Mephisto IV, V, Amsterdam, Dallas, Roma

[Skybird]

I am not certain, it is npossible that many years ago I may have posted this already - or I just planned to do so and then forgot it.

The 80s and early 90s where the golden years of dedicated table-chasscomputers, and Hegner+Glaser and their Mephistos were a top branch amongst them. Richard Lang and Ed Schroeder were their two top programmers of that time, the first beign responsible for the more expensive cityname-kind of programs, the latter being responsible for the Rebels and Roman numbers-based programs.

The ROM-code of these programs is now , or better since longer time, available as UCI- and Winboard-compatible code. Chess UIs that read these formats, can run them. Even outsoide of WQindows-environment, for example I do run the Mephisto-IV code on an Android-based chess app.

The porgams I loste din the healdine they packed together and also offer them with a graphical independent interface that mimics the look and the keyboard of the famous Mephisto Excalibur and Munich sensor boards they sold at that time, the one having suqres with 4 cm and the the other having squares with 5cm width. The zip comes with a copy of the orginal manual as well, and the whole spftware is handled exactl ylike you would if lani8pulating the real poiecxes on the rela chessbioard, and type the real keyboard controls. That emans you must also move the figiure of the computer whne he indicates you his mover weith flasdhing LEDs, and you can mistake pieces and emss of the psoition if you do not be careful when moving and taking an opposing figure, havign the wrong figure on the square -. it is all like it has been in reality! I must admit I find this very charming. The full software reset is done via the menus on top of the window. I have not run all porgrams in this itnerface, but use M-iV for the mostg, and it works and ebhaves like the real thing played (I had and still have the real device and know it extremely well in its playing style and habits).

Nice!

Scroll down to the third or fourth section:
http://rebel13.nl/rebel13/rebel%2013.html

Unzip, run the exe to laucnh the emulator, anmd then handle the interface like you would have handled the real hardware back then.


You can also download the UCI versions and run them from any chess interface you have like Arena and Chessbase for Windows, Chess_for_Android by Aart Biik etc, it just must support UCI and/or Winboard.






This is how the original hardware looks, Mephisto M-IV:


These are the included engines. Some of them work problematic for me, some not. The issues seem to be different for different people, or so I learned over the years, so it might be system dependent. But those I am interested in, do run well and stable. Already did under W7 and I think WinXP as well, and now also under W10