording, to the compression and decompression of the voice by computer.

The first product I used my system on was Ivan The Terrible. I also added sound effects to the product, giving it yet another dimension of entertainment. This was done using the H8.

When I switched over to the Sunplus/GeneralPlus 65c02 single chip BLOBs, the chips were even more efficient since they had some voice hardware built into the chip.

The Alexandra The Great product was one of my interesting Talking Chess Computers. Alexandra an up and coming young woman Chess Master, had a manager who called us to see if we could work together, thus promoting Alexandra to the world.
We did, and she went into a local sound studio with me and did all the recordings. The recordings were In English, and also in Russian. They were Russian and the manager had an import company in Russia, so he wanted a Russian version to import into Russia. As I recall we did ship into Russia but not large numbers, since payment in Rubles was problematic.

What was cool, was that I didn’t use any human voices or studio for the French & Spanish (can’t remember if I ever did German).
I used the latest Text To Speech (TTS) systems that were starting to appear online. I eventually used the English TTS voice later, to eliminate Alexandra’s voice when our relationship ended.

[Fernando]

I have seen a few questioning postings on Chesster, which I will address.

But first I wanted to talk about the start of Talking Chess Computers.

In early 1979, in one of my Design Electronics magazines, I read about a Talking Calculator for the blind. The article explained how Dr. Forrest Mozer had invented a voice compression algorithm and had the algorithm designed into a dedicated chip. I told Sid Samole and he contacted Dr. Mozer and arranged a meeting with him at UC Berkley in California. We had a wonderful meeting, and worked out a deal with him and TeleSensory Systems to buy the voice chip. The voice data was in an external ROM and I worked on making the chess voice vocabulary, sent it to Dr. Mozer, who used his equipment to create the ROM data and sent it to me for testing and masking. I also eventually did the same in French, Spanish & German.

Texas Instruments was working and introducing their own talking product, Speak & Spell, at about this same time. Dr. Mozer’s compression was done in the Time Domain and Texas Instruments was done in the Frequency Domain.
This explained why TI’s was a little more human sounding compared to Dr Mozer’s Cylon Robotic voice.

If you are interested in a detailed reading on the Talking Calculator here is a link:
http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/ ... eech-.html

Fast forward to 1989, Kathy wanted to develop something along the educational lines for computer chess. So she started creating a script of what could be said during a game of chess.
I received her script and we had a marketing meeting, where I presented the idea. It was liked but they wanted more personality with perhaps a wisecracker persona. Names were thrown out and Chesster was a favorite.
All during the discussion, Teri Everett (the first Chess Challenger sales person hired after the CES in 1976), who is a doodler, showed the impish figure she had doodled on her note pad. It was the graphic we used for Chesster.
(off topic, Teri was very capable and was Sid Samole’s protégé. When H & G bought Fidelity, she was passed over to run the company (perhaps because she was a woman) a big mistake in my opinion.)

For the voice system, I again went back to Dr. Mozer. He had started a company call Sensory, Inc, which was now run by his son Todd. But instead of a chip, they now offered a 65c02 software solution.
That was an ideal solution for me, so all was in place but….H & G bought Fidelity. Kathy told me she would not work for a company who called their product The Devil (Mephisto)…
and Saitek made Kathy & Dan an offer to work on a Spark CPU to compete in the World Micro Chess Computer Tournament and win back their title. So no Kathy to do the programming.

So Sid asked me if I could do it. Of course I said yes, and it was my first project in to my 12 month contract. It was not easy, as I had mentioned the Spracklen 6502 code had very few comments, so it was not easy designing a voice system that melded into a chess engine.
I came up with a clever software scheme where the voice events were coded in line with the code, and not arranged in tables. The scheme was designed for 4 languages.
I finished the English and I believe it went into production.
Then I started the French & Spanish, but H & G wanted Kishon to do the German translation and actual recording. While still in development, Helmut Wiegel, from H & G, came over to the USA to start testing the German portion.
I had designed an Apple development system to display all voice as text. So he spent a number of days with me testing and modifying the German voice design.

Helmut liked the development system and wanted to continue testing back in Germany. So I was commissioned to build a second unit and bring it to Munich.
I did and my trip to Germany led me to two projects for H & G, which I want to write about in a separate post.
Helmut Wiegel was the product developer for Tiny Chess, Fidelity imported from H & G. Helmut and I talked about that product, since I was impressed by it. He told me he hired a software company (of two I think) in Belgium to write the software for the single chip.

One of my last projects at Fidelity/H&G was Little Chesster. The goal was to cost reduce Chesster.
The LCD was eliminated, a single chip MCU with external Rom & Ram was used. A three chip solution which allowed a single sided PCB for further cost savings.
The engine & voice code of Chesster was preserved but some of the voice data was removed since it wasn’t used.

Fast forward to 1996, where I am working for Excalibur Electronics. I had finished my H8 chess engine and used it on my Mirage moving chess piece robot design. But we wanted a talking product too.

So I worked on my own compression algorithm. I had done my Master’s Thesis in grad school on a computer voice recognition technique, so I enjoyed getting back into computer voice “research”. So now I had full control, from the studio recording, to the compression and decompression of the voice by computer.

The first product I used my system on was Ivan The Terrible. I also added sound effects to the product, giving it yet another dimension of entertainment. This was done using the H8.

When I switched over to the Sunplus/GeneralPlus 65c02 single chip BLOBs, the chips were even more efficient since they had some voice hardware built into the chip.

The Alexandra The Great product was one of my interesting Talking Chess Computers. Alexandra an up and coming young woman Chess Master, had a manager who called us to see if we could work together, thus promoting Alexandra to the world.
We did, and she went into a local sound studio with me and did all the recordings. The recordings were In English, and also in Russian. They were Russian and the manager had an import company in Russia, so he wanted a Russian version to import into Russia. As I recall we did ship into Russia but not large numbers, since payment in Rubles was problematic.

What was cool, was that I didn’t use any human voices or studio for the French & Spanish (can’t remember if I ever did German).
I used the latest Text To Speech (TTS) systems that were starting to appear online. I eventually used the English TTS voice later, to eliminate Alexandra’s voice when our relationship ended.

What an interesting piece of history you have given to us, Ron!
BTW, I was told that alexandra did not think during the other player turn. It is so? Perhaps you already told us about how some chips could not sustain everythi8ng, but I am not sure. In any case I have played a lot Alexandra and I feel it is stronger than what is usually supposed, OR maybe I have some attachment to that specific computer because of the sweet voice, of course..

Fern

[Steve B]

I have seen a few questioning postings on Chesster, which I will address.

a good example of Chessters vocabulary in an actual game
his comments are in Red

i will show the game position at various times throughout the game but the comments will be those of Chesster in BOLD TYPE under each diagram

Take it Away Chesster..



HI!
IM CHESSTER..
HOW ABOUT A NICE GAME OF CHESS??


[White "Chesster Challenger"]
[Black "Mephisto Academy"]
[Time Control- 30 Sec./Avg.]


1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.Bb5+ c6 7.Bd3 Bxf3
8.Qxf3 Qb4 9.Qh3 Nbd7 10.O-O Qxd4 11.Be3 Qg4 12.Qxg4 Nxg4 13.Bg5 h6
14.Bd2 e5 15.Ne2 Bd6 16.Bf5 Ngf6

[fen]r3k2r/pp1n1pp1/2pb1n1p/4pB2/8/8/PPPBNPPP/R4RK1 w kq - 0 17[/fen]
COME ON..YOU LOVE ME DONT YOU??



17.Rad1 Ke7 18.Be3 Nd5 19.c4 Nxe3
20.fxe3 Nb6

[fen]r6r/pp2kpp1/1npb3p/4pB2/2P5/4P3/PP2N1PP/3R1RK1 w - - 0 21[/fen]
IM STILL THINKING



21.b3 Rad8 22.a4

[fen]3r3r/pp2kpp1/1npb3p/4pB2/P1P5/1P2P3/4N1PP/3R1RK1 w - a3 0 22[/fen]
DONT YOU THINK IM GREAT??



22..g6 23.Bc2 Bc5 24.Kf2 f5 25.a5 Nd7 26.h3
Rhf8 27.g3 Bb4 28.Ra1 Nc5 29.Kf3 Rd2 30.Bd1 e4+ 31.Kg2 fd8
[fen]3r4/pp2k3/2p3pp/P1n2p2/1bP1p3/1P2P1PP/3rN1K1/R2B1R2 w - - 0 32[/fen]
NOW IVE GOT YOU!!


32.Rb1 R8d3
33.Kf2 Bxa5 34.Ra1 Nxb3 35.Bxb3 Rxe2+

[fen]8/pp2k3/2p3pp/b4p2/2P1p3/1B1rP1PP/4rK2/R4R2 w - - 0 36[/fen]

PUT ME ON A HIGHER LEVEL IF YOU ARE GOING TO TAKE SO LONG!




36.Kxe2 Rd2+ 37.Ke1 Ra2+ 38.Kd1 Rxa1+ 39.Ke2 Rxf1 40.Kxf1 b5 41.g4

[fen]8/p3k3/2p3pp/bp3p2/2P1p1P1/1B2P2P/8/5K2 w - - 0 41[/fen]
AHEM..ARE YOU STILL THERE??
ITS YOUR TURN!




41.. fxg4 42.hxg4 h5 43.cxb5 cxb5 44.gxh5
gxh5 45.Bd5 Bb6 46.Ke2 h4 47.Bxe4 a5 48.Kf3 a4 49.Kg4 Kd6 50.Kxh4 b4
51.Kg4 a3

[fen]8/8/1b1k4/8/1p2B1K1/p3P3/8/8 w - - 0 52[/fen]
HEY! YOUR GETTING GOOD



52.Bb1 b3 0-1

FINAL POSITION
[fen]8/8/1b1k4/8/6K1/pp2P3/8/1B6 w - - 0 53[/fen]
OK YOU WON THIS ONE
I RESIGN


Speechless Regards
Steve

[ChessChallenger]

I was finishing The Kishon Chesster project, and Helmut Weigel had asked for his own development unit for testing in Munich.
Dr Prommer approved the request and told me to deliver it to Munich so I could also meet the H & G team.

I did, and it was a very enjoyable visit. During my visit, I was asked to sit in on a Product Development meeting.
It was somewhat interesting and then Dr Buckhart (I think that was his name) head of Research & Development, said they wanted to develop an ARM processor chess product.
He wanted permission to hire an outside firm to design it. I held up my hand and said I would design it. He asked if I had ever designed anything with an ARM processor and I said no.
Dr Prommer turned to me and asked me if I could do it, and I said yes. So I got my first H & G project.

Then I went back home and started researching what the hell an ARM processor was. I called the chip sales rep who gave me an ARM development board on permanent loan.
I designed the hardware (after reading an awful lot) wrote the I/O code (LCD & Sensory board and beeper) with Ram Rom test code.
It was designed for a Fidelity Designer LCD housing, and I sent the working unit and source code to Munich but never learned what they did with it.

That success led Dr Prommer to ask me to design a high speed 68020 module for their modular system.
He wanted me to work with Richard Lang to get Richards program on it. I contacted Richard to discuss my Fast Code Slow Code hardware design. He had no problem with it.
I told him the test unit I had for him was layed out for two 68020’s. Did he want me to deliver a fully populated PCB so he could play with multi-processing.
He had no interest, so I just populated one half of the large PCB development unit that worked with their autosensory hardware.

I then also finished the layout of the production PCB for the module using my type of hardware design, I sent it to Munich to sample and build and await Richards “partitioned” software.

When my wife passed away in 1992, I went to Europe to visit friends and to visit H & G in Munich.
One of their good technicians, whom I had met on my previous visit, came up to me and said my fast speed module design was the most solid design he had seen. He said they had very few returns of modules using that design.

So that is the end of all the things I wanted to relate.

[Fernando]

I was finishing The Kishon Chesster project, and Helmut Weigel had asked for his own development unit for testing in Munich.
Dr Prommer approved the request and told me to deliver it to Munich so I could also meet the H & G team.

I did, and it was a very enjoyable visit. During my visit, I was asked to sit in on a Product Development meeting.
It was somewhat interesting and then Dr Buckhart (I think that was his name) head of Research & Development, said they wanted to develop an ARM processor chess product.
He wanted permission to hire an outside firm to design it. I held up my hand and said I would design it. He asked if I had ever designed anything with an ARM processor and I said no.
Dr Prommer turned to me and asked me if I could do it, and I said yes. So I got my first H & G project.

Then I went back home and started researching what the hell an ARM processor was. I called the chip sales rep who gave me an ARM development board on permanent loan.
I designed the hardware (after reading an awful lot) wrote the I/O code (LCD & Sensory board and beeper) with Ram Rom test code.
It was designed for a Fidelity Designer LCD housing, and I sent the working unit and source code to Munich but never learned what they did with it.

That success led Dr Prommer to ask me to design a high speed 68020 module for their modular system.
He wanted me to work with Richard Lang to get Richards program on it. I contacted Richard to discuss my Fast Code Slow Code hardware design. He had no problem with it.
I told him the test unit I had for him was layed out for two 68020’s. Did he want me to deliver a fully populated PCB so he could play with multi-processing.
He had no interest, so I just populated one half of the large PCB development unit that worked with their autosensory hardware.

I then also finished the layout of the production PCB for the module using my type of hardware design, I sent it to Munich to sample and build and await Richards “partitioned” software.

When my wife passed away in 1992, I went to Europe to visit friends and to visit H & G in Munich.
One of their good technicians, whom I had met on my previous visit, came up to me and said my fast speed module design was the most solid design he had seen. He said they had very few returns of modules using that design.

So that is the end of all the things I wanted to relate.

Ah, Mr Nelson, but WE want some others things to be related by you if that is possible!
Everyone here has many questions or at least ONE of his tastes or interest.
When I had the Chess Challenger 7 I sent a letter to Fidelity asking about the way the enfine searche and I received an answer without signature, perhaps you did it, telling me how the 7 levels of CC7 were settled. If I do not remind badly, the level "experienced" searched three ply full width. Superior levels has the first two ply at full width and then something like 5-3-2, which by then I supposed were selective ply and where 5 meant that 5 lines were searched between the many available and so on.
Was I right?

[mclane]

It seems to me that fidelity was a big fish for H+G and that the problems occurred by eating the big fish.
Also it's not sure if dr. Prommer wasn't one puzzle that helped to kill H+G.

In the end we know that the dedicated chess computer companies had big trouble fighting against the PC hardware market and the fact that hardware development increased and increased and software on the pcs was able to handle that much faster.

Today we know all dedicated chess computer companies went bankrupt.
H+G was capable to rescue a little part with the millennium company
And today surprised the market with the millennium chess genius.

How will it continue? I am sure millennium will produce another machine.
And maybe another company will also try to sell something so we get competition.

[Steve B]

.

So that is the end of all the things I wanted to relate.

Thanks Ron for your recollections
you have cleared up many questions for the community

Best Wishes Regards
Steve

[Cyberchess]

Texas Instruments was working and introducing their own talking product, Speak & Spell, at about this same time. Dr. Mozer’s compression was done in the Time Domain and Texas Instruments was done in the Frequency Domain.
This explained why TI’s was a little more human sounding compared to Dr Mozer’s Cylon Robotic voice.

Very interesting research and comparison, Ron!
This brings to mind the Laplace Transforms we were required to study. My favorite feature of these early talking units was the very cool Cylon type voice.

Reciprocal Relationship Regards,
John

[Bryan Whitby]

And as they say, RON HAS NOW LEFT THE BUILDING and has given me permission to post a recent Facebook photo of himself and the CC1 drawing he mentioned in one of his posts.
Thanks
Ron

[Reinfeld]

I just want to thank Ron for a lifetime of wonderful work and the willingness to jump into this forum and grace us with recollections and history. Kudos and again, thank you so much. Your efforts have brought me many hours of enjoyment.

- R.

[bataais]

Dear Ron Nelson,
thank you so much for all your amazing posts you share with us electronic chess addicts. You offer us so much insight into the history.
Instead of talking about GM/Mirage/Igor/Ivan/Alexandra I want to put your 2K 8049 program into focus, of which you are justly proud. If I'm correct, it was inside the Fidelity Micro Chess Challenger, then revised in Fidelity Eldorado and was then ported to 6805 (2K version, faster clock), for Fidelity Chess Mate. This is still the strongest 2K chesscomputer in the world, and the only one that can solve mate-in-3. Quite an achievement.

[ChessChallenger]

Dear Ron Nelson,
thank you so much for all your amazing posts you share with us electronic chess addicts. You offer us so much insight into the history.
Instead of talking about GM/Mirage/Igor/Ivan/Alexandra I want to put your 2K 8049 program into focus, of which you are justly proud. If I'm correct, it was inside the Fidelity Micro Chess Challenger, then revised in Fidelity Eldorado and was then ported to 6805 (2K version, faster clock), for Fidelity Chess Mate. This is still the strongest 2K chesscomputer in the world, and the only one that can solve mate-in-3. Quite an achievement.

Thank you for your comments.

The Eldorado was interesting because it was produced for me (Fidelity) with my 8049 chip by CXG, Eric White's company in Hong Kong.

I have put the Fidelity Chess Mate and Avanti on my updated product development timeline, since it seems they say programmer UNKNOWN on these computer chess history online databases.

The 2Kbyte 6805 program in the Chess Mate, with only a 2 digit display, was upgraded by me to a 4K version that was used in my early Excalibur Electronics chess products.

I was thinking of publishing the 2K 6805 program source code and make a Windows simulator to run it. I tested all my software with simulators, including Fidelity Spracklen 6502 and 68000 programs.

[Mike Watters]

Dear Ron Nelson,
thank you so much for all your amazing posts you share with us electronic chess addicts. You offer us so much insight into the history.
Instead of talking about GM/Mirage/Igor/Ivan/Alexandra I want to put your 2K 8049 program into focus, of which you are justly proud. If I'm correct, it was inside the Fidelity Micro Chess Challenger, then revised in Fidelity Eldorado and was then ported to 6805 (2K version, faster clock), for Fidelity Chess Mate. This is still the strongest 2K chesscomputer in the world, and the only one that can solve mate-in-3. Quite an achievement.

Hi bataais

In fact the Fidelity Micro Chess Challenger 12-key (1987) seems to have been an exact clone of the CXG Pocket Chess (1986). See Hein Veldhuis's database. The 2K program in that machine is, on good evidence, attributed to Mark Taylor and David Levy.

All the best
Mike

[bataais]

Hi Mike,
you're right, I meant Fidelity Chess Challenger Mini Sensory.
And Ron, publishing the 2K 6805 source would be great, it's a piece of art. I certainly would try to grasp it.

[ChessChallenger]

The Mirage was completely designed by me state side. Please do not mention Eric in the same sentence as The Mirage.
When Eric White copied my CC10 ROM bit for bit and started selling CC10's in the States made in Hong Kong, I grew a dislike for him. He was stupid enough however to buy them from our Stateside ROM vendor. I called them and said, look they are buying a copy of the ROM you make for us. They looked, they compared and that was the end of Eric White's CC10 in a plastic housing.
He didn't care, it got him into the business. It irked me no end that I had to work with him on producing the Ivan for us in HK.

I know you asked me not to mention the unnamed, so I won't but the collector part is getting the better of me now

Are you saying that there were Fidelity CC10's sold in the US from Hong Kong made in Hong Kong or the CC10 ROM was used in a foreign manufacturer's computer. Do you happen to recall which computer it was. I can visualize the two below as a possibility:

Best regards

Hi Nick,

I found a reference to the Chess Challenger 10 that was duplicated (the ROM I mentioned).
It was The CXG Computachess I. I stopped it from shipping into the US but it seems Eric sold it as Chess Mate in Europe.
Here is info from the website I found.

CHESS MATE

This Chess Mate was in a box in English and French, without trademark, year or country origin. it was bought in 1981. However, the operating manual logo looks like the CXG Computachess one.

A simple comparison of the playing levels and the keyboard, shows that it's a Chess Challenger 10 clone, with a lower speed. In fact, the user manual is optimistic: the Chess Mate is two time slower than a Chess Challenger 10; the processor is a Z80 / 2MHz instead of 4.


Level comparison


Keyboard comparison.


The unit

Regards,
Ron