MCGE gets Blu-tooth

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steffen
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Post by steffen »

...and finally the data sheet of the coming Millennium C-Module:

"In the world of chess computers, the new C-Module (= connectivity module), which can be connected to the MILLENNIUM Exclusive chess board with fully automatic figure recognition, opens up hitherto unknown possibilities. The C-Module features both a USB port as well as a Bluetooth receiver.
This being an open system, the specifications are released to any interested developers worldwide. The MILLENNIUM interface code can be integrated into any GUI, e.g. Android or Apple iOS smartphones and tablets, as well as Windows or Apple computers.

A convenient Android app for using high-powered Winboard or UCI engines (e.g. Komodo, Stockfish, ...), as well as the world-class program HIARCS (for iPhone or iPad) are included. Based on the example of an Apple iPad Pro, this app achieves an incredible playing ability of over 3100 Elo. Fortunately, it can also adapt to the user's level of play automatically and show the users ELO rating.

Mark Uniacke's HIARCS is considered to be one of the most powerful chess engines in the world and also boasts a wide variety of software features. A couple of highlights:
• Extremely quick program
• Playing ability automatically adapts to the user's level as requested
• Very simple positioning
• Saving and analysing games is extremely simple.
• Comprehensive warning and assistance functionalities included"

Source: Millennium 2000 GmbH, Subject to change and correction
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Steve B
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Post by Steve B »

steffen wrote:
Mark Uniacke's HIARCS is considered to be one of the most powerful chess engines in the world and also boasts a wide variety of software features. A couple of highlights:
• Extremely quick program
• Playing ability automatically adapts to the user's level as requested
• Very simple positioning
• Saving and analysing games is extremely simple.
• Comprehensive warning and assistance functionalities included"
Would be excellent if they released a stand alone module for Hiarcs...as they are doing with the King Program...

Mephisto and Saitek released many modules over the years for their boards
Conchess didnt even sell a computer with a built in program..it was all module based
you bought the board once and then the modules as they were released
Millennium should offer their board alone without a module and then sell the modules separately or bundled with the board

no need to get PC's,smart phones,knee-pads and robot androids mixed up in this

Lets Stay Dedicated Regards
Steve
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Post by lexman »

Steve B wrote

"Millennium should offer their board alone without a module and then sell the modules separately or bundled with the board "

this would certainly be more attractive a purchase option for myself
while I am keen to buy the King module and a board to use it with, I am not so keen on being compelled to buy yet another Lang module in the original bundle in order to get it much as i like the Lang programs.
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Post by Yarc »

Steve B wrote: Would be excellent if they released a stand alone module for Hiarcs...as they are doing with the King Program...
Steve
I would imagine if the King module is succesful there is a good possibility. Hiarcs and Shredder would be good options. But this may just be wishful thinking on my part!
Steve B wrote: Millennium should offer their board alone without a module and then sell the modules separately or bundled with the board
Steve
This is a good idea. They probably have not done so yet because they need to prove it sells first. Maybe if the King module does well we may see more options in the future.

I hope the Blu-tooth module does not kill the possibility of other program modules. This way, the hard-core dedicated fans are catered for as well as the users who like using the board for Stockfish etc.

I think Millennium have done well so far with their products, and making the system modular is the right way to go.

Flexible Regards
Ray
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Post by spacious_mind »

Well I guess you can argue that Millennium needs the Blue Tooth to get caught up with other providers like DGT, Gavon, Mysticum for example in order to allow you to connect thousands of engines to their board.

None of these systems however help if you are trying to play and compare software against software against dedicated, against DOS, against Palm, against Pocket PC or set a speed that lets you play against these thousands of old engines competitively.

PC Speed noawadays = 4+ GHz = DGT & Millennium (has Blue tooth)
ARM Speed 800 MHz (Gavon 1) - 1.6 GHZ = Josu's Gavon (has Blue tooth)
Mysticum (OLD) 500 MHz - 2.2 GHZ PC (has Blue tooth)

New Mysticum yet to be determined how it will look.

My old Mysticum (currently in repair) ran at 1000 MHz and had CPUID built into it which is a hardware controller that allowed you to play it in 50 MHz increments from 400 MHz to up to its max speed of 1000 MHz.

This meant that I could play for example Chessmaster 9000 or any of the thousands of old engines including WChess2000 at 400 MHz. Meaning that now I could have interesting tournaments against Resurrection & Revelation, Palm Software and Pocket PC software with all these thousands of engines playing on a pretty equal setting, which includes Hiarcs, Houdini, Komodo, Rybka etc etc.

Now that was fun with my Mysticum.

With Millenniums Blue tooth you cannot do that, neither can any of the other solutions out there which is a real pity.

To hear comments like well you can set up the solftware to play down to your level is an illusion as there is only the most recent version of Hiarcs that can give you a decent expierence with this. The rest are just hopeless at it and besides it misses the point because it ignores all of your other historic favorites chess programs that you might want to play against or enter into matches and tournaments, at home or against your friends computers online.

It seems that Millennium Chess Genius Exclusive has something similar to CPUID as it also allows you to set your game in 50 MHz increments from 50 MHz to 300 MHz. This is something that should be pursued.

Anyway with this lack of understanding, my hopes rest on Gavon and Mysticum to come up with a solution that does not exclude all those historical chess programs of the past.

What Steve wrote about is great too and I am all in. But this continues to leave this mentioned gap in the market place :)

Best regards
Nick
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Post by Yarc »

spacious_mind wrote:
My old Mysticum (currently in repair) ran at 1000 MHz and had CPUID built into it which is a hardware controller that allowed you to play it in 50 MHz increments from 400 MHz to up to its max speed of 1000 MHz.

This meant that I could play for example Chessmaster 9000 or any of the thousands of old engines including WChess2000 at 400 MHz. Meaning that now I could have interesting tournaments against Resurrection & Revelation, Palm Software and Pocket PC software with all these thousands of engines playing on a pretty equal setting, which includes Hiarcs, Houdini, Komodo, Rybka etc etc.

Now that was fun with my Mysticum.
Hi spacious_mind,

Until now I had not known much about the Mysticum. It certainly is a very interesting system and I can see why you like it. As you say, very good for pitting engine against engine at comparable processor speeds. That is surely unique to the Mysticum? The Millennium ChessGenius Exlusive's ability to change processor speed in steps of 50Mhz goes a little way towards that, but then this speed adjustment is only for the Lang and King(I'm guessing this will have it) modules at present. The Blu-tooth module, as you point out, does not cater for this and users would have to rely on the program's strength adjustments which are not always realistic!

The only way I can think of implementing your requirement with the Blu-tooth module would be by running a virtual PC and adjusting it's emulation speed. I believe this can be done quite accurately. Then running the Blu-tooth module's software on this machine with the chess program of choice. Not the most convenient way for sure! The Mysticum seems to be the best option by far.

For me, I wish the Lang and King modules had Blu-tooth built-in and would use this to transfer games to my PC for the convenience of no wires!

Speed Throttling Regards
Ray
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Post by spacious_mind »

Some food for you to ponder. Will all you Resurrection, Revelation and Revelation 2 owners please stand up.

Now that you have stood up, put one hand over your heart and the other up in the air and state when was the last time you played Rybka, Toga, Fruit, Deepsjeng, Shredder or Hiarcs on these computers?

btw... you don't have to answer because I already know it. It is never after your first month or so after initial purchase.

And.... what is the reason for this? Why?

Best regards
Nick
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Post by Steve B »

spacious_mind wrote:Some food for you to ponder. Will all you Resurrection, Revelation and Revelation 2 owners please stand up.

Now that you have stood up, put one hand over your heart and the other up in the air and state when was the last time you played Rybka, Toga, Fruit, Deepsjeng, Shredder or Hiarcs on these computers?

btw... you don't have to answer because I already know it. It is never after your first month or so after initial purchase.

And.... what is the reason for this? Why?

Best regards
Well I can tell you I never even used the Bluetooth option on my Res II
and so never played any UCI engines
As to the Rev I ...I played many games with Hiarcs and a few of the other hardwired engines but not any blue tooth uci engines..it was the first time Hiarcs appeared in a dedicated chess computer(engine included in computer) so I could not just ignor that historical fact
for the REV II...I tested the EBoard option once to see if it was working and not used it again since..no Bluetooth engines
the cold hard truth of it is that ..I find myself using the emulations far more then the pc engine based programs


I Can Handle The Truth Regards
Steve
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Post by Scally »

spacious_mind wrote:Some food for you to ponder. Will all you Resurrection, Revelation and Revelation 2 owners please stand up.

Now that you have stood up, put one hand over your heart and the other up in the air and state when was the last time you played Rybka, Toga, Fruit, Deepsjeng, Shredder or Hiarcs on these computers?

btw... you don't have to answer because I already know it. It is never after your first month or so after initial purchase.

And.... what is the reason for this? Why?

Best regards
I guess I’m in the minority, I use my Revelation II everyday I’m at home, since I received it 1 and a half years ago. I have every Emulation, including the new RISC, Tasc and Montreux. I also use Bluetooth where I can run Windows Compiled Engines via the Revelation UCI Server as extra Engines. But most of all, I have 40+ Engines compiled on the Raspberry Pi for use with PicoChess and with the introduction of Remote Engines, I can now play any Engine on any platform via ssh on PicoChess.


Cheers,

Al.
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Post by Yarc »

Scally wrote:
I guess I’m in the minority, I use my Revelation II everyday I’m at home, since I received it 1 and a half years ago. I have every Emulation, including the new RISC, Tasc and Montreux. I also use Bluetooth where I can run Windows Compiled Engines via the Revelation UCI Server as extra Engines. But most of all, I have 40+ Engines compiled on the Raspberry Pi for use with PicoChess and with the introduction of Remote Engines, I can now play any Engine on any platform via ssh on PicoChess.


Cheers,

Al.
Hi Scally,

Minority or not it doesn't matter. You have a very good system that you enjoy and obviously use to its maximum. What could be better?

At the moment I'm really enjoying my MCGE and looking forward to getting the King module. If that is as strong as they say >=2500 then that is good enough for accurate analysis. Very impressive.

Ray
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Post by spacious_mind »

Scally wrote:
spacious_mind wrote:Some food for you to ponder. Will all you Resurrection, Revelation and Revelation 2 owners please stand up.

Now that you have stood up, put one hand over your heart and the other up in the air and state when was the last time you played Rybka, Toga, Fruit, Deepsjeng, Shredder or Hiarcs on these computers?

btw... you don't have to answer because I already know it. It is never after your first month or so after initial purchase.

And.... what is the reason for this? Why?

Best regards
I guess I’m in the minority, I use my Revelation II everyday I’m at home, since I received it 1 and a half years ago. I have every Emulation, including the new RISC, Tasc and Montreux. I also use Bluetooth where I can run Windows Compiled Engines via the Revelation UCI Server as extra Engines. But most of all, I have 40+ Engines compiled on the Raspberry Pi for use with PicoChess and with the introduction of Remote Engines, I can now play any Engine on any platform via ssh on PicoChess.


Cheers,

Al.
Hi Al,

You answered the Blue Tooth question great for loading stuff onto your system remotely, but my question with hand on heart asked are you playing the engines I mentioned? Just wondering because I never see anyone writing about them.

I know you play the emulations because that is all we write about in the forums. My question is are you playing Shredder, Fruit, Rybka etc against yourself or against other computer programs?

Regards
Nick
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Post by Scally »

spacious_mind wrote:
Scally wrote:
spacious_mind wrote:Some food for you to ponder. Will all you Resurrection, Revelation and Revelation 2 owners please stand up.

Now that you have stood up, put one hand over your heart and the other up in the air and state when was the last time you played Rybka, Toga, Fruit, Deepsjeng, Shredder or Hiarcs on these computers?

btw... you don't have to answer because I already know it. It is never after your first month or so after initial purchase.

And.... what is the reason for this? Why?

Best regards
I guess I’m in the minority, I use my Revelation II everyday I’m at home, since I received it 1 and a half years ago. I have every Emulation, including the new RISC, Tasc and Montreux. I also use Bluetooth where I can run Windows Compiled Engines via the Revelation UCI Server as extra Engines. But most of all, I have 40+ Engines compiled on the Raspberry Pi for use with PicoChess and with the introduction of Remote Engines, I can now play any Engine on any platform via ssh on PicoChess.


Cheers,

Al.
Hi Al,

You answered the Blue Tooth question great for loading stuff onto your system remotely, but my question with hand on heart asked are you playing the engines I mentioned? Just wondering because I never see anyone writing about them.

I know you play the emulations because that is all we write about in the forums. My question is are you playing Shredder, Fruit, Rybka etc against yourself or against other computer programs?

Regards
Hi Nick,

Ok, I don’t use the inbuilt Engines much, however I do use the normal mode where the Engines are, to add and use the other Engines I spoke about. My Engine choice in order shows:
Ruffian 2.1, Fruit 2.1, Fruit 2.5, Toga 1.0, Toga 1.2, Rybka 2.2, Shredder 12.1, Hiarcs 14.1, Baron 1.0, Stockfish 6.0 (the normal 10j + Stockfish 7, Stockfish 8, Stockfish 9, Komodo 9.02, OpenTal 1.1, Pedone 1.7. These extra 6 engines are on my laptop and I can select these as I would any others, then scroll through the settings menus as if they were inbuilt Engines. I use these to analyse games, much better than running them on the laptop and selecting UCI and activating UCI options by typing each option in manually, then I can only see the main line. With actual pieces in front of me, I can move the pieces and analyse each move with all the normal selective search values showing etc, a much easier way to analyse etc.

Cheers,

Al.
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Post by spacious_mind »

Scally wrote:
Hi Nick,

Ok, I don’t use the inbuilt Engines much, however I do use the normal mode where the Engines are, to add and use the other Engines I spoke about. My Engine choice in order shows:
Ruffian 2.1, Fruit 2.1, Fruit 2.5, Toga 1.0, Toga 1.2, Rybka 2.2, Shredder 12.1, Hiarcs 14.1, Baron 1.0, Stockfish 6.0 (the normal 10j + Stockfish 7, Stockfish 8, Stockfish 9, Komodo 9.02, OpenTal 1.1, Pedone 1.7. These extra 6 engines are on my laptop and I can select these as I would any others, then scroll through the settings menus as if they were inbuilt Engines. I use these to analyse games, much better than running them on the laptop and selecting UCI and activating UCI options by typing each option in manually, then I can only see the main line. With actual pieces in front of me, I can move the pieces and analyse each move with all the normal selective search values showing etc, a much easier way to analyse etc.

Cheers,

Al.
Now that I can appreciate, if it is you and a book and the board. The uses for that to play though an opening book or a GM game I can appreciate. You are indeed different to most people. :) Perhaps you should be a tester and teach people the uses for it?

You, computer and book maybe? :)

I am different to that. I showed recently several PC's in a pic. My boards are to play against and PC's for study and analysis. It's been like that for years. When I analyze a game or do correspondence my preference is to have a few pc's running at the same time so I can look at different move choices at the same time. This is how I developed my ELO tests as I don't have enough time in my life to let a computer run hours on end for each move. So having more than one helps to develop these tests or search deeper, faster.

When I play chess, I don't pick a Super GM to play against. When I play chess computers against chess computers I also don't pick a Super GM to play against a Mephisto Atlanta. To play Super GM against Super GM if I wanted to, then 1 Revelation is not enough you need two.

Here is the strange thing with me perhaps old fashioned. When I pick up a book, I then place a normal chess board in front of me and play the moves by hand and work through what is written in a book, trying to understand and really enjoy what is in front of me. Me, the book and the chess board. No analysis distracting my reading and learning. I don't need the distraction of an analysis in these cases as it detracts from learning by yourself what is in front of you. Not figuring something out by yourself for me means I would never learn it as I never learned to understand it through self reasoning.

People should try to do that from to time, pick up Fischer's 60 Memorable Games, Botvinniks 100 Best Games of Chess, Tartakover's 500 best games of chess, New York 1924, Capablanca's 100 Best. I could go on and on listing books.

So in summary:

1) Book = non computerized chess board.
2) PC = Top engine + Analysis
3) Dedicated Computer = play against it at your own level
4) Dedicated Computer = play computer vs computer matches and tournaments.

Other than having a tool to control top engine hardware, I don't see the point of them myself inside a dedicated computer. Can't beat them. Can't play them against anything else. Option 2 is better and faster for analysis.

Regards
Nick
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Post by Scally »

Hi all,

Jürgen has some pictures of the King Module he took at the Nuernberg toy fair on his website here:

http://picochess.com/millennium-2000-to ... berg-2018/


Cheers,

Al.
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Post by Steve B »

Scally wrote:Hi all,

Jürgen has some pictures of the King Module he took at the Nuernberg toy fair on his website here:

http://picochess.com/millennium-2000-to ... berg-2018/


Cheers,

Al.
Strange
one photo shows the King in the standard module while another shows the new module casing

things are always a bit foggy and confused when still in ....

Prototype Stage Regards
Steve
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