Ok, I was trying to remember about a computer chess card. I think it was sold under the Mephisto brand, and it was an actual expansion card you put into a personal computer (PC).
It came out circa 1989 or 1990. It definately was advertised in Chess Life. In any event, I was just curious about it, from a historical standpoint.
Hmm, Once Chessmaster 2000 came out, that would have definately been the nail in the coffin for that particular offbeat item. Of course, Mephisto standalone chess computers were for many years were the “rolex” of standalone chess computers.
Nowadays, a mobile phone can play at 2500 elo or better, using its own hardware. (as oppose to web based chess engines).
Well, not entirely. Cf. Brutus. But for the commercial market, sure.
The ChessMachine or a variant might be what you were thinking of? And, IIRC, the Mephisto line had removable RISC cards on the board itself, such that different engines could be loaded into the board structure? (Also remembering vaguely holiday catalogs of that era, of which I deeply lusted after at the time. )
When I was 16 years old, my father bought me (for Christmas), a standalone Radio Shack Chess Computer. Can’t remember the strength offhand. Anyway, it was really nice. It had an LCD of the entire chessboard, so if I moved a piece to the wrong spot, I could just look at the display. Kinda nice.
I didn’t use it that much, outside of when I first got it of course. It lasted a bit over 20 years, altough most of the time it collected dust. Still, I was a bit disappointed when I went to play with it one day and it no longer worked. New batteries didn’t help it either.
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