Mephisto+(H)

toc =History= The Mephisto project started with an ordinary 2 line classified column "...we are looking for a chess programmer ... " by Mr. Horváth, which was discovered by Elmar Henne, who contacted his fellow student Thomas Nitsche from Technical University of Munich, who was already a well known chess programmer. Nitsche and Henne soon founded their own company P1 [|GmbH] to focus on computer chess. When Mr. Horváth sold the whole stuff to Hegener & Glaser, a four year collaboration started in 1980.
 * Home * Engines * Mephisto I-III**
 * [[image:mephisto1.jpg width="380" link="http://www.schachcomputer.at/mep1.htm"]] ||~  || **Mephisto** was a family of dedicated chess computers, produced and traded by Hegener & Glaser since 1979 with programs of Elmar Henne and Thomas Nitsche. Short after winning the World Microcomputer Chess Champion title at WMCCC 1984 in Glasgow  (shared), Hegener & Glaser abandoned the collaboration with Henne and Nitsche, and started to work with Richard Lang in continuing the Mephisto brand name, later also with programs of other professional chess programmers like Frans Morsch, Ulf Rathsman, Ed Schröder and Johan de Koning. ||
 * Mephisto I ||~  ||^   ||

=Mephisto I, II= The mighty Mephisto I and II chess computers with their unique [|Briquette] design ran on the [|RCA 1802] 8-bit [|CMOS] processor with 6 KiB of a 8KiB ROM and one KiB of RAM, the Mephisto II, released in 1981, doubled the memory sizes. The opening book was supplied by Ossi Weiner. The programs were based on Nitsche's former program Orwell - a mixture of Shannon Type A and Type B strategy. The first plies of a brute-force alpha-beta search were extended by a selective layer of plausible moves, no quiescence search, but SOMA like exchange evaluation.  =Mephisto III=

CDL
The new **Mephisto III** program was written in [|Compiler Description Language] [|CDL2] for high abstraction with chess pattern terms, but only 1.5-2.0 times slower than assembly. It was further possible to compile the program for different target processors. While the default Mephisto III Briquette model as well the first modular **Mephisto MM I**, first released in 1983, still had an 8-bit RCA CMOS processor, now with 32 KiB ROM and 4 KiB RAM, the **Mephisto III-S** and Mephisto **Excalibur** were shipped with Motorola's 68000 16-bit processor. Mephisto III-S won the the World Microcomputer Chess Champion title at WMCCC 1984 in Glasgow (shared with three other computers).

The Mephisto 3-Projekt
The programs of Henne and Nitsche were famous for their very small and selective "humanlike" search trees. Translated quote from //Das Mephisto 3-Projekt// :

=See also=
 * Demonology
 * Hegener & Glaser
 * Mephisto
 * Mephisto Module Systems

=Publications=
 * [|Ab Dezember neuer Mikroschachcomputer für 350 Mark:: Mephisto unterm Weihnachtsbaum], October 7, 1979, Computerwoche 36/1979 (German)
 * [|Schachcomputer: Tricks und Trug], [|Der Spiegel] 50/1980, December 08, 1980, (German) [|pdf]
 * [|Mychess, Sargon und Boris auf den Plätzen zwei bis vier: Münchner Mephisto siegt in Stockholm], February 27, 1981, Computerwoche 9/1981 (German) » Stockholm MCCT 1980
 * [|Gern gefällig], [|Der Spiegel] 1/1983, January 03, 1983 (German)
 * Thomas Nitsche (**1983**). //The Mephisto Concept, A "Humanlike" Thinking Chess Program.// Computer Chess Digest Annual 1983
 * Tony Harrington (**1983**). //A Match for Brute Force//. Personal Computer World, [|May 1983]
 * Tony Harrington (**1984**). //Mephisto III//. Personal Computer World, [|April 1984]
 * Tony Harrington (**1984**). //Mephisto's dual edge//. Personal Computer World, [|May 1984]
 * Thomas Nitsche (**1984**). [|Das Mephisto 3-Projekt], [|Schach-Echo] 7/1984 (German)

=External Links=

Chess Computers

 * [|Mephisto (chess computer) from Wikipedia]
 * [|Mephisto's (H) ICGA Tournaments]
 * [|About the company Hegener & Glaser (Mephisto)] from [|Schachcomputer.info - Wiki]
 * [|Hegener & Glaser (Mephisto)] from [|ChessComputers.org]
 * [|Mephisto I] from [|Schachcomputer.info - Wiki]
 * [|Mephisto II] from [|Schachcomputer.info - Wiki]
 * [|Mephisto III] from [|Schachcomputer.info - Wiki]
 * [|Mephisto III-S Glasgow] from [|Schachcomputer.info - Wiki]
 * [|Mephisto MM I] from [|Schachcomputer.info - Wiki] (German)
 * [|Das Mephisto 3-Projekt] from [|Schachcomputer.info - Wiki] (German)
 * [|Mephisto Excalibur] by Alwin Gruber, [|Schachcomputer.info - Wiki] (German)
 * [|Mephisto | Photo collection] by Chewbanta
 * [|Mephisto Electronic Chess Computers] from The Spacious Mind
 * [|The Long History of Mephisto - Part 1] from Adam's [|Computer Chess Pages], June 18, 2012

Misc

 * [|Mephisto (automaton) from Wikipedia]
 * [|Mephistopheles from Wikipedia]
 * [|Faust from Wikipedia]
 * [|Mephisto (novel) from Wikipedia]

=References= =What links here?= include component="backlinks" page="Mephisto (H)" limit="120"
 * Up one level**