Novag - Sold

[mephisto]

Yes Novag have been sold to a company called Solar Wide Industries in Hong Kong who produce solar powered garden lights, electronic measuring & health care devices.
Jeannine Curran who took over the Novag family business after her father Peter Euge died, decided that she wanted more time with her family and sold out.
I’m waiting a reply from the Managing Director of Solar Wide about the future of the Novag brand.
Guess that’s the end of me receiving free chess computers from Novag!!
Solar Power Regards
Bryan

[mclane]

thats a pity. with the robot case and a slighty better program in it, they would have had a nice product.


c'est la vie.

[Steve B]

somehow i think this is going to be very bad news
with Saitek basically out of the dedicated computer business and now this..well..

i guess they put alot of hopes on their newly released Citrine and 2Robot and it just wasnt enough to keep them going
they went out with a bang though..
they put out the first new wooden board to be released in a decade and the first armed robot to be released in over two decades


I Sense The End Regards
Steve

[Kempelen]

Yes Novag have been sold to a company called Solar Wide Industries in Hong Kong who produce solar powered garden lights, electronic measuring & health care devices.

Does anybody intuit for what puporse a solar compony wants the technologie of dedicated chess cumputers? this look strange to me.

[rightrook]

Maybe the old Novag machines will become more of a "collectors item" now on ebay.... .....

[Steve B]

Maybe the old Novag machines will become more of a "collectors item" now on ebay.... .....

Yes Rob
hopefully the value of old Novag's will now skyrocket
there is always a silver lining in every dark cloud..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10261668@N ... 922171918/ Regards
Steve

[sje]

I guess that the company is the one that is the subject of this business directory page: http://www.hktdc.com/em/solar

I suppose that the firm will sell off any remaining inventory but will not be developing any new products.

[Steve B]

Now that Novag is no longer...
Collectors worldwide are painstakingly re-visiting their Novag collections in a panic to try to understand everything possible about their Novags and perhaps (unwittingly )to flood the market with rare Novags suddenly for sale

recently i acquired a little hand held Novag..The Granite
this little known computer has virtually nothing written about it that i could find so i set about to try to find which other Novags (if any) have the same program

The Granite:


the housing of the Granite is almost identical to the Novag Amber however a review of the hardware shows the Amber to be far stronger

comparing the Manual of the Granite with other Novag manuals i see that the Jasper (and Jasper Special) have identical hardware and almost identical features and levels.in fact the manuals themselves are virtually identical
the normal playing levels are exactly the same but the Jaspers have more training features
the Jaspers are rated about 1300 Elo

the Novag Jasper(Art No.38701) and Jasper Special (Art. No.38711):



next step is to play a game with the Three computers against another computer to see if they play the same moves

as the hapless subject i choose anther Novag..the Novag Solo Deluxe Z
The SDZ is considered somewhat rare as it a wooden version of the very common Solo(Elo about 1000)



Time control for the Novag's was 1 Min Avg per move and the Solo was set to its highest level(3-4 Minutes per move)
the SDZ had white


[Date "2009.5.24"]
[White "Novag Solo Deluxe Z"]
[Black "Novag Granite-Jaspers"]
[Time Control "1 Min Per Move Avg"]
[Result "0-1"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d5 3.exd5 Qxd5 4.Nc3 Qe6+ 5.Be2 Nf6 6.Ng5 Qf5 7.d3 Nc6
8.g4 Nxg4 9.f4 Nf6 10.Be3 Nd5 11.Nxd5 Qxd5 12.Bf3 Qd6 13.Ne4 Qh6 14.Nxc5
e5 15.Bxc6+ Qxc6 16.Ne4 Bb4+ 17.Bd2 Bf5 18.Bxb4 Bxe4 19.Rf1 f6 20.fxe5
Qb5 21.Bc3 Bg2 22.a4 Qd5 23.Rf5 O-O 24.Qg4 Rae8 25.d4 Be4 26.Rxf6 Rxf6
27.Rc1 Rf5 28.Qh4 Re6 29.Qh3 Ra6 30.a5 Rh6 31.Qg3 Rf3
32.Qg1 Rg6 33.Qf1 Rxf1+ 34.Kxf1 Rg2 35.a6 Qb5+ 36.Ke1 Qe2# 0-1

all three played identically
in the first 12 moves there were 2 moves where both Jaspers played a different move then the Granite but when i retracted the move and asked the Jaspers to play the move again they then both played the same moves as the Granite
this must be attributable to a built in Randomness in play when there are moves with the same exact evaluations
there were no divergences from move 12 to move 36

while further testing would be needed to make the assertion definite i am comfortable with the idea that the Granite and the Jaspers have the same programs

Just Say No To Novag Regards
Steve

[gerold]

Yes Novag have been sold to a company called Solar Wide Industries in Hong Kong who produce solar powered garden lights, electronic measuring & health care devices.

Does anybody intuit for what puporse a solar compony wants the technologie of dedicated chess cumputers? this look strange to me.

Maybe they will develop a new or improved dedicated chess set.
They are big on electronic sensors.

Best,

Gerold.

[sje]

Our Sponsor still has four different Novag models in stock including the Citrine. I've had one of these for a while and to me the 2000 Elo program, the serial interface, and the auto sensory board is worth the US$350. The Citrine does NOT have a wooden board; it does have a very nice decal of a wooden board.

The Novag Obsidian, with a form factor reminiscent of the long ago Super Constellation, has essentially the same program as the Citrine but with half the opening book. It can be had for about half the price.