Well, the engineers who designed the electronic circuits, didn't do very well either... the design is really a mess, really crazy...

Best,
Gerardo

Here's an excerpt from the manual, it was scanned by Achim. It explains the LOOK switch, and also tells about LCD flickering.

hap, there's still one strange behaviour with this new LCD-board:

If the chess unit is switched OFF (in the configuration), and you switch it ON again (e.g. when using the engine the next time), then this segments testing (described in the manual) doesn't stop, i.e. all 64 queen are flashing forever. You can only stop this by either making a reset, or pressing the CE or NEWGAME key.

Is this the normal behaviour of this chess unit, or is there maybe any signal missing, that should be sent to the unit when switching it ON?

Regards,
Franz

Hello,

Regardless of the answer of hap and the actions he performs on the driver, please note that on the real machine, there is no possibility to turn the Chess Unit off and on independently.

Best,
Gerardo

Ah ok, that may explain this behaviour, thanks!

I'll test if it I could send a simulated CE keystroke in the driver after switching on the chess unit, but I'm not sure if this is possible at all in MAME.

Regards,
Franz

Right, it gets the power supply from the master unit, there is no power on-off switch. The chess unit and memory unit: you're not supposed to plug/unplug them while the chesscomputer is on. I bet the same will happen when you do this on the real device***. So, best thing to do is restart the emulation after turning one of them on/off.

***I really would not recommend trying it! You might break the chesscomputer.

Yes, but of course you cannot plug/unplug (i.e. switch on/off) these units in the emulated chesscomputer, when it's not on.

Yeah, a simple restart (shift F3 in MAME) will do the trick.
Similarly, the same thing needs to be done when switching Mephisto Vancouver between Bavaria and Magnets sensors board.

Hi,

eine neue CB-Emu-Version ist online - diesmal die letzte .................................................. ....................................... (in diesem Monat )

Neuerungen:
1) in MessExtra/MessChess sind jetzt bei einigen älteren Mephistos (Amsterdam, Dallas, Roma) auch verschiedene CPU-Frequenzen wählbar
2) neue ROM-Version 3.6 beim Novag SuperForte C
3) zusätzliches LCD-Brett ('Chess Unit') beim Novag (bzw. SciSys) Super System III

Vielen Dank wieder an hap, Berger und Achim für die neuen Geräte!

Mein eigenes 'External Layout' für das SuperSystem III mit LCD-Brett sieht etwas anders aus als das Original, weil sich das sonst mit dem zusätzlichen Brett von der Größe her nicht ausgegangen wäre.
Wer lieber die originale Ansicht haben will, braucht nur auf das 'Internal Layout' umschalten (dann kann allerdings eine Partie nicht in 'gamelog.pgn' gespeichert werden).

Grüße,
Franz

Chess Challenger! Der erste Schachcomputer ist emuliert. Danke Berger und Mike Watters.