Ron Nelson Ever Copied, Used , Cloned the Spracklen?

[ChessChallenger]

History Trivia #1
While Dave Kittinger was still in Alaska, I came upon his MyChess program.
I liked how it used it knights in it's playing style, and saw he was a strong chess player and was programming in Z80. I told Sid Samole we should talk with him. He may have relocated to California by the time we contacted him. But we did, and we flew him to Miami and Sid Samole made a deal with him and they shook hands on it. I took him to lunch afterwards and we discussed technical details. He called a week later to say he was sorry but he had to break his gentleman's agreement since he was going to instead work for the Hong Kong Novag company.
Months later, after Chafitz & Applied Concepts had "screwed" the Spracklens, Kathy called Sid Samole.

History Trivia #2
In 1981 I was at the WMCCC in Travemünde, Germany with Dan & Kathy.
After one of the Commercial Group games Dan "played" with Chess Champion Mark V, he came back upset and taken aback. Mark Taylor had the chutzpah to tell him he had a bug in his (Dan's) code and where it was. When Dan got home he confirmed it.

[Steve B]

thanks for those interesting pieces of trivia
fascinating stuff

i have sent you a private message(PM)
to read it....look to the top of your screen and you will see a link that says..
you have 1 new message
click on it to read it

Best Regards
Steve

[Fernando]

Welcome to to the Forum Ron
an honor to have you here

we have been Debating here for years about two Excalibur computers specifically
the GM and The Mirage

i am sorry to make you state it again but i would like to ask
where you the programmer for both or either of these computers?

as you can read from this thread and other threads here.. i have been defending you as the programmer of these computers as a result of email discussions you and i had between the years 2002-2007 or there abouts
perhaps you remember me?

Best Regards
Steve B

Yes, I programmed the Grand Master and The Mirage.

I was starting to look back at my archives and was reminded of my new Grand Master design. Which was completely costed out in Sept 2010. But Excalibur went under, and the go ahead for 2011 intro was cancelled. The goal was to have Grand Master retail at US $120. From the outside it would be virtually identical, but inside a new Auto Sensory scheme using membrane switch technology and super magnets (no reed switches). Cost came in at $31.44/3Kunits

I wonder, Mr Nelson, If you have given a thought to the idea to perform some kind of comeback to the scene with one of those projects that were not in time before Excalibur demise, or produced by you after that. As you know, Millenium has produced a dedicated unit on the ground of a Lang program and as far as I know, the marketing has been successful.
There are lot of old farts like me and others here all around the world.
I would love to play, say, a Sensory 8 challenger -I have every fidelity you programmed- perhaps greatly improved by the hardware now existent and by your own developments in all these years.
Or an Alexandra that this time computers all the time

Can we expect somethihg of the sort, Mr Nelson?

Fern

[mclane]

Welcome to to the Forum Ron
an honor to have you here

we have been Debating here for years about two Excalibur computers specifically
the GM and The Mirage

i am sorry to make you state it again but i would like to ask
where you the programmer for both or either of these computers?

as you can read from this thread and other threads here.. i have been defending you as the programmer of these computers as a result of email discussions you and i had between the years 2002-2007 or there abouts
perhaps you remember me?

Best Regards
Steve B

If this is really Ron, he can also
Explain the differences between

Chess challenger 10 A / B / C

Chess challenger sensory voice

None of the machine has permanent brain,
And mainly used z80 CPUs ( with the exception of challenger 10 C using older
8088 CPU first used in challenger 1-3).

When spracklen were hired for fidelity
The CPU changed into 6502 and permanent brain was used.


IMO There is not much difference between igor/ grandmaster.

chess champion Mark v is very selective, while fidelity (spracklen) programs are not.
Overall I see no big change between mark v from 1981 and later cxg Sphinx on 68000 hardware with Sphinx 40/50.
IMO Both programs are very selective and only the hardware has changed.

[IanO]

History Trivia #1
While Dave Kittinger was still in Alaska, I came upon his MyChess program.
I liked how it used it knights in it's playing style, and saw he was a strong chess player and was programming in Z80. I told Sid Samole we should talk with him. He may have relocated to California by the time we contacted him. But we did, and we flew him to Miami and Sid Samole made a deal with him and they shook hands on it. I took him to lunch afterwards and we discussed technical details. He called a week later to say he was sorry but he had to break his gentleman's agreement since he was going to instead work for the Hong Kong Novag company.
Months later, after Chafitz & Applied Concepts had "screwed" the Spracklens, Kathy called Sid Samole.

History Trivia #2
In 1981 I was at the WMCCC in Travemünde, Germany with Dan & Kathy.
After one of the Commercial Group games Dan "played" with Chess Champion Mark V, he came back upset and taken aback. Mark Taylor had the chutzpah to tell him he had a bug in his (Dan's) code and where it was. When Dan got home he confirmed it.

Oh, these are some juicy tidbits! To think, Fidelity was just that close to becoming the stable for Kittinger engines.

I just want to say thank you Ron for your long programming and design career. I grew up as a kid chess player teething on your Chess Challenger 7. That thing was built like a brick!

And now that I'm coaching kids, I got them a used Igor as a practice partner to aspire to. The low-depth levels, coaching features, and silly sound effects do catch their attention and give them a fighting chance, since the 12MHz H8 is so much faster than Ye Olde Z80! (Say, do you know who was the "voice of Igor"?)

Ian Osgood

[paulwise3]

Great to hear from one of the legends of dedicated computer chess programming!
And for what it's worth: I am very glad and satisfied with my Excalibur Grandmaster

Best regards,
Paul

[Mike Watters]

I am the one who programmed every line of code for every chess game produced by Excalibur Electronics. There was no team. Just me.
I designed every schematic, every circuit board, every housing.
I wrote and desktop published every Instruction Manual.

Welcome. The more you feel able to tell us about Fidelity and Excalibur chess computers the happier we will be.

However these are extraordinary claims you make. Extraordinary not least because we know that 20+ Excalibur models are clones of chess computers released by Novag, CXG and Krypton/Systema with chess programs written by David Kittinger, Mark Taylor, Gyula Horvath etc. Apparently the same housings, the same hardware and the same (or very similar) programs.

So, the 1993 Excalibur Chess Wizard is a 1992 CXG Sphinx Seville, same housing, 4 bit singlechip and Mark Taylor program.







The 1997 Excalibur Karpov 2294 is apparently a Novag Emerald Classic Plus, itself a minor downgrade from the 1996 Novag Emerald Classic with a David Kittinger program.






And so it goes on......

Excuse some of us if we remain sceptical when there are so many contradictions and unanswered questions, hence the debate on numerous threads here.

Mike

[Steve B]

Excuse some of us if we remain sceptical when there are so many contradictions and unanswered questions, hence the debate on numerous threads here.

Mike

Ron can answer for himself but I can tell you that listing obvious clones does not contradict his statements
it was obvious to me that Ron means computers produced by Excalibur and on one else such as the GM and Mirage,Deluxe Talking Chess..etc..etc..
which is what the various bebates centered around

I can also confirm that he is the real Ron Nelson and he has already said in plain clear English that he is the programmer for the GM and Mirage which you know as well as I do ..was always the main focus of the debates
its time you and others showed some humility here and
at least admit you were wrong regarding the GM and Mirage
that would be a good start


you are hearing it from the man himself
this is not honest skepticism..its denial


Take The High Road Regards
Steve

[spacious_mind]

Excuse some of us if we remain sceptical when there are so many contradictions and unanswered questions, hence the debate on numerous threads here.

Mike

Ron can answer for himself but I can tell you that listing obvious clones does not contradict his statements
it was obvious to me that Ron means computers produced by Excalibur and on one else such as the GM and Mirage
which what the various bebates centered around


Take The High Road Regards
Steve

Hi Steve,

Yes Ron included Mirage as an afterthought with an indirect response when I suggested as such in my email.
His original email clearly states that he is the programmer of Grandmaster. Mirage was manufactured by Krypton therefore there are lot of gaps that Ron might hopefully fill in with regards to his connection with Krypton and how all that fit together since we have two claimants for Mirage being Eric White and Krypton and Excalibur.

Mike is also correct with the user manual statement. The manuals for Igor & Mirage and Ivan (have not checked Grandmaster) all clearly originate from an author that wrote them starting with Legend & Concerto in 1992 for CXG which is a Horvath, therefore there as Mike correctly pointed out there are discrepancies all over the place and not just with the obvious Novag/Excalibur examples.

No one is questioning the influence from Ron Nelson and his major role in the history of dedicated chess computers.

We are just hoping to fill in the gaps correctly for proper preservation of history rather than vagueness and assumption. It would be too much of a shame to go down that path of inaccuracies.

You never know maybe 200 years from now there is a nostalgic renaissance for chess and just like a Mona Lisa what we write today is followed as gospel tomorrow. I don't know about you but I refuse to lead people down a wrong garden path which at face value Ron statements are with regards to the three that Mike highlighted in his post.

We are hoping to have these gaps filled in from someone who truly knows what his role was and who else played a part, Ron's statement as it reads disclaims everybody but himself and I am sure that was not his intent.

It would be nice to know when Ron joined Excalibur and what his first projects were. It would also be nice to know his involvement with Eric White and David Levy at Krypton. Mirage was conceived around 1993/1994 by Krypton. That would be around the time of Ron working at Mephisto/Saitek or just leaving.

Excalbur no longer exists therefore is it so wrong to ask for some knowledge and facts?

At least 3 different chess authored programs came out at around the very same time, on at least 3 different hardware, how would this be possible to have one person author all three original chess programs unless the origins were from 3 different original chess authors. No one is even disputing enhancements made to root programs as per the Belle thing.

We are all trying to put the right people behind the computers. The vision, concept and implementation we all know belongs 100% to Ron Nelson from a certain point onwards at Excalibur no one is disputing this.

We are trying to find out chess program authorship whether it be:

Nelson, Horvath & Thompson on some or
Nelson & someone else on others or
Ron Nelson on specifics

If Ron Nelson used Thompson Attack tables then that alone means a shared authorship to be correct in how we name chess authors. We know with Mirage many things indicate towards Horvath, what would be wrong to admit and name it all correctly for the chess program.

All this requires some explanation.

Best regards

[Steve B]

Yes Ron included Mirage as an afterthought with an indirect response when I suggested as such in my email.
His original email clearly states that he is the programmer of Grandmaster.

Excalbur no longer exists therefore is it so wrong to ask for some knowledge and facts?

yeah and the more questions he answers the more you will ask and basically never be satisified
ive seen you do that before..
anyway..

lets start with this as a first step
do you concede he is the Programmer of the GM?
Yes Or No?

Fairly straight forward question Regards
Steve

[spacious_mind]

Yes Ron included Mirage as an afterthought with an indirect response when I suggested as such in my email.
His original email clearly states that he is the programmer of Grandmaster.

well lets start with this
do you concede he is the Programmer of the GM?
Yes Or No?

Fairly straight forward question Regards
Steve

Only Ron can answer that. With regards to the concept, vision & design & hardware engineering absolutely yes that has never been in question on any Excalibur's other than the obvious clones and we honor him for those achievements.

The debate is around written from scratch chess programs and is centered around who did what on the chess program. You cannot argue that many things around this originate from Horvath and now we have Thompson added to it. But Ron can explain all this properly himself especially since the indication is that something came from Thompson if not Spracklen. What is wrong with providing some open historical facts around this and let everyone be at peace including himself.

ps.. you know that we are going to question any discrepancies as this is our hobby and passion and it is something that passionate collectors do, irrespective of what the hobby is

Best regards

[Steve B]

well lets start with this
do you concede he is the Programmer of the GM?
Yes Or No?

Fairly straight forward question Regards
Steve

Only Ron can answer that.

he did answer that
point blank ..in clear language
ill ask you again..do you now believe he programmed the GM...


Yes Or No Regards
Steve

[Mike Watters]

Ron can answer for himself

Steve
If only he would.
The easiest way to destroy your credibility is to make claims that can be disproved. Why do it?
Start from the other end. Name the actual machines those claims apply to. At the moment you say there are two.

Excalibur produced at least 60 models. I use the word produce in its common dictionary meaning, eg Google :-
1. make or manufacture from components or raw materials.
2. cause (a particular result or situation) to happen or exist.

I know you would like to limit the discussion but in terms of our hobby finding out who individually or jointly programmed all 60+ Excaliburs is more significant and enlightening in my opinion.

Mike

[Steve B]

I know you would like to limit the discussion but in terms of our hobby finding out who individually or jointly programmed all 60+ Excaliburs is more significant and enlightening in my opinion.

Mike

ill ask you again as well...
do you now believe he programmed the GM??
Yes Or No?

Pinning You Down Regards
Steve

[spacious_mind]

I know you would like to limit the discussion but in terms of our hobby finding out who individually or jointly programmed all 60+ Excaliburs is more significant and enlightening in my opinion.

Mike

ill ask you again as well...
do you now believe he programmed the GM??
Yes Or No?

Pinning You Down Regards
Steve

I will give you this link:

http://www.spacious-mind.com/html/commo ... _2000.html

When Mark Manyen first contacted me he believed he and his team programmed Chessmaster 2000 and Chessmaster 2100. When digging into the specifics we then of course went into his reminiscing about David Kittinger and Spracklen.

Mark Manyen programmed Chessmaster 2000. Did he however author the chess program?

The word programmed is a very loose word.

Best regards