In the meantime I have fished out Sinclair ZX Chess for 48K Spectrum, the one by Psion. I would say Cyrus was playing the stronger game.
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Then, just as I was thinking I'd need to abort the mission, the Spectrum Castled, and I couldn't work out how to do that on Cyrus, so I abandoned it.
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I'll find a manual online and print it off I think. I had a bit of a problem refreshing my memory with Cyrus, so that wasted some time too. It took noticeably longer to play each move than Cyrus. It was a bad choice, it only had one level, same as BOSS, and adapts to play.
This was just the first one I found on my TZXDuino SD card. I then replaced the VIC 20 with the 48K ZX Spectrum with Super Chess loaded. I suspect it was thinking, but if that is how long it takes, life is too short. Unfortunately, when I entered the move Cyrus made into BOSS, it accepted it and then just hang. I tried Cyrus on the Dragon 32, against Boss Chess on the VIC 20. Unfortunately off to a false start today!
I hope this appeals to some of you, even if it may take a little time for the BBC to get involved. I don't mind others using Emulators to speed up the games and testing at extreme levels, but I'd just ask, let me do my games first.Īll comments and queries welcome. The contest will not be exhaustive, I won't have time, but I'll test them up to levels that don't take too long for each move, so that's about level 2 for the VIC 20! I will be using real original 8 bit equipment, no emulators here. It would be good if the overall winner could somehow play an Apple II. I will keep notes of each move and list them for each match. I hope to begin this quest on Monday at the latest. I wouldn't like to call the outcome of that match, but I'll be honest, the BBC could be in trouble, only a better chess engine could save it. The winner of that (I predict the Dragon again) will then play the BBC Micro. The winner of that (I predict the Dragon 32), will play the Commodore 64. I will probably then set the winner of that contest against a 48K ZX Spectrum, if I can find out which the strongest version of Chess was on that. Next up will be the VIC 20 again, but this time with BOSS Chess, playing the Dragon again with Cyrus Chess.
I am now planning on continuing this epic Chess Battle. I then set the VIC 20 against the Dragon 32, which resulted in victory for the Dragon, and that's as far as it got. I began this quest 5 years ago with my VIC 20, loaded with Sargon II, set against my Saitek Mephisto electronic Chess. For anybody that may be interested I am planning a Chess contest between various 8 Bit Micros, which will, of course, feature the BBC Model B.