Hi !

About fifty years ago a chess game for one of the first microcomputers, the Sol-20 by Processor Technology , was created by Robert Arnstein.

Chess 1.0 aka 8080 Chess (based on the Intel 8080, ported to the Sol-20 terminal) was published in 1977.
No graphics, just ASCII representation of the chessboard, typing in the moves.

Has anybody ever played against this computer program ?
Are there any collected games of Chess 1.0 (8080 Chess) for Sol-20 ?

How about the playing strength ?

Regards
Hans-Jürgen

Hello Hans-Jürgen,

I have it in my collection, using the Solace SOL-emulator.
After around 40 games played its CElo score in my private list is 1045 (should be around 1175 FIDE). This is close to Boris' strength.
As usual for me, games were played at 15 secs avg/move; the depth setting I use for it is 23 (2 plies + max.3 extra plies for captures).

I have no stored games, rather stored scores:
- 2 draws vs Microchess (TRS-80)
- 1 draw, 1 loss vs Fidelity CC10
- 2 wins vs Sargon I (TRS-80)
- 1 win, 1 loss vs USCF Chess (Intellivision)
- 2 losses vs Caissa 5.2 (Commodore 64)
- 1 draw, 1 loss vs Fidelity Voice CC
- 1 draw, 1 loss vs Video Chess (TI-99)
- 4 draws, 2 losses vs Eschecs 0.9.1 (JS Schach)
- 2 wins vs Easy Peasy 1.0
- 1 win, 3 losses vs Saitek Calculator Chess
- 1 draw, 1 loss vs Fidelity Mini Sensory
- 2 wins vs Schach 64 (Commodore 64)
- 1 win, 1 draw, 2 losses vs Boris
- 2 losses vs 3D Voice Chess (Amstrad+)
- 1 win, 1 loss vs L Atkin's Chess 0.5

All the best,
Eric

Andre Adrians great homepage has some information about 8080 chess:
http://www.andreadrian.de/schach/index.html

There is even a link to an emulator inkluding 8080 chess:
https://www.sol20.org/index.html

I didn't try to get it to run though.