FYI.
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: John Coffey <john2001plus@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jan 7, 2026 at 11:45 AM
Subject:
To: Jeff Chronologically Gaming
From: John Coffey <john2001plus@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jan 7, 2026 at 11:45 AM
Subject:
To: Jeff Chronologically Gaming
Forty years ago I reached the "Class A" ranking in chess and many years later the "Expert" rating, which is one category below "Master". Outside the United States, the "Expert" category is called "Candidate Master."
In the 1980s I was playing a few chess programs on the Timex Sinclair 2068 and the Atari ST. I entered a contest from a British Sinclair magazine where you had to solve a chess problem to enter the contest. The prize was the top chess program for the Sinclair Spectrum, so I sent a postcard to England with my solution. I mostly forgot about it, but two or three months later I received a copy of the chess program from the British magazine with no explanation. I guess I won the contest. Unfortunately, I could beat the program.
Fortunately, I had a Spectrum Emulation cartridge. I used it to play a couple of Spectrum games. I don't think that Boulder Dash runs on the Timex Sinclair 2068 and I didn't even know that it was available for the Spectrum, which is why I wrote my own version called "Diamond Mike".
I had a couple of chess programs on the Atari ST I could beat. At the time, the best chess programs were mostly on dedicated chess computers that cost hundreds of dollars. I wrote a primitive chess program on the Atari ST, but I didn't put much effort into it. By that point, I was looking to get a real job.
There was a program called Psion Chess on the Atari ST and the Sinclair QL. I didn't have it, but it would likely have been better than me. It was comparable to dedicated chess computers. I met someone who had a Sinclair QL with the program and I was impressed with it.
Years later I got early versions of ChessMaster, like 2000 and 3000, and at the time I ran them on my work computer after hours. I didn't have an Intel PC yet, but I would get one in the mid 90's, and it cost around $1200 just for a 486-33mhz.
For the last couple of decades, Fritz chess has been the most popular, although the open source Stockfish engine available for free is the strongest. I use this engine with Fritz 10 to analyze my chess games.
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