Turbostar, (SciSys Kasparov Turbostar)
a series of dedicated chess computers manufactured by SciSys as successor of the Superstar 36K, also with 4 KiB of RAM and 32 KiB of ROM within a 6502 processor at 4 MHz, twice the speed of the Superstar. The computer was first released in 1984 in direct competition with the NovagSuper Constellation[1].
The enhanced program was the work of Heuristic Software as well, written by CEO Julio Kaplan, co-authored by Craig Barnes. Kaplan contends a quantum leap between the previous SciSys Superstar machine and the current Turbostar. The Turbostar is much faster. Further there's been a considerable improvement in designing efficient search trees, with improved pruning[2].
With Turbostar, Garry Kasparov started his cooperation with SciSys to endorse their products - Kasparov became additional brand name [4]. He was also engaged as opening book author, applied as Kasparov Selected Openings (KSO) module.
KSO
The Kasparov Selected Openings 8 KiB ROM module featured many of Garry Kasparov’s favorite opening lines and contain an additional program which allows it to recognize transpositions[5]. It did not arrive until early 1985 [6].
Kasparov's quote in Chess Metaphors: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Mind by Diego Rasskin-Gutman on that game [10][11]:
At one point I realized that I was drifting into trouble in a game against one of the “Kasparov” brand models. If this machine scored a win or even a draw, people would be quick to say that I had thrown the game to get PR for the company, so I had to intensify my efforts. Eventually I found a way to trick the machine with a sacrifice it should have refused. From the human perspective, or at least from my perspective, those were the good old days of man vs. machine chess.
a series of dedicated chess computers manufactured by SciSys as successor of the Superstar 36K, also with 4 KiB of RAM and 32 KiB of ROM within a 6502 processor at 4 MHz, twice the speed of the Superstar. The computer was first released in 1984 in direct competition with the Novag Super Constellation [1].
The enhanced program was the work of Heuristic Software as well, written by CEO Julio Kaplan, co-authored by Craig Barnes. Kaplan contends a quantum leap between the previous SciSys Superstar machine and the current Turbostar. The Turbostar is much faster. Further there's been a considerable improvement in designing efficient search trees, with improved pruning [2].
Table of Contents
Kasparov's Endorsement
With Turbostar, Garry Kasparov started his cooperation with SciSys to endorse their products - Kasparov became additional brand name [4]. He was also engaged as opening book author, applied as Kasparov Selected Openings (KSO) module.KSO
The Kasparov Selected Openings 8 KiB ROM module featured many of Garry Kasparov’s favorite opening lines and contain an additional program which allows it to recognize transpositions [5]. It did not arrive until early 1985 [6].Selected Games
Kasparov Simul
Garry Kasparov played a simultaneous exhibition versus 32 chess computers in Hamburg, 1985, organized by the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel and ChessBase [7] [8]. He won with a perfect 32-0 score, and according to Kasparov in an Spiegel article, one Turbostar 432 might have missed the win with 37...Qa4 instead of Qb3 [9]:Kasparov's quote in Chess Metaphors: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Mind by Diego Rasskin-Gutman on that game [10] [11]:
WMCCC 1985
Three Turbostars played the WMCCC 1985 in Amsterdam with 3½, 3 and 2½ points out of 8 rounds respectively, finishing in the lower half of the field. The round 1 game, Blitz Monster Y aka Super Constellation versus the most successful Turbostar K [12]:Turbostar 2600
In 1994, Saitek announced the Turbostar 2600 with a RISC program by Ed Schröder, but it was not released [13].See also
Publications
Forum Posts
External Links
Turbostar Chess Computer
Turbo & Star Misc
Turbo (gastropod) from Wikipedia
Turbomachinery from Wikipedia
Star from Wikipedia
References
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