Overview
The main information page for the Excalibur Grandmaster is located
here.
To add anything to this page please send an email to egm (at)
ratthing.com. Thanks!
If you are looking to purchase one of these devices, I strongly
recommend that you go to
eBay.
You can get a Grandmaster computer there for under $150.
The Excalibur Grandmaster (EGM) is a pretty nice chess computer.
Excalibur claims that it is rated at 2200 but everyone on
rec.games.chess.computer claims that
the EGM is actually rated closer to 1800. There is also this
short
discussion that is informative.
The things I like most about this computer are the look and feel of the
chess pieces and the vinyl board. It feels exactly like you're
playing on a tournament set. If you're like me and play a lot of
tournament chess, then the EGM will definitely give you a great
tournament-play feel. Also, if you're a weak player like me, then
the lower-than-2200-actual rating won't really matter.
The only things I don't like about the EGM:
- The EGM is constructed a bit cheaply. Even though it looks
good, the back is made of cardboard and the case is made of slightly
brittle plastic.
- The default beep sound is a little annoying. The EGM beeps
every time it registers a piece being moved, and beeps when the piece
is placed back down on the board.
- The EGM has locked up on me a couple of times. This usually
happens toward the end of a game, and I think it has something to do
with me moving the pieces a bit too quickly. When I am more
careful about moving the pieces it doesn't lock up.
Someone on rec.games.chess.computer said that one of the squares on
their EGM quit working; they were unable to get the computer to
recognize a piece being placed on or moved from the square. This
person claims that Excalibur sent them some new relay switches to
replace the defective one.
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Inside the
EGM
I recently got the urge to take a look inside my new Excalibur
Grandmaster chess computer. My goal in doing so was to identify
the chip ID numbers and then see if I could find any information on the
net that would help me hack the device to allow me to connect it to my
PC, and do other things.
I had no luck in identifying anything useful inside and didn't go any
farther than simply removing the rear cover and peeking inside.
Still, I wish to present the information here in the hopes that others
can shed light on the guts of this chess computer or point me to other
resources related to this chess computer or any others.
This first photo is the underside of the EGM before any screws have
been removed. Each of the screws is circled in the photo.
The screws circled in yellow are shorter than the ones circled in red.
Once the screws are removed, the black cardboard backing lifts right
off, exposing the following:
Not being a chip expert, I am not
certain if the chip in the photo is actually the CPU. The
following information is written on the chip:
1997 RCN
1002A EXCAL
HD6433214L01P
2K1 Japan
The chip is a Hitachi made H8 3321 microprocessor with a masked ROM and
extended temperature range. If anyone has any information on this chip
please send it to egm (at) ratthing.com.
The photo below shows the words that are etched onto the brown circuit
board:
Finally, the following photo shows a close-up of the chip area.
I
just scratched the surface here, and did not go on to pull out the
circuit boards and look at the sensing relays that are used to detect
piece movements. Also I would like to see if there are other
larger chips in the EGM.
If anyone out there has any technical information on the chips in this
computer or the computer itself, please send that information to egm
(at) ratthing.com. I am also interested in any other resources
related to the EGM, as I really enjoy this chess computer and use it
heavily.
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Manuals
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