THE NEW YORK TIMES

Chess

Deluxe Edition with Touch Screen

• Built-in computer ranks “Expert” (est. 2,000 rating).
• Choose from 136 different skill levels
• Features 3 languages: English, Spanish and French
• Built-in chess clock
• Large, backlit touch-screen LCD with stylus
• Save and recall your current match

HELLO I’M CHESSICA....

NEW YORK TIMES PROBLEMS

The next five options permit the selection of one of the NEW YORK TIMES problems taken from actual chess master games. Your goal is to find the master move for each position. If you do not play the master move an error beep will sound. The HINT key may be pressed to see the master move. TOUCH CHESS will remember the last problem number you worked on for each of the five options. Before selecting a problem first set the level to FHinF for the mate positions and to level FH200 for the tactical positions.

• MATE 1: Select one of 66 mate-in-1 move problems by using the YES key.
• MATE 2: Select one of the 196 mate-in-2 moves problems by using the YES key.
• MATE 3: Select one of the 95 mate-in-3 moves problems by using the YES key.
• MATE 4: Select one of the 9 mate-in-4 moves problems by using the YES key.
• PRoB: Select one of 135 tactical problem positions. You are generally looking for moves that win material. But in some cases you may have a losing position and the master move is to force a draw.

Excerpts taken from the The Sharper Image “The New York Times Chess Deluxe Edition with Touch Screen” User manual and Box (back cover).

“The New York Times Chess Deluxe Edition with Touch Screen” picture taken from box (back)

According to Ron Nelson, by the time Excalibur New York Times Deluxe was conceived, the H8 ROM’s were being phased out of production, therefore this chess computer was developed around the 65C02 SPLB36A1 processor from the manufacturer Sunplus. This created its own unique set of problems as 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 65C02 SPLB36A1 with its own unique play behavior. Excalibur New York Times Deluxe was manufactured for Excalibur Electronics in the Shenzen Province of China.

For reading of Ron Nelson comments go to: Hiarcs Forum