Playing Super Constellation

[fern]

What a pleasure!
A beautiful machine with a strong and original program by Dave Kittinger.
Theoretically is nor more strong than 1730 or so Elo, but looks like a very different beast if you are not another computer, but a human being. His inclination to sacrifices and combs is incredible. You are surprised every time. Where other engines play a safer line -because they are "thinking" in his rival as another computer, perhaps- SuperCon goes for the kill trough a maze of combs that not ever you have the cold blood or time to refute and so, after the melee, you see you have lost a pawn. All in all, it makes room for very attractive and nervous games, the climax of joy and fun as I think this endeavor must be after all.

If you still have one unit sleeping in a closet, take it out...!

Fern

[Don]

What a pleasure!
A beautiful machine with a strong and original program by Dave Kittinger.
Theoretically is nor more strong than 1730 or so Elo, but looks like a very different beast if you are not another computer, but a human being. His inclination to sacrifices and combs is incredible. You are surprised every time. Where other engines play a safer line -because they are "thinking" in his rival as another computer, perhaps- SuperCon goes for the kill trough a maze of combs that not ever you have the cold blood or time to refute and so, after the melee, you see you have lost a pawn. All in all, it makes room for very attractive and nervous games, the climax of joy and fun as I think this endeavor must be after all.

If you still have one unit sleeping in a closet, take it out...!

Fern

The one is a classic for sure. It achieved a 2018 USCF rating but many people thought that it was very fortunate to get that. Of course USCF ratings were seriously inflated at that time if I remember correctly when compared to FIDE ratings.

Still, it was a lot of fun to play.

[Graham Banks]

What a pleasure!
A beautiful machine with a strong and original program by Dave Kittinger.
Theoretically is nor more strong than 1730 or so Elo, but looks like a very different beast if you are not another computer, but a human being. His inclination to sacrifices and combs is incredible. You are surprised every time. Where other engines play a safer line -because they are "thinking" in his rival as another computer, perhaps- SuperCon goes for the kill trough a maze of combs that not ever you have the cold blood or time to refute and so, after the melee, you see you have lost a pawn. All in all, it makes room for very attractive and nervous games, the climax of joy and fun as I think this endeavor must be after all.

If you still have one unit sleeping in a closet, take it out...!

Fern

Definitely my favourite and a great sparring partner for me at the time.

[sje]

after the melee, you see you have lost a pawn

Or a piece; this happened in many of the games I played against it.

The build quality was superior to that of other manufacturers; the LEDs and the press board rarely developed faults even after much usage. The company which made the sensor board also makes similar press switches for many other products. The control panels for my refrigerator, my stove, and my old dishwaser came from the same factory as did the Super Constellation's press board.

I am sure that the 56 KB ROM included a lot of specialized endgame knowledge, something not seen in more recent offerings. Of course, this added to the price of the unit and back nearly thirty years ago US$400 was a lot of money for a toy.

The USCF 2018 rating was I think in part because the machine's human opponents at the time were just too surprised at the model's high strength relative to other small chess computers.

If I had the time, I'd grab a copy of the Super Constellation's ROM and reverse assemble the program just to see the details of the algorithms.

[Tom Likens]

I love (and still have) the Super Constellation. It's my favorite standalone unit and it still works flawlessly after 25+ years! Here's a fun combination that came up the last time I played it.

[D] 1r2r1k1/p4pbp/1p3qp1/2pP3n/2N3n1/1Q2B1P1/P3PPBP/1R1R2K1 b - - 2 20

1 ... Rxe3 is the nice sacrifice.

All modern programs find it, but it takes them a few seconds.

The Super Connie was a gem.

[Adam Hair]

after the melee, you see you have lost a pawn

Or a piece; this happened in many of the games I played against it.

The build quality was superior to that of other manufacturers; the LEDs and the press board rarely developed faults even after much usage. The company which made the sensor board also makes similar press switches for many other products. The control panels for my refrigerator, my stove, and my old dishwaser came from the same factory as did the Super Constellation's press board.

I am sure that the 56 KB ROM included a lot of specialized endgame knowledge, something not seen in more recent offerings. Of course, this added to the price of the unit and back nearly thirty years ago US$400 was a lot of money for a toy.

The USCF 2018 rating was I think in part because the machine's human opponents at the time were just too surprised at the model's high strength relative to other small chess computers.

If I had the time, I'd grab a copy of the Super Constellation's ROM and reverse assemble the program just to see the details of the algorithms.

Steve Blincoe told me that it has the rules for winning KBNK endgames encoded as well as other special knowledge.

It is a nice looking dedicated unit. I wish that I owned one.

[sje]

Steve Blincoe told me that it has the rules for winning KBNK endgames encoded as well as other special knowledge.

It was the first commercial machine which could play KBNK at blitz speed. From my experience, I believe it also had special routines for KBBK, KPK, and several other endgames. But ROM chips cost money, and so this kind of knowledge did not always appear in successor models.

The Super Constellation had a 64 KB ROM, but the address decoding switched out 8 KB for accessing RAM instead.

The 6802 CPU did not just play chess, but also ran the interface. This required a periodic interrupt which forced a scan of the press board including the 24 control switches. The CPU also drove the LEDs using different refresh rates for different light intensities, and this also deprived the machine of chess think time. Nowadays all the I/O would be handed by a micro controller with its own timers and drivers.

The descendent of the Super Constellation is the Obsidian which appeared twenty years later at half the price. Or perhaps less than one fourth the price due to inflation. While the Obsidian is some 200 elo stronger and has a display, it lacks some endgame knowledge, a programmable book, a printer interface, a clock interface, and has only 16 control buttons instead of 24.

[carldaman]

Hi Steven,

What year did the Super Constellation you're describing here come out?

Thanks,
CL

[Don]

Steve Blincoe told me that it has the rules for winning KBNK endgames encoded as well as other special knowledge.

It was the first commercial machine which could play KBNK at blitz speed. From my experience, I believe it also had special routines for KBBK, KPK, and several other endgames. But ROM chips cost money, and so this kind of knowledge did not always appear in successor models.

The Super Constellation had a 64 KB ROM, but the address decoding switched out 8 KB for accessing RAM instead.

The 6802 CPU did not just play chess, but also ran the interface. This required a periodic interrupt which forced a scan of the press board including the 24 control switches. The CPU also drove the LEDs using different refresh rates for different light intensities, and this also deprived the machine of chess think time. Nowadays all the I/O would be handed by a micro controller with its own timers and drivers.

The descendent of the Super Constellation is the Obsidian which appeared twenty years later at half the price. Or perhaps less than one fourth the price due to inflation. While the Obsidian is some 200 elo stronger and has a display, it lacks some endgame knowledge, a programmable book, a printer interface, a clock interface, and has only 16 control buttons instead of 24.

The super constellation was based on the 6502 processor, not the 6802. Perhaps the Obsidian had something different in it.

I think it would be fun to see the original super constellation running on a modern computer under fast emulation.

Don

[sje]

The Super Constellation with its 6502 CPU came out in 1984.
http://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/in ... stellation