Anybody here still enjoy those older dedicated chess computers?

Does anybody else enjoy and appreciate those older dedicated chess computers from the 80s and 90s or even older?

I still have 3 older Novag chess computers: Star Diamond, Star Sapphire, and Sapphire II, all bought when they were new and current at the time.

The Star Sapphire and Sapphire II are hand held.  I have a wood travel chess set that I bought back then.  The pieces have magnets and the board has strong enough pull so the pieces remain in place.  The board has a drawer on each player's side to hold that player's pieces.

That board is handy for working through problems from books as well as following along watching training videos.  The chess computers themselves are all strong enough to pose a real challenge probably up through the club leve.

My newest chess computer is the Millennium The King Performance, but these older chess computers are still very much alive and kicking and fun to play too.

Tony

Yes, I still enjoy playing them. Apart from the new Millenium models, Novag Spphire is my strongest, but Fidelity Par Excellence gives me trouble.

Thanks for the response, vonderlasa!  

I am just getting into chess, so am learning from some books and video courses I bought at ichess.com for my Android tablet.  I am using these with my dedicated chess computers because I want to get used to seeing the real chess board, besides I love those dedicated machines.

Tony

Some strong players basically improved by playing against such computers.

I have a Novag Adversary, which I don't use that much. I am afraid one of my cats will begin to play with it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWED6M-mlSo

That Novag Adversary looks really impressive.  I have heard of it, but never saw one.  Thanks for the video link.

From what I have read, my Star Sapphire (handheld version of the Star Diamond) is supposed to be rather rare, though I would suspect it to be nowhere near as collectible as your Adversary.

The Star Diamond is probably fairly common and the Sapphire II somewhere in between.

Tony

I bought it, took it home…and he broke after some minutes!! But a guy could fix it and it is working well again (I hope).

You are very fortunate getting that chess computer fixed.  Having that robot arm certainly lends to the complexity of such a repair.

Tony

Most people begin to switch on and off the computer when it begins to play crazy, and every time the arm rotates a little bit more until it breaks. I knew this and only switched on and off twice, so no mechanical parts were broken.

That is good that you realized what to watch for and avoid breakage that might not be repairable unless you are extremely fortunate to find spare parts somewhere.

Right now, I am using my smaller travel board and the Sapphire II since I am spending much time studying books and watching video courses.  I don't need a chess computer for anything more than a game or two each day at this point.  Just when I am thinking that since I now have the Millennium, which is like a super Tasc R-40 (same program but updated by the author for Millennium), maybe I should consider selling some of my Novags.  But then, the Sapphire II and Star Sapphire become really handy.

Tony

👍

I think there are probably many on here that do. Even more over on the HIARCS forum. I currently own about 10 machines (Novag Citrine, Mephisto MMV, Excalibur Grandmaster, several Radio Shack machines, etc.). I also own some newer ones (DGT Centaur, Millennium King Performance). Over the years, at various times, I've probably owned more than 25. 

I still have one of those old Chess Challenger games from the 1970s.  It's really weak.

I sold off most of my chess computer collection, especially the more valuable ones. Having grown up on Fidelity chess computers I still own an Elite A/S Budapest which works every blue moon, two CC 3s, several CC 10s (A, B + C), a couple of CC 7s (my first deicated chess computer as a kid), CC Sensory 8, Sensory Champion, Sensory 9, a BORIS, a BORIS Diplomat, a GDR-produced RFT 2 8aka the ugliest chess computer in history), several Mephistos (MMV, etc), several SciSys, CXG and Novag computers, and some more I've forgotten about. My strongest old chess computer is a Novag Diamond.  

I always wanted a novag 

I remember lusting after the Saphire chess computers I saw in Chess Life. My parents eventually got me a small flip top computer, I think a commet. It either was not super strong, or took forever to move on the higher levels. They were a1 to h8. I found b8 to be a good compromise between speed and strength.

If I ever played at a 200 or 400 strength, only my family and that computer saw it. I was 1000 strength by the time I played in a junior high club. Probably 600 or 800 when I beat my elementary school friends.

Actually, the computer was after I joined USCF, I think, unless a book had ads in it. So I must have been 1000-1200 strength by then. I won every game against it, but it put up a big enough fight to give me lots of practice.

I really wanted one that would do position set up.

I remember expert strength computers were considered top of the line. Who knows how long they had to think to play at that level.