Excalibur Model 375V Talking LCD Chess (2002) Electronic Travel Chess Computer

EXCALIBUR TALKING LCD CHESS MODEL 375V

Congratulations on your purchase of Excalibur Electronics’ Talking LCD Chess! You've purchased both your own personal chess trainer and a partner who's always ready for a game and who can improve as you do! Talking and audio sounds add another dimension to your LCD Chess computer for increased enjoyment and play value.

Hear swords clang, horses gallop, men march, and drums beat!

Excalibur's Talking LCD Chess is designed so that it can be held comfortably and used with one hand.

Your Excalibur Talking LCD Chess is packed with features! Each key has two labels. To activate the feature named below the key, just press the key. To enjoy the feature given above the key, first press MODE and then the key.

MAIN EXCALIBUR TALKING LCD CHESS MODEL 375V GAME CHARACTERISTICS

Tournament Strength
Threat Warning Indicator.
Selectable Opening Lines of Play and Learning.
Replays Historical Great Chess Games with Special Scoring.
32 Mate Problems for you to Solve.
TEACH Mode for Beginner Players.
Mate Trainer for Advanced Players.
Auto-play to Watch Computer Play Both Sides.
INFO Mode to See What Computer is Thinking.

BOOK OPENING TRAINER

Talking LCD Chess makes it easy for you to learn the same openings that world chess champions play! At the beginning of a game, you may choose to learn one of 32 popular book openings ways to begin the game used by chess masters. Press MODE, then OPTIONS, to display OPEN, and then press the right or left DIRECTION to select the number of the opening you want to learn. (See below.) Then press the CLEAR key to return to normal play.

Now play a move. If your move is not the correct opening move, an error buzz will sound. To learn the correct move press HINT. When the computer comes back with its move, you will briefly see the word OPEN on the screen if you have another opening move to make. If the word OPEN does not appear, you may continue normal play. You have completed the training for that opening line. The names of the openings are:

1. Ruy Lopez, Open Defense
2. Ruy Lopez, Zaitsev Defense
3. Ruy Lopez, Exchange
4. Scotch Game
5. Scotch Four Knights
6. Giuoco Piano
7. Two Knights Defense
8. Four Knights
9. Petroff’s Defense
10. Sicilian Alapin Variation
11. Sicilian, Najdorf Variation
12. Sicilian, Dragon Variation
13. Sicilian, Keres Attack
14. Caro-Kann Defense
15. Panov-Botvinnik Attack
16. Caro-Kann Excahnge Variation
17. Queen’s Gambit Declined
18. Lasker Defense, Queen Gambit Declined
19. Queen Gambit Declined Exchange Variation
20. Slav Defense
21. Queen’s Gambit Accepted
22. Nimzo-Indian Defense, Classical Variation
23. Nimzo-Indian Defense, Rubinstein Variation
24. Semi-Slav Defense
25. Queen’s Indian Defense
26. Queen’s Indian Defense, Petrosian Variation
27. Bogolubow Indian Defense
28. Catalan
29. Gruenfeld Defense
30. King’s Indian Defense
31. Modern Benoni Defense
32. Benko Gambit

TrAIn: Select one of eight training positions. Positions with the Black king in the middle give you practice in checkmating the Black king.

SCOrE: Your display normally shows the number of the current move. If instead you want to see the piece-score of your current position, turn this option on. The scoring totals the following values: Pawns—1, Knights—3, Bishops—3, Rooks—5, and Queen—9.

InFO: When turned on, this option will display the score, depth of search (number of moves LCD Chess is thinking ahead), best move it is considering playing, and clock times. These will be displayed while the computer is thinking at its higher levels.

rATE: Turning this option ON will enable your rating to be updated if you select a tournament level type of a sudden death type level to play against. Turn this option off, when you want to practice on those levels. During a rated game the ‘O’ symbol will appear as a reminder. When the ‘O’ symbol is on, you will hear an ARE YOU SURE warning if you try to TAKEBACK mistakes, adding pieces in Setup mode, ask for a Hint, or try to start a NEW GAME before the game is completed. If the score is greater than 9.0, you can claim a victory with the NEW GAME key.

Excerpts taken from the Excalibur Talking LCD Chess Model 375V user manual

MORE ABOUT EXCALIBUR TALKING LCD CHESS MODEL 375V ELECTRONIC CHESS COMPUTER

By the time Excalibur Talking LCD Chess was conceived, the H8 ROM’s were being phased out of production, therefore Excalibur Talking LCD Chess was developed around the SPLB191A processor from the manufacturer Sunplus. This created its own unique set of problems as Ron Nelson's H8 program had to be translated to work with this new processor which has a 6502 core. This processor had less available RAM therefore in order to make the program fit to these new lower specifications, adjustments were made to the program which included the removal of Nelson's Attack Bit Map Tables and the commenting out of the Ponder routine, which were both important strength of play features that existed in Nelson's H8 program. All these adjustments resulted in a new lesser strength chess program for use with the SPLB191A with its own unique play behavior.

The manufacturing of Excalibur Talking LCD Model 375V was contracted to Same Time Limited in Hong Kong.

In 2005 brought out the same Model 375V named Exclaibur LCD Kingmaster. Only difference being that this later model may have had a slightly faster 4 MHz SPLB191B processor from Sunplus.

Technical Specification

Excalibur Talking LCD Chess (2002)

Box

Computer Label

User Manual

Spacious Mind

Schachcomputer.Info

Active 2017

Tourn. 2015

-

T1

T2

T3

T4

T5

Final

-

MANUFACTURER

PROGRAMMER

Excalibur Electronics, Inc

Ron Nelson

1800 USCF

2002

$49.95

Not Available

Year:

MFR ELO:

Original Price:

Wiki ELO:

Model #:

375V

My Serial #:

TC003824

Processor OEM

Sunplus

Processor:

SPLB191A 65C02

Speed:

Type:

8 Bit

3 MHz

ROM:

256 KB

RAM:

704 Byte x 8 Bit

Battery Type:

3 x AAA

Power Adapter:

Not Available

Display:

LCD Dot Matrix

Board Type:

LCD Chess Board

Overall Size:

Board Size:

2x2 in

2.3/8x5.3/4x1 in

Options Select:

Button Select

Play Levels:

136

Opening Book:

32 Book Opening

Take Back:

Available

Position Setup:

Available

Position Verify:

Available

Move Analysis:

Display Info:

Available

Solve Mate:

Mate in 8

Save Game:

Available

Ponder:

Not Available

Search Depth:

Not Known

Provide Hint:

Available

Teach Mode:

Available

Change Sides:

Available

Active Level:

TM Level:

40 T:H2:00

Infinite Level:

F:Hi:nF

F:H0:30

Hardware Specification

Game Features

Matchplay & Test ELO Ratings

Computer Game Rating

Rating Test

Other Computer Chess Ratings

USCF

Spacious Mind

Human Rating

USCF

CCR

CCNS

Ply

FIDE

USCF

-

Class C Level Electronic Travel Chess Computer!