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</style><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">"Chessmachine" redirects here. For the musician, see <a href="Richard_Chartier" title="Richard Chartier">Richard Chartier</a>.</div>
<p>The <b>ChessMachine</b> was a <a href="Chess_engine" title="Chess engine">chess computer</a> sold between 1991 and 1995 by TASC (The Advanced Software Company). It was unique at the time for incorporating both an <a href="ARM_architecture" class="mw-redirect" title="ARM architecture">ARM2</a> <a href="Coprocessor" title="Coprocessor">coprocessor</a> for the chess engine on an <a href="ISA_bus" class="mw-redirect" title="ISA bus">ISA card</a> which plugged into an <a href="IBM_PC" class="mw-redirect" title="IBM PC">IBM PC</a> and a software interface running on the PC to display a chess board and control the engine.
</p><p>The ISA card was sold with a CPU running at either 16 MHz or 32 MHz, and 128 KB, 512 KB, or 1 MB of onboard memory for <a href="Transposition_table" title="Transposition table">transposition tables</a>. This made economic sense at the time of introduction because mainstream PCs were only running from 10 MHz to 25 MHz.
</p><p>Two engines were sold with the card: <a href="Chessmaster" title="Chessmaster">The King</a> by Johann de Koning and <a href="REBEL_(chess)" title="REBEL (chess)">Gideon</a> by Ed Schröder. Gideon was famed for winning two <a href="World_Computer_Chess_Championship" title="World Computer Chess Championship">World Computer Chess Championships</a> on this hardware. The King later became the engine used in the popular <a href="Chessmaster" title="Chessmaster">Chessmaster</a> series of chess programs.
</p><p>TASC later incorporated the technology into a dedicated unit, sold from 1993 to 1997. There were two models, the <b>R30</b> and <b>R40</b>, running at 30 MHz and 40 MHz respectively, and having 512 KB and 1 MB of transposition tables, respectively.
</p><p>The SmartBoard, a wooden sensory board, was connected to the units, which were in tiny boxes approximately the size of chess clocks. They were only sold with <a href="Chessmaster#Chess_engine" title="Chessmaster">The King</a> chess engine.
</p><p>This was the end of the era of strong dedicated chess computers, and these two models are acknowledged as the strongest dedicated chess computers that were ever sold. At the height of its strength, the R30 attained a rating over 2350 on computer rating lists, higher than any other dedicated unit. According to the <a href="Swedish_Chess_Computer_Association" title="Swedish Chess Computer Association">SSDF</a> rating list, the R30 held its own against its contemporary programs running a <a href="Pentium" title="Pentium">Pentium</a>-90 MHz and won against other dedicated units.
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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="References">References</h2></div>
<ul><li><a href="Swedish_Chess_Computer_Association" title="Swedish Chess Computer Association">Swedish Chess Computer Association</a> (SSDF) - R30 entry</li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://members.home.nl/matador/chess_2.htm">Gideon on the Chessmachine</a></li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/index.php/TASC_ChessMachine">Schachcomputer.info - The Wiki for chess computers</a> <span class="languageicon">(in German)</span></li></ul>
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This article is issued from <a class="external text" title="Last edited on 2024-11-19" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/?title=ChessMachine&oldid=1258443939">Wikipedia</a>. The text is available under <a class="external text" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en">Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0</a> unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.
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