Ohhh... weird. I like weird stuff.

I wonder if it is a bootable card that has the Chess game on ROM.

I bet it is as there is a C64 version from the pic of the box.

Yeah the C64 Version has also a remake, as far as i know the files are on github.

I hoped anyone here owns one and can provide more information on it, or software and maybe rom image.

So people running 4.77 MHz 8088 machines would use this to get a stronger computer chess opponent?

Errius wrote on 2020-02-18, 22:14:

So people running 4.77 MHz 8088 machines would use this to get a stronger computer chess opponent?

Yes, I think so. 😀 Dedicated "chess computers" used to be quite powerful, ie. they had higher "depth" of game play than pure software solutions. Or so it was said.
Another ISA card like this is shown in this user's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qA5jtL_01U

How big a performance difference between 5 MHz 65C02 and 4.77 MHz 8088? PCs in those days didn't have many background processes wasting CPU cycles.

Jo22 wrote on 2020-02-19, 03:37:

Errius wrote on 2020-02-18, 22:14:

So people running 4.77 MHz 8088 machines would use this to get a stronger computer chess opponent?

Yes, I think so. 😀 Dedicated "chess computers" used to be quite powerful, ie. they had higher "depth" of game play than pure software solutions. Or so it was said.
Another ISA card like this is shown in this user's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qA5jtL_01U

Not only is it like it, it's the same company's product. It was mentioned in some looking around I was doing to try to figure out the exact specs of our neat-o 6502 chess card.

Errius wrote on 2020-02-19, 06:25:

How big a performance difference between 5 MHz 65C02 and 4.77 MHz 8088? PCs in those days didn't have many background processes wasting CPU cycles.

As I read it, the Chess Card had it's own ROM containing the chess game? Maybe the big difference was in the fact that the software was assembler-level optimized to use the onboard CPU/FPU?

Yes, the card was a standalone 65c02 computer. For the C64 it would have great benefits, since the CPU was clocked pretty fast and came with its own ROM and RAM.

On the PC it would be rather useless, in my opinion, since the card was rated around 1600 ELO. This should have been possible with PSION Chess on an XT as well I guess. But it WOULD be nice if we could make a replica for the PC... Just for the fun of it. 😀