Ron+Nelson

an American electrical engineer, microcomputer chess pioneer, and Engineering Vice President for Excalibur Electronics, since 2010 in retirement. In 1976 he already developed a chess program for an [|Altair 8800] Microcomputer with an Intel 8080 CPU. Coincidentally, his friend was secretary at Fidelity Electronics owned by Sidney Samole, who just had the idea to build a dedicated chess computer and was looking for a programmer and engineer. Ron got immediately hired by Samole, and they constructed and build several Fidelity Chess Challenger Prototypes, three working models and four non-working models. Sidney Samole decided to promote their brainchild at [|Chicago's] [|Consumer Electronics Show] in [|January 1977]. || toc =Fidelity= Ron Nelson wrote the first programs, and was also Fidelity's Hardware engineer. After the huge success of the Z80 based //Fidelity Chess Challenger 7//, which sold about 600,000 units, the company along with Ron Nelson moved from [|Chicago], [|Illinois] to [|Miami] [|Florida] in January 1981.
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 * [[image:RonNelson.JPG]] ||~  || **Ronald (Ron) Nelson**,
 * Ron Nelson, 1984 ||~ ||^ ||

When Dan and Kathe Spracklen were hired by Samole in 1980 to adopt their much stronger Sargon III program as Fidelity's flagship, Nelson focused on hardware aspects and presumely I/O and system programming of the machines. In the 80s from time to time, a Fidelity model appeared with his Z80 program.


 * [[image:NelsonEngineer.jpg width="626" link="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10261668@N05/859077348/sizes/z/in/photostream/"]] ||
 * Director of Engineering: Ron Nelson ||

=Excalibur= After Hegener & Glaser acquired Fidelity Electronics in 1989, Ron Nelson continued computer chess engineering, as well as computer chess programming in Sidney's son, Shane Samole's company Excalibur Electronics. Every chess game produced by Excalibur Electronics contains a Nelson programs.

=See also=
 * Chess Challenger
 * Excalibur Electronics
 * Fidelity Electronics
 * Shane Samole
 * Sidney Samole
 * Dan Spracklen
 * Kathe Spracklen

=Forum Posts=

2014 ...
> [|Re: Ron Nelson Ever Copied, Used, Cloned the Spracklen?] by ChessChallenger, Hiarcs Forum, December 21, 2015 > [|Excalibur Electronics] by ChessChallenger, Hiarcs Forum, December 22, 2015 > [|Excalibur Electronics] by ChessChallenger, Hiarcs Forum, December 22, 2015 > [|Consumer Computer Chess History Trivia] by ChessChallenger, Hiarcs Forum, December 22, 2015 » David Kittinger, WMCCC 1981, Mark Taylor > [|Re: Excalibur Electronics] by Mike Watters, Hiarcs Forum, December 23, 2015 > [|Ron Nelson] by ChessChallenger, Hiarcs Forum, December 23, 2015 > [|Ron Nelson] by ChessChallenger, Hiarcs Forum, December 23, 2015 » Excalibur > [|Ron Nelson] by ChessChallenger, Hiarcs Forum, December 23, 2015 » Fidelity Electronics, Sidney Samole > [|Re: Ron Nelson] by ChessChallenger, Hiarcs Forum, December 24, 2015 » Eric White > [|Re: Ron Nelson] by Mike Watters, Hiarcs Forum, December 28, 2015 > [|Re: Ron Nelson] by ChessChallenger, Hiarcs Forum, December 29, 2015 > [|Re: Ron Nelson] by ChessChallenger, Hiarcs Forum, December 29, 2015 > [|Fidelity and Fast Hardware] by ChessChallenger, Hiarcs Forum, December 31, 2015 > [|Ron Nelson & Talking Chess Computers] by ChessChallenger, Hiarcs Forum, January 02, 2016 > [|Re: Ron Nelson & Talking Chess Computers] by Steve Blincoe, Hiarcs Forum, January 02, 2016 > [|Ron Nelson and H & G Projects] by ChessChallenger, Hiarcs Forum, January 02, 2016 > [|Re: Ron Nelson] by Chessmaster Ireland, Hiarcs Forum, January 02, 2016 > [|Re: Ron Nelson Chess Challenger 10] by ChessChallenger, Hiarcs Forum, January 24, 2016 » Cassia Chess Mate
 * [|Ron Nelson Ever Copied, Used, Cloned the Spracklen?] by Fernando Villegas, Hiarcs Forum, July 05, 2014
 * [|Ron Nelsons dedicated chess computers] by mclane, Hiarcs Forum, April 26, 2015
 * [|Even More about Nelson..] by Fernando Villegas, Hiarcs Forum, May 21, 2015

2016
> [|Re: Ron Nelson maybe will come here...] by Ron Nelson, CCC, February 03, 2016
 * [|Excalibur Chess Products Ron Nelson designed/programmed] by ChessChallenger, Hiarcs Forum, January 05, 2016
 * [|Ron Nelson maybe will come here...] by Fernando Villegas, CCC, January 05, 2016
 * [|Fidelity Chess Challenger 3 Components] by ChessChallenger, Hiarcs Forum, February 03, 2016

=External Links=
 * [|Fidelity Electronics] from [|chesscomputers.org]
 * [|Nelson, Ron] – [|Schachcomputer.info Wiki] (German)

=References= =What links here?= include page="Ron Nelson" component="backlinks" limit="100"
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