11 replies to this topic

[Yart]

So I've heard of stories where it took the Atari 7 hours on the hardest difficulty setting to make a move on its Chess game. I remember turning it on and getting bored after waiting a few minutes staring at a blank screen as the poor CPU thought.

Has there been anyone insane enough to play through a full game of Chess on the 2600? Anyone actually play through a full game on the hardest setting? Seriously, I'm curious to know if ANYONE out there has ever had the patience to play a full Chess game on the Atari, so I can both slap and hug them for it.

[SoundGammon]

One could try it on Stella, using save state and and reloading it, let it think, save, load, think, save, load, think, save, load, think...I'm getting sleepy...

[batari]

I've heard that memory overruns on the hardest setting so you probably couldn't play a full game even if you wanted to.

[NE146]

Do a search.. I know there have been some recorded games in the past where they pitted 2600 Chess against Chessmaster or something like that. Also I believe the hardest difficulty levels were tried and I think that it ended up moving pieces illegally. But it's definitely been looked at

[Pioneer4x4]

Can you set stella to run at max speed possible on your PC?

[roberto]

what would be an approx Elo rating for the game at its hardest level? Around 1200?

[Nukey Shay]

Not applicable.
Because the look-ahead routine is allowed to be abandoned prematurely while the pieces are still left in a "look-ahead" state (moving not only it's own, but some of yours as well), this can lead to any number of impossible game scenarios.  An ELO rating does not apply where cheating is involved (however unintentional it might have been).

[Syntaxerror999]

Nukey Shay, on Sat Apr 14, 2012 10:55 PM, said:

Not applicable.
Because the look-ahead routine is allowed to be abandoned prematurely while the pieces are still left in a "look-ahead" state (moving not only it's own, but some of yours as well), this can lead to any number of impossible game scenarios.  An ELO rating does not apply where cheating is involved (however unintentional it might have been).

Guess atari assumed noone would actualy be crazy enough to try the hardest setting.

[Tin_Lunchbox]

I had and liked Atari 2600/VCS chess. I think it was a Larry Kaplan one? I might've won a few times. I played the lower levels. I have also heard the legend that it cheats (or maybe it's a bug) at the highest level, but I can't confirm that on personal experience.

[Mr SQL]

Interesting thread! I doubt 4k chess can involve a large enough matrice for hours of look ahead querying; a few minutes of calculation should suffice for the maximum calc depth attainable; multi-hour mode would seem to be just a marketing feature.

Quite excellent for a 4k chess program though, it could beat the Colour Chess cart for the CoCo hands down

IMO the ChessMaster engine's 2000 rating was pretty close to the mark though the later grand master claims of 2500 and beyond (3000!?) were ridiculous.

[NE146]

http://forums.macrum...d=1#post2653328

http://www.atariage....ster-challenge/

Edited by NE146, Sun Apr 15, 2012 2:03 PM.

[Tin_Lunchbox]

Mr SQL, on Sun Apr 15, 2012 10:30 AM, said:

Interesting thread! I doubt 4k chess can involve a large enough matrice for hours of look ahead querying; a few minutes of calculation should suffice for the maximum calc depth attainable; multi-hour mode would seem to be just a marketing feature. Quite excellent for a 4k chess program though, it could beat the Colour Chess cart for the CoCo hands down IMO the ChessMaster engine's 2000 rating was pretty close to the mark though the later grand master claims of 2500 and beyond (3000!?) were ridiculous.

I figure it's doing something legitimate when the screen is blanking and flashing like that.