PART 1 • The bombshell
In 1986, the first version of a chess program called Chessmaster hit the shelves of software stores like a bombshell. While not the first or only commercial chess program, Chessmaster immediately became the best known and most popular of the bunch. The program was published simultaneously( or nearly so) for ten separate proprietary systems; it seemed that no matter what kind of home computer system you owned, you could buy a version of Chessmaster that would run it. The software ' s publisher scored a major public relations coup by getting Chessmaster 2000( the first version ' s title) featured on PBS ' s broadcasts of the 1986 World Chess Championship, played between Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov; despite the fact that the software typically produced abysmally bad moves when consulted by Shelby Lyman, the program ' s host( due in part to the ineptitude of the computer ' s operator coupled with a lack of understanding of how computers analyze chess positions), the exposure provided a major sales driver. Chessmaster eventually became the world ' s best selling chess software, going through twelve versions before its final iteration was released in 2007.
Chessmaster set the benchmark for every chess playing and analysis program which followed it. Initially easy to use( successive versions would become more Byzantine as the series progressed), Chessmaster made several innovations along the way which influenced the rest of the chess software industry. The program featured variable time controls and level settings, and included rudimentary database features. Chessmaster 4000 in 1993 introduced multimedia features. By the time Chessmaster 6000 hit the shelves in 1998, the program contained multimedia chess instruction, plus a really great“ hook”: dozens of personalities of all skill levels against which the user could compete – the overall effect was that of having a whole chess club full of players at your beck and call.
THE GORILLA IN THE CORNER
In the mid-1980 ' s a bunch of big brain graduate students began work on a chess computer like no other. Originally calling their project / computer Chiptest, the idea was to build a big honkin ' chess computer to test ideas on how multiple computer processors could be run in parallel, dividing huge computing tasks between them to solve the problems in much less time. That was the“ party line” anyway; I ' m sure that in some small measure the project was to build a huge honkin ' chess computer because it ' s an extremely cool thing to do.
29 chessking. com