Quote from Marc_one on January 9, 2021, 2:50 pm

Hello,

the ROMs for Mephisto MMV and Mephisto Roma are publicly available on Ed Schröder's web site

 

Quote from Pietro on January 10, 2021, 10:02 am

Thank you guys.

I just want to recall that some of roms, else if they are very old maybe are still covered by copyright of relative owners. That's why we cannot add to distribution of the software, neither as commercial site we could host them here or links as we cannot check any of them unless they are clearly marked as publicly available or for free distribution.

I apologise for this and all the best

Pietro

 

Quote from Graham on January 11, 2021, 5:11 am

Another way to play some of the old computers is to use Franz Huber's CB-EMU program which has about 300 different models. Download the CB-EMU Pro file and unzip it to your hard drive. You'll find it has a directory with Arena, for example on my PC it's in drive D so is:

D:\CB-Emu\MessChess\Arena

You can then put my DLL driver (https://goneill.co.nz/chess.php#certabo) into that directory and when you run the Arena.exe file activate your Certabo board by following the instructions in the ReadMe PDF file in my download.

Of course it isn't always obvious how the computer ROMs work so another useful site is the "Chess Computers > Documentations" page on Alain Zanchetta's web page. This has a lot of the user manuals for the computers.

Have fun!

Graham

 

 

 

 

 

Quote from camfisher_nz on January 11, 2021, 11:57 pm

Thanks everyone. That's very helpful.

Quote from bryan.whitby on June 3, 2021, 2:27 pm

One of the new features of the latest DaVinci software is the addition of MessChess which enables you to play against the old chess computer ROMS.

A handy tip for DaVinci owners who use these ROMS is to minimize the MessChess graphical display of the chess computer after it has loaded leaving just the DaVinci board. This is because the DaVinci takes quite a lot of time responding to your moves if the MessChess board is showing.

Below is the difference in speed between the Raspberry Pi 3 & 4 when the computer makes its first move. Plus five examples of the MessChess  and Da Vinci boards response times for the computer making its first move then appearing on the Certabo chess board.

Obviously the Pi4 is a lot quicker than the Pi3 but the main gain in speed is to minimize the MessChess board.

MEPHISTO 1
MessChess Board (Pi 3) = 35sec (Pi4) = 23sec
DaVinci Board (Pi 3) = 9sec (Pi 4) = 6sec

FIDELITY EXCEL 68K
MessChess Board (Pi 3) = 39sec (Pi4) = 26sec
DaVinci Board (Pi 3) = 11sec (Pi 4) = 7sec

TASC R30
MessChess Board (Pi 3) = 55sec (Pi4) = 34sec
DaVinci Board (Pi 3) = 21sec (Pi 4) = 9sec

LA REGENCE
MessChess Board (Pi 3) = 43sec (Pi4) = 18sec
DaVinci Board (Pi 3) = 8sec (Pi 4) = 6sec

DEBUT-M
MessChess Board (Pi 3) = 62sec (Pi4) = 24sec
DaVinci Board (Pi 3) = 11sec (Pi 4) = 8sec