Applied Concepts

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Applied Concepts Inc. (dba Stalker Radar),
a manufacturer of consumer electronics, radar speed detectors and in-car video camera systems , located in Plano, Texas, and before in Cleveland, Ohio , Colorado Springs, Colorado and Garland, Texas. Applied Concepts was founded in March 1977 by chairman and CEO Alan Mead . By the end of the '70s Applied Concepts cooperated and later teamed up with marketing and retail enterprise Chafitz Inc. and the German company Sandy Electronic , to produce dedicated chess and game computers.

Boris

Boris was the first chess computer designed and manufactured by Applied Concepts and launched by Chafitz in February, 1978 , running on a Fairchild F8 8-bit microprocessor , with a program by David Lindsay.

Great Game Machine

The Great Game Machine, a brand name registered by Applied Concepts , and the akin Chafitz Modular Game System, released from 1979, was a modular system with exchangeable chess and game modules, and programs written by Dan and Kathe Spracklen, John Aker, Larry Atkin, David Slate and Peter W. Frey.

Legal Issues

After a lawsuit between Chafitz and Applied Concepts, and the Spracklens left for Fidelity, Applied Concepts continued with the Chafitz brand name and programmer John Aker on their Great Game Machine and the Chafitz Modular Game System, the Morphy program , and the Destiny Prodigy computer . Jonathan Schaeffer was asserting his prior claim to the name concerning his program Prodigy  :

Even if I wanted to, I couldn't use the name Prodigy again. Six months after the North American Championship, I was startled to see an advertisement for a chess computer named Prodigy. I wrote to the manufacturer asserting my prior claim to the name. They wrote back stating that they had done a trademark search on the name and found no matches. Therefore they would appreciate it if I would stop using their name. They left no doubt about the legal implications of their request.. 

Boris X

Boris X was already partly the work of John Aker. It was the forerunner of the Morphy program, based on Boris 2.5 aka Sargon 2.5 by Kathe and Dan Spracklen. The Spracklens, now competing with Challenger X in charge of Fidelity Electronics, have just played Boris X a few weeks before at the WMCCC 1980 in London, where Challenger won the game and the championship, but Boris X as runner up was close behind. At ACM 1980, Kathe Spracklen caused a controversy yielding in the rejection of Boris X .

Morphy

John Aker was the primary program author of the Morphy module of the Chafitz Modular Game System and the Great Game Machine, the computer and program which in conjunction with the Gruenfeld opening module by chess master John Jacobs, and the Capablanca endgame module with David Slate and Larry Atkin mentioned as authors , played the commercial and open group (as Applied Concepts X) of the WMCCC 1981 . However, the Applied Concepts personal withdrew both entries after some rounds, due to a bug in the Capablanca module .

Steinitz

In 1982, Larry Atkin wrote the program for the Steinitz Edition 4 as Great Game Machine and the Chafitz Modular Game System module , as well the Steinitz Encore , both running on a 8-bit 6502 processor with 2 resp. 4 Mhz.

La Regence

In 1983, Richard Lang contributed the program derived from Cyrus for the Chafitz TSB 4 La Regence, with had a Z80 CPU .

At the 3rd European Microcomputer Chess Championship, September 1982, La Regence became strong runner up behind Advance 2.4, while Cyrus II itself didn't quite come up to its expectations. Lang: 'It was written in such a hurry and the tournament came in the middle of its development period rather than at the end'. There were quite a few new ideas in the program, and he didn't have much time to test them before the tournament. The new ideas were a combination of running faster and implementing new chess knowledge, by getting it to recognize isolated and doubled pawns and the like .

Associated People

• John Aker
• Larry Atkin
• Arleen Chafitz
• Steve Chafitz
• Terry Fredrick
• John Jacobs
• David Lindsay
• Alan Mead
• Grady Porter
• David Slate
• Dan Spracklen
• Kathe Spracklen

See also

• Chafitz
• Excalibur Electronics
• Fidelity Electronics

Publications

• Editor (1980). Boris on the Move. Personal Computing, Vol. 4, No. 8, pp. 77 » Boris 2.5
• Editor (1980). The battle of Boris 2.5 vs Sargon 2.5 Personal Computing, Vol. 4, No. 10, pp. 83 » Chafitz
• Harry Shershow (1981). Two New Units In Action. Personal Computing, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 91 » MCC 1980, John Aker, Morphy

External Links

Chess

• Applied Concepts' ICGA Tournaments
• Chafitz (Applied Concepts) from Schachcomputer.info Wiki
• Applied Concepts Boris from Chess Computer UK by Mike Watters
• Applied Concepts ARB + rare modules from Chess Computer UK by Mike Watters
• Applied Concepts GGM + Steinitz from Chess Computer UK by Mike Watters
• Chafitz/Applied Concepts/Destiny | Photo collection by Chewbanta

Company

• Welcome to Stalker Radar - The World Leader in Speed Measurement from Applied Concepts
• Applied Concepts Reviews from Glassdoor.com

Patents

• Professional Profiles for Innovators of D255464, Barclay, Rod; Cunningham, John A; Mead, Alan B; Spaits, Joseph T including employment histories, technology specializations, innovator rankings/ratings, residence addresses, co-workers, Electronic chess game board from PatentBuddy

References

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