They are useful for inflicting severe bodily injury on obnoxious scholastic kids.
I suppose there are as many answers as there are people who like them.
For one, Chronos has several modes where all five digits are displayed at the same time – h:mm:ss. Some other clocks, like DGT and Saitek, have only a three-and-a-half digit display, which means they can display only three digits at a time unless the fourth (leftmost) digit is 1. Thus, these clocks display h:mm when there are 20 minutes or more remaining, mm:ss when under 20 minutes. You can’t see the seconds ticking down until the 20-minute mark.
In some modes, Chronos displays the 5-second delay as a separate digit, counting down toward zero. Saitek replaces the main time display with the delay display during these 5 seconds, so you can’t even see the main time until the end of the delay period. This can be extremely confusing and alarming, especially if you have only a few seconds of main time remaining. DGT flashes the word “delay” but does not count it down as a digit.
With the Chronos you can have a move counter or not, your choice.
You also have the choice of Bronstein or straight delay. Of course, it also has increment.
See this thread for a somewhat related discussion.
Bill Smythe
I will share my opinion as to what sets Chronos apart, but first some history.
Chronos was the first digital clock worth buying, in the late 1990s. Back then there were not as many clocks to choose from, and Chronos was by far the best—and priced accordingly.
It was so far ahead of the competition it was no contest, even with the price premium. When I bought my Chronos, in 1998 or '99 at the Thompson Street chess shop in NYC, the man in charge pointed to a few other clocks on display and waved his arms in disgust. When I asked about the cheapest model, the first version of the USCF/Excalibur, he rolled his eyes and said “I would not give it to you, let alone sell it.”
Today, other clocks—much less expensive than Chronos—have improved to the point it’s a much tougher call, dollar-for-dollar. If I had no chess clock and wanted to buy one now, I would seriously consider the DGT N/A or the Excalibur Game Time. You can buy both of them together for less than a Chronos.
The knocks on the Chronos are valid: The price is high and the initial learning curve is steep. Once you spend the money and spend quality time with the manual and testing, the rest is bliss. Another downside for some might be its size: As Ron notes, that has much upside—besides the easy reach for both players, it allows the large display that is one of its best features. Still, to fit it in a crowded chess bag and carry it around a playing site all day could be an issue.
As for why Chronos is the best: (I refer to the full-length version here.)
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It’s indestructible. Go ahead, try to break it. It’s also very hard to accidentally tip over or knock off the table during a game.
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The display is easy to read, even from an angle or a distance. You can see the full time tick down for both players, at least in some modes.
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It can handle any time control, with no need to re-set the clock. It has several versions of straight delay as well as Bronstein and Fischer (increment) modes, for one through four controls, in most cases with or without a move counter.
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The buttons or touchpad are almost silent, unlike the Saitek and the Excalibur. I prefer the buttons for the feedback, but the touchpad is OK, too. You don’t even need to look at the clock to press it.
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It’s easy to set, once you get the hang of it. Do not despair during the first long hour with the manual; it gets better and stays that way.
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It’s also easy to change the time on one or both sides of the clock, during a game.
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It’s almost impossible to accidentally turn off the clock or ruin the settings beyond repair. It requires pro-active measures to re-set the clock to the start time of the control, and even more so to turn off the clock completely.
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It has modes for Go, shogi and other games besides chess, for those who want that.
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The last two are the biggest reasons for the Chronos cult. First, there is sentiment: Players who got the memo early about delay-digital preference for SD games bought the Chronos as their bridge over choppy new seas. It took time to adjust to time delay; the Chronos comforted the unease over the new way to play.
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It just feels right. The newer smaller clocks are OK, but there is something about a Chronos that…just feels right…at the board in a tournament game. Not everyone agrees, of course.
P.S. It’s indestructible. Mine dates from the last millennium, and I used it all weekend in Parsippany with no worries.
Try it and you will see. The one big downside is that it costs $90—on sale with careful shopping—to find out.
I didn’t know that Go and Shogi had a different time control. Interesting. I had thought that my Saitek Pro did every timekeeping variation used. Apparently not.
(For those who are curious, I’ll save some googling. In Shogi, each player has a certain amount of time per game. After time is up, you get a certain amount of time per move. If you can’t make a move in that time, you lose. So you might have three hours to make all your moves. At the end of three hours, you have to make one move per minute. It’s kind of like a delay mode, but the delay doesn’t start until the main time is over. There are also customs about having a scorekeeper audibly count down during that period, and the Chronos will duplicate that using programmable beeps.)
That fourth digit would certainly be a step up over my Saitek, and less noisy buttons wouldn’t hurt, either. I don’t know that I’ll be rushing out to buy one, but if my current model were to break, I might be convinced to choose Chronos.
It’s a little more complicated than that; each player typically has several periods of byo-yomi. Say you have five 30-second periods of byoyomi. Then once you have exhausted your main time, the byo-yomi timer starts counting down from 30 at the beginning of every move. When it reaches 0, you use up one of your five periods permanently and the timer resets to 30 and keeps counting. If you run out of your last period, you lose on time.
Eric, your entire post, start to finish, beautifully captures the mind-set of all of us “original” Chronos proponents. Great job!
Nowadays there are other nice clocks, but most of us will remain loyal to the one that got the ball rolling.
Bill Smythe
Well, that’s one form of it, which you’ll encounter if you play on the Kiseido Go Server or the Internet Go Server. Another form, which the American Go Association uses, is that you’re given a certain amount of time to make 25 plays. If you do so, the time resets, and you get the same amount of time to make another 25 plays. If you fail to make 25 plays within the byo-yomi time, you flag.
One of these is called Japanese byo-yomi, and the other is called Canadian byo-yomi, but I can never remember which is which.
The one you describe is Canadian byo-yomi.
See: is.gd/iBWhoK
One thing I like about the Chronos: You can set it for either delay or Bronstein. You can set delay with or without an “andante” visible countdown. You can set it with or without a move counter.
It’s good to be flexible.
Thanks for that clarification. Sounds a bit complicated.
The web site I found in my several seconds of googling simplified it a bit, it seems. It also noted that many tournaments were using the “harsh” form of time control, and gave a Japanese name for it, in which you have a certain amount of time, and if it runs out, you lose. This time control was becoming more popular because you could use a Chess clock instead of a scorekeeper with a stopwatch.
I guess they should all just buy Chronos instead.
It’s easier to play with than to explain 
Here’s what may be a simpler way to think about the same scenario (five byo-yomi periods of 30 seconds each): once you run out of main time, your clock is set to 2:30, and after every move it’s rounded back up to the nearest multiple of 30 seconds.
Unless they’ve changed it in the last few years, the IGS uses “Canadian byo-yomi”, like the AGA does.
I described Japanese byo-yomi, aka “byo-yomi” The AGA/IGS system is Canadian. The Chronos supports both (but note that Canadian means using a move counter with all that implies).
Both byo-yomi systems have the feature that some of your time is “use it or lose it”. With 30-second byo-yomi periods, there is no difference on the clock between making a move in 1 second or in 29. It then becomes a useful skill to be able to parcel out your extra thinking (e.g., counting the score on the board) into 29-seconds-or-fewer chunks, which can be parceled out when you have the time. Same thing in Canadian byo-yomi when you’ve made all but one move in a period. The closest equivalent chess has is the 5-second delay, but it’s much harder to make good use of 4 seconds than 29.
I’ll take a stab at another description. Once your main time runs out and you are in the byo-yomi stage, time works differently. You are not charged whatever time it takes for your move. Instead, you are only charged time if you allow a full period to pass. In the example, it doesn’t matter if you move in one second or in 29 seconds; you will not lose any time. However, if you take 31 seconds, you have spent one of your five periods. If you take 59 seconds, you have still spent only one of your five periods.
I would avoid chronos like the plague. I own a chronos and the experience I had getting it repaired by the one and only place you can get it repaired was horrific, in fact they did an incomplete job. It used to be my favorite clock until I had to deal with Chronos customer service (or lack thereof). They make you sign a waiver that revokes any reasonable responsibility they might have regarding your clock, and you have to agree to their time line of I bought an Excalibur and am very happy with it for half the price! It took them 12 weeks to send me a clock that wasn’t repaired.
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I am perfectly willing to wait 4-18 weeks or rarely even longer for the repaired clock to be sent back to me.
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If I send a check towards the repair of my clock, it might be cashed before the diagnosis begins.
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I fully understand that status updates, including acknowledgement of receipt of my clock, are not possible.
Signed:
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I stand corrected. I do know that the No-Name Go Server used Japanese byo-yomi by default, as KGS does today. My recollection was that IGS did as well, but I guess I was wrong about that.
Well, I bought a GX touch and have now played blitz and a g30 with it. Like the touch very much and it is very pleasant to use. Only took about 45min to learn the programing. Like the blue color and got it for under $90.
Unhappily, that has been my experience as well. I had the clock for 6 months, didn’t use it much, and then it refused to turn on. I sent it in for repair and it came back 3 months later with exactly the same symptoms so I sent it back again. Who knows if it will ever be fixed.
I too bought an Excalibur which has performed flawlessly thought it does have some peculiarities (such as having the move counter start at one instead of 0). I’ve also ordered a DGT North American because I don’t feel comfortable with only one digital clock seeing as how flaky they might be and quit at any time.
Richard
OK. Who is Chronos? Does the owner live in that PO box in Mountain View? Seriously, who is Chronos and where do they maintain an office and/or manufacturing facility?
Beyond warranty repairs, I view all electronics purchased for <$200 as throw aways. Still, who is Chronos?