I don't know if anyone experienced it in the past with the originals. The Regency I have used to be the buggiest from what I remember especially around time control, when I played and compared them to Challenge, Legend, Legend II, Ivan, Igor, Mirage and Avenger. They all btw pretty much have the same base chess program.

Regards
Nick

Vielleicht hat es etwas mit dem Focus zu tun. Bisher tritt er Fehler nicht auf, wenn MessNew das aktive Fenster ist.

Interpretiere ich deine Aussage richtig, daß du ein Match einer anderen Engine gegen den Krypton spielst?
Beim eigenen Spiel hat doch immer die jeweilige GUI (Arena oder Winboard) den Fokus, wenn du gerade einen Zug eingibst!?

__________________
Meine Webseite: https://fhub.jimdofree.com/

Hi,

I know some of you experimented (as I did) setting the features of the Horvath program powering the Krypton Regency (and related clones).
If you have a preferred setting you would like to always enable using the chess engine plugin, here is a sample change you can append to the function interface.setlevel(). Insert before the last command that restores video speed.
Of course, adapt to your own setting, it's easy to re-use the basic steps here listed (after the last step exiting level setting):
MfG,
Tibono

Hi,

As you may know, the ROM in these chess computers is mainly internal (with some exceptions in which part or all of the ROM is external), that is, it's embedded in the H8 microcontroller. It turns out that when we have reverse engineered many computers with H8 microcontroller we have found the same model with different types of microcontrollers. For example this has happened with Excalibur Mirage, Ivan the Terrible, Novag Aquamarine RISC II, Systema Challenge... and also many situations where different models share the same microcontroller (and therefore same ROM). It's all quite confusing.

For example, on the subject you mention: I have owned, and analysed, two Systema Challenge: One with a 1993 MCU and one with a 1996 MCU from Krypton Regency! See attached pictures.

I've been able to do ROM dump of the second unit mentioned, but unfortunately I gave away the first unit and hope to get it back (temporarily) in September to do the ROM dump of what we believe to be the "genuine" Krypton/Systema Challenge.

hap is doing a lot of research on this, and including all this information in the MAME drivers themselves. We will discover even more interesting and surprising things.

Gerardo "Berger"

Miniaturansicht angehängter Grafiken

   

Hi Gerardo,

I know you are replicating the computers by using the original hardware. Please don't consider what I wrote as a self-experienced observation anything other than the chess software programs themselves (inside the ROMs). The fact that you are showing two ROMs for Regency possibly explains my experience with my Regency. It has occasional tendencies to move too fast or almost instantly which results in moves of possible lesser quality. Who knows there may be even third or fourth ROMs for Regency. You would know this better than I, as my interest is more about the chess programs other than being interested in how the different hardware influences the results of a program. The hardware is your domain.

In my tests I have only ever been able to 100% over 5 original tests replicate 226 positions with Legend and Concerto, every other one has a move deviance here and there. But even that would be difficult to state as a fact if there are multiple versions ROMs used with Legend and Concerto.

Therefore, just as you are doing it is important to separate and play on the computers under their original conditions (identify the different ROMs and separate them), unless you can 100% prove that two computers are 100% the same hardware and software. Because in my opinion one or the other would never = 100%. It requires both to be 100%. Your Mess approaches show this through your V1, 2, 3 versions, where many of them if not most provide different chess results. Otherwise, why bother with V1, 2 etc.

Based on what you are all doing with Mess I think you would be in agreement with this.

Best regards
Nick

Hello Nick,

I'm only a small part in all this, it's a teamwork of many people. I basically repair chess computers, reverse engineer and ROM dumping. But unlike many people, I actually play very little with chess computers these days.

I did an entry on the Shachcomputer.info Wikipedia explaining what the "ROM serial" is, a code that uniquely identifies the ROM of one of these Hitachi microcontrollers:

https://www.schach-computer.info/wik...tle=ROM_serial

But suppose for a moment two chess computers with exactly the same chess engine, the same opening book, basically identical hardware in terms of processing speed, RAM, etc. but one running with pressure squares and the other with magnetic sensors. The ROM dump will be very different, and yet they will play the same or very similar!

That is why it is also very important to study and compare the games... playing. All this is complementary, necessary and very interesting. One work of study does not exclude the other. The research done by hap, or by other members of this forum who dedicate time to the disassembly and study of the code stored in the ROM, sheds light, supports suspicions or sometimes disproves something that had been taken as valid until then.

Best,
Gerardo

Hi Gerardo,

Thanks, and yes, I fully agree with you, and I also respect and appreciate everyone in the Mess team and the incredibly hard work they put into it.

Best regards,
Nick

Previously I forgot to say that I don't do the hardware emulation. That's all done by hap, creating the so called MAME "drivers".

Best,
Gerardo

Hi Gerardo,

You wrote:

"But suppose for a moment two chess computers with exactly the same chess engine, the same opening book, basically identical hardware in terms of processing speed, RAM, etc. but one running with pressure squares and the other with magnetic sensors. The ROM dump will be very different, and yet they will play the same or very similar!"

It is the "very similar" which in this case I would be unsure about. Especially if it repeats itself occasionally in various tests that there is a move variation that occurs sometimes.

Are you able to read two ROM's through a program that highlights for example if it is binary were a 1101 was changed to 1011? The size overall would remain the exactly the same, but something had changed....even if it were by accident?

Or with ROMs and other chips are there not manufacturing tolerances (however minute) that could influence a slight deviation?

Asking as a layman, but with knowledge from Industry that everything has a tolerance for "pass" and "reject". Therefore, that means that even under "pass" there is a high and low "pass" that could influence some minor deviation on computer board A and same computer board B. Compound that by 20 different chips with (pass tolerances) = deviation might occur?

Layman's regards
Nick