Chess robots have been around for a long time. Those of you who lived through the 80s probably had the chance to play with a Milton Bradley Grandmaster and Fidelity 6100. Many of them used a XY plotter mechanism and magnets to move the pieces. There were a couple that had a robot arm over the board to move the pieces. The Chessnut Move which was released last year seems to be the first real upgrade that uses a different approach. Each piece moves independently, so multiple pieces can move at the same time. It has smart piece recognition, so no hard press is required.
The Chessnut Move connects to your smartphone or tablet to give you access to the latest version of Stockfish. Maia and LC0 are also available. You can use this board with ChessBase and other chess software. The Fidelity Phantom 6100 has a press sensory design. It has a LCD display and a bunch of buttons that lets you activate autoplay, start a new game, and access other functions.
The Phantom 6100 has 24 levels of play. It has an ELO rating of 1835. It has a 65C02 5 Mhz processor with an opening library of 12000 positions. The Phantom is old, so naturally it is thicker, louder and slower It also can’t interface with any app. The Chessnut Move can be ordered on a bunch of sites but the Phantom is much rarer.
[HT]
