Chess-Master

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Chess-Master ¹

Chess-Master,
a dedicated chess computer series manufactured in the 80s by VEB Mikroelektronik „Karl Marx“ Erfurt, East Germany, in West Germany sold by Radiophon. Chess-Master ran on an 8-bit U880 CPU, which was an unlicensed Z80 clone, and had 10 KB ROM and 2 KB RAM. The chess program authors were Dieter Schultze and Rüdiger Worbs.

Automatic piece recognition was implemented with Hall effect sensors under each square of the chessboard, while pieces had two reverse directed permanent magnets with different compensation embedded, so that a cyclic running multiplexed I/O program, also polling the keyboard, could recognize the pieces ^{1 2} .

Chess-Master played the 3rd World Microcomputer Chess Championship 1983 in Budapest, running on a 2.5 MHz processor, searching 12 - 15 nodes per second ³, and competed with Fidelity Sensory 9 for the title of the best commercial entry ⁴. According to Ingo Althöfer, the Chess-Master was a clone of the Sargon 2.5 6502 program by Dan and Kathe Spracklen - the 6502 had to be emulated by the U880 aka Z80 which apparently resulted in that low speed ^{5 6}.

Chess-Master Table

Chess-Master Table ^{1 2}

The Chess-Master Table was a rare piece of jewelry. Only approximately 10 issues were build for special purposes - for instance, one Chess-Master Table was dedicated to Fidel Castro, a gift by Erich Honecker ^{7 8} .

Chess-Master Diamond

Chess-Master Diamond ¹

The improved Chess-Master Diamond was contributed by Rüdiger Worbs and Wolfgang Pähtz ⁹ , and was released in 1987 ¹⁰.

Video Chess-Master

Video Chess-Master Screen ¹

The Chess-Master program was further ported to the KC 85/2 personal computer by Wolfgang Pähtz ¹¹.

See also

• Chessmaster
• ChessMaster aka Chess Champion Super System III
• SC 1
• SC 2

Publications

• Dieter Schultze, Rüdiger Worbs (1986). Schachcomputer Chess-Master CM, rfe, H1, S 19-21 ¹²
• Christian Posthoff, Günter Reinemann (1987). Computerschach - Schachcomputer. in cooperation with Rainer Knaak, Michael Schlosser, Rainer Staudte, Rüdiger Worbs, Akademie-Verlag Berlin, booklooker ¹³
• Rainer Hinkeldein, Rüdiger Worbs (1988). Schachcomputer Chess-Master Diamond. rfe, H5, S 316-312
• Hans-Peter Ketterling (1988). Nürnberger Messeneuheiten - VEB Mikroelektronik Erfurt - Chessmaster Diamond. Europa-Rochade 03-1988, 04-1988 ¹⁴
• Thomas Mally (1989). Dinosaurus Hi-Tech - Chess Master “Diamond” nicht ganz Lupenrein. Modul 1/1989 ¹⁵
• Karsten Bauermeister (1999). Deutsch-Deutsche Geschichte(n). Computerschach und Spiele. No. 5, October-November 1999, pp 32-33 (German)
• Ingo Althöfer (2020). Computer Chess and Chess Computers in East Germany. ICGA Journal, Vol. 42, Nos. 2-3

External Links

• Chess-Master's ICGA Tournaments
• Rft/VEB Erfurt Chess-Master Electronic Chess Computer from The Spacious Mind
• Chess Master by Tom Luif
• Chess Master Diamond by Tom Luif
• CM, Schachcomputer in der DDR from Wikipedia.de (German)
• Chess-Master from Schachcomputer.info Wiki (German)
• Chess-Master Schachtisch from Schachcomputer.info Wiki (German)
• Chess-Master Diamond from Schachcomputer.info Wiki (German)
• Chess-Master Diamond from Kurt´s Schachcomputer Homepage by Kurt Kispert (German)
• OEM und Sonstiges - Schachcomputer "ChessMaster" from Robotron-net.de (German)
• Schachcomputer from robotrontechnik.de (German)
• Schachcomputer (DDR) by Wolfgang Pähtz
• East German programmers in Budapest by Frederic Friedel, ChessBase News, July 05, 2020 » WMCCC 1983

East German programmers in Budapest - Discussion by Ingo Althöfer, ChessBase News, July 07, 2020

References