We all know that Franco Rocco was commissioned by Fidelity to design their "Designer" series but I never knew anymore about the man. A while ago I decided to explore the Internet and was surprised to find that he was still busy designing in his home land of Italy at the age of 78.

Given the opportunity that he was still alive, I thought that I would contact him to see if by any chance he still had the original Fidelity Designer drawings. I also hoped that there might be the chance that other designs of the "Designer" series that maybe Fidelity had rejected which with the original designs would make very interesting viewing!

I emailed Signor Rocco explaining who I was and asked him if he still had the original designs. To be honest, I did not even expect a reply but after about a week a email arrived from the man himself.

He thanked me for contacting him and said that he would look to see if he still had them stored away somewhere. If he did then he would send me copies of them but it might take some time to locate them.

Anyway, about a few weeks later, Signor Rocco replied again. Unfortunately he could not find any of the designs anywhere and said that he must have thrown them away years ago.

Obviously I was disappointed but at least we still have his chess computers to admire.

Back in 2013, Ron Nelson provided me with a few details about the unreleased Designer Master 2400.

"One of my last projects at the German bought Fidelity was designing an ARM2 processor into the Designer housing, which became the Designer 2400. I did the hardware and software test program and built a prototype and sent it to Germany. I know nothing beyond that. The Designer 2300 with a 3001 (?) processor is after my time".