Novag Micro Chess

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Novag Micro Chess

Novag Micro Chess,
one of Novag's first dedicated chess computer with a program by David Kittinger, first released in 1981. The computer has a Mostek MK3875/42 microcontroller , a second sourced single chip implementation of the Fairchild F8 multi-chip processor, the 3850 ALU with 64 byte scratchpad RAM, which are 64 general purpose 8-bit registers , and the 3851 program storage unit, instruction decoder and 4 Kibibyte mask-programmable ROM, and 64 byte executable RAM .The novelty of Novag Micro Chess was a sensor pegboard with membrane switches, which allows entering moves directly by pulling and sticking pieces on the board. Eight rank and file LEDs indicate origin- and target square of the move made internally by the computer.

128 Byte Challenge

David Kittinger had to solve a similar challenge than Mark Taylor with Mini Chess to write a chess program with such less RAM. Accordingly, the program was not that strong, and had 8 levels to search one to eight plies deep. It took 110 minutes to solve that mate in three .

                                                                                                            ♚          ♗     ♔                  ♗                             ♜

2k5/4B3/1K6/8/2B5/8/8/5r2 w - -

Invalid Castling

A Micro Chess prototype had a move generation bug due to castling over an attacked square, which of course occurred in its first tournament game at the CPWTIPC 1981, where Micro Chess lost a game from Chess Champion Mark IV  :

[Event "CPWTIPC 1981"]
[Site "Paris, France"]
[Date "1981.05.28"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Chess Champion Mark IV"]
[Black "Novag Micro Chess"]
[Result "1-0"]

1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Bc4 d6 4.Nf3 Ne7 5.O-O Nbc6 6.Nc3 Be6 7.Bxe6 fxe6 8.Qe2 e5
9.Qc4 Ng6 10.a4 Be7 11.d4 Nxd4 12.Nxd4 exd4 13.Qxd4 Bf6 14.Qd5 Bxc3 15.bxc3 c6
16.Qe6+ Qe7 17.Qxe7+ Nxe7 18.Bxf4 d5 19.Be5 {0-0 invalid castling} 1-0

                                                                                           ♜   ♚  ♜ ♟♟  ♞ ♟♟   ♟         ♟♗    ♙   ♙      ♙        ♙   ♙♙ ♖    ♖♔

r3k2r/pp2n1pp/2p5/3pB3/P3P3/2P5/2P3PP/R4RK1 b kq - 1 19

See also

• Chess Champion Pocket Chess
• MicroChess
• Mini Chess
• Move Generation with 256 bytes RAM or less?
• MyChess
• Novag

Publications

• Novag Micro Chess (pdf) by Hein Veldhuis

External Links

• ionel.cordesses - NOVAG MICRO CHESS
• Novag Micro Chess Electronic Chess Computer from The Spacious Mind
• Novag Micro Chess from Schachcomputer.info - Wiki (German)

References

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