Chess Challenger

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Sensory Chess Challenger, 1982,6502^[1]

Chess Challenger, orFidelity Chess Challenger,
was a series ofdedicated chess computers produced and market byFidelity Electronics. TheChess Challenger 1 was the first commercial chess computer of its kind in1976, invented bySidney Samole, with a program byRon Nelson, developed for anAltair 8800 Microcomputer with anIntel 8080 CPU. Further versions of Nelson's program run on a more advancedZ80 CPU, great commercial success was theChess Challenger 7^[2] in 1979.Ed English, an early game programmer affiliated with Fidelity Electronics in 1979/80, improved thealpha-beta implementation to double the playing speed^[3].

Photos

Chess Challenger Prototype, 1976,8080^[4] .

Sargon becomes Challenger

In 1980, whenDan andKathe Spracklen started to collaborate with Samole, a6502 Version of Chess Challenger was built for aSargon III port. The 6502 was better suited for Sargon thanZ80. Excerpt from their oral history how it went with Fidelity^[5] :

So, that’s about the time we started looking at Fidelity again. We got in contact with Sid Samole, who was the President of the company, and he said, “Well, come out and see us and bring your- what you got out there and show it to us.” And so we got on a plane and flew out to Miami, and showed off our program to him. And they had their chief engineer, Ron Nelson, look at it, and they were impressed. And so they offered us a big contract, basically, to go to work for them, basically, fulltime. And we didn’t have to go to Miami. We could stay in San Diego.

They had the Chess Challenger 1, I think, out at the time, or 2, and they were looking for something better. Our program, that we brought with us, just shellacked their program. We had a little tournament there, in Miami, just a little, between us, on our- the one we brought with us. And they were impressed.

And we continued to sell both through, or Sargon, through Hayden. So Fidelity didn’t mind that. The said that’s cool. They didn’t see it as a competition with them.

WMCCC 1980, MCC 1980

The immediate success was the lucky win of the1st World Microcomputer Chess Championship, September 4 to 9, 1980, in London. Chess Challenger with a 6502 CPU, notably winning last three of five rounds against three of four otherSargon incarnations! While theICGA tournament site states a Z80A CPU^[6],Kevin O’Connell reported the World Microcomputer Chess Champion was equipped with aMOS Technology processor, despite newest Fidelity computers were shipped with Z80/Z80A^[7]. As further confirmed by Fidelity Electronics' Vice PresidentMyron Samole in anPersonal Computing interview, the Champion Sensory Challenger, which also won theMCC 1980 at September 5 to 7 inSan Jose, California had a program written around the 6502 chip^[8].

German Chess Challenger brochure withProf. Heinz Haber endorsement^[9]
Chess Challenger Sensory Voice^[10], aZ80 based Nelson Program as Micro Champ?^[11]

WCCC 1980

TheChess Challenger which played theWCCC 1980 end of September in Linz and finished last was presumably an older Z80 based computer with a Nelson program^[12]. Fidelity's flagship end of the 70s, with World Champion 1980 advertisement was theChess Challenger Sensory Voice. The first 6502 based computer with a Spracklen program commercially available appeared in 1981 asChampion Sensory Chess Challenger^[13] .

ACM 1980

The strong third place at theACM 1980 in October was again a great success, only losing toBelle in the last round^[14]. Description given from the ACM booklet with mentioned authors Dan and Kathe Spracklen, Ronald Nelson,Frank Duason^[15]

This marks the first appearance in an ACM tournament for this popular machine. Chess Challenger is written in assembly language for a 6502 microprocessor. It has 20k bytes of memory and executes about 1,000,000 inst/sec. A book of about 1,000 moves is used. The program uses thealpha-beta algorithm withiterative deepening.

Name Confusion

Using the same name at almost the same time for programs with different authors and CPU architectures caused some confusion by potential customers, not to mention tournament organizers. Accordant to their product lineup and nomination, and caused by former tournament rules, permitting multiple, but different named entries from the same author, and commercial availability of participating computers, Fidelity Electronics somehow was "forced" to continue the naming obfuscation in further tournaments, where Fidelity computers with Spracklen programs participated asFidelity X, Challenger-X,Elegance,Elite,Private Line, andSensory.

Chess Challenger X

ACM 1986

In 1986, at the17th ACM North American Computer Chess Championship, Fidelity showed up with a huge experimental, parallel machine, namedChess Challenger X. Authors wereRon Nelson,Dan Spracklen,Kathe Spracklen, andDanny Kopec asBook author. It had aZ80 controller, and 16 or more68000 16-bit processors. The controller was written inC, the 16 or more Spracklen programs inassembler^[16].

Chess Challenger X scored 50%, losing fromRecom andBelle. Notably, in the same tournament, another Fidelity computer programmed by the Spracklens with a Kopec book took part, asFidelity Experimental with a68020 processor. It did not score better in that strong field and finally placed 10th.

ACM 1988

At theACM 1988, the new experimental version of a68030 based micro calledChess Challenger X showed a remarkable performance. Mentioned authors from the tournament report byMonty Newborn andDanny Kopec^[17] wereDan andKathe Spracklen as well asRon Nelson. The 32-bit program, written in 68030assembly language, drewDeep Thought and won versusWaycool, the current World ChampionCray Blitz, andHiTech. Chess Challenger X was likely the forerunner of the commercial availableFidelity Elite Avant Garde V9^[18] . One year later, at theWCCC 1989 in Edmonton, a similar machine, presumably with a further developed program, played under the nameFidelity X and finished sixth.

CC Clones

Publications

1978 ...

Editor (1978).Black-box war.Personal Computing, Vol. 2, No. 11, pp. 17, November 1978 »Boris
Don Gerue, Russ McNeil (1979).Chess Challenger-10 wins Microchess Tourney.Personal Computing, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 63 »The Penrod Memorial Microchess Tournament
John Larkins (1979).Inside Chess Challenger.Personal Computing, Vol. 3, No. 11, pp. 78
Editor (1979).Misadvantages of a Chess Traveler.Personal Computing, Vol. 3, No. 12, pp. 75

1980 ...

Sidney Samole (1980).Genius Offspring.Changing Times, refersPersonal Computing, February 1979
Evan Katz (1980).Chess Challenger's Voice comes out of Both Sides of its Mouth.Personal Computing, Vol. 4, No. 5, pp. 80
Harry Shershow (1981).The MyChess-CSC Confrontation at San Jose.Personal Computing, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 79 »MCC 1980, Interviews withDavid Kittinger andMike Samole
John F. White (1981).Survey-Chess Games.Your Computer,August/September 1981
John F. White (1982).Review-Morphy V Champion.Your Computer,January 1982
John F. White (1982).Review-Chess Computers.Your Computer,March 1982

2000 ...

Rob van Son (2002).De schaakcomputer daagt u uit!.Computerschaak,pdf hosted byHein Veldhuis (Dutch)

Forum Posts

1998 ...

Re: Old chess challenger 7 algorithms byFernando Villegas,CCC, April 06, 1998
Something More About Chess Challenger 7 byFernando Villegas,CCC, April 06, 1998
Fidelity Sensory Chess Challenger 8 by Jim Phillips,CCC, September 20, 1998
Fidelity Chess Challenger 7 by Joseph R. Coppola,CCC, January 21, 1999

2000 ...

Instruction Book For Fidelity Chess Challenger by John Burton,CCC, February 22, 2000
What was Chess Challenger 7 thinking? by Rich Van Gaasbeck,CCC, March 06, 2002
I Think I have Chess Challenger 7 search depths correctly now by Rich Van Gaasbeck,CCC, March 08, 2002
Fidelity Sensory Chess Challenger 8 by Eric Guttenberg,CCC, February 20, 2005
Chess Champion Sensory Challenger Asked byFernando Villegas,CCC, March 06, 2006

2010 ...

Fidelity World Champion Challenger by Larry,Hiarcs Forum, December 03, 2013
Ron Nelsons dedicated chess computers bymclane,Hiarcs Forum, April 26, 2015
Re: Ron Nelson byChessChallenger,Hiarcs Forum, December 29, 2015

Re: Ron Nelson by Chessmaster Ireland,Hiarcs Forum, January 02, 2016

Re: Ron Nelson Chess Challenger 10 byChessChallenger,Hiarcs Forum, January 24, 2016

Re: Ron Nelson maybe will come here... byRon Nelson,CCC, February 03, 2016
Fidelity Chess Challenger 3 Components byChessChallenger,Hiarcs Forum, February 03, 2016

External Links

Challenger's ICGA Tournaments
Fidelity Electronics fromchesscomputers.org
Fidelity Champion Sensory Challenger Electronic Chess Computer fromThe Spacious Mind
Fidelity Chess Challenger 1 fromAdam's Computer Chess Pages, May 30, 2012
Fidelity fromSchachcomputer.info Wiki (German)
Sargon immer noch Marktführer:: Mikros noch ohne Großmeister-Format,Computerwoche, November 28, 1980 (German) »WCCC 1980,WMCCC 1980