Duffy and David Grenewetzki involved, in 1998 sold to The Learning Company, in the same year bought by Mattel and renamed to Mattel Interactive. was merged to Mindscape in conjunction with the acquirement by Pearson PLC with Michael E.
Software Toolworks was founded in 1980 by Walt Bilofsky, who was one of three programmers who designed and created the Chessmaster in the mid 80s.
Tablebase researcher Marc Bourzutschky further created some theoretically important six piece EGTBs in 2003.
2000: Chessmaster 8000 - The King 3.12a, 3.12c, 3.12dĬhessmaster 9000 and later versions support their own compact 3-5-man Endgame Tablebases designed by Johan de Koning, which can be generated with the Final Endgame Generator (FEG) via the Windows Command Prompt.1993: Chessmaster 4000 Turbo - The King by Johan de Koning.1991: Chessmaster 3000 - Kittinger program.1989: Fidelity Chessmaster 2100 - engine based on Sargon III by Kathe and Dan Spracklen.1986: Chessmaster 2000 - engine based on M圜hess II by David Kittinger.
Some versions were also made available for Mac OS computers, and the Xbox Live Arcade. The King Version 3.12 has become a WinBoard engine within the ChessMaster 8000 and newer versions. With the release of Chessmaster 4000 Turbo in 1993, The King by Johan de Koning became the CM engine until the present, with annual, biennial and triennial releases for major Windows versions until Chessmaster XI in 2007, incorporating the The King 3.50 with a parallel search able to support multiple processors. Duffy and Andrew Iverson working on the engine, which does not necessarily imply they had an own one developed from scratch, but interfacing the Kittinger engine to the GUI. Kittinger's program was then modified and used in some of the versions of Chessmaster 2100 and Chessmaster 3000.įernando Villegas recalled Michael E. Kittinger's first program for personal computers was incorporated into the popular program Chessmaster 2000 developed by Software Toolworks. The Chessmaster 3000 was released in 1991 for MS-DOS and Windows 3.x PCs, as well for Apple Macintosh, based on a Kittinger program as confirmed by John Merlino, and mentioned in CCR 5.1 :
PC versions of CM 2100 were based on a Kittinger program. As they employ a version of the rather dated "Constellation" program they were not expected to be competitive with the dedicated units, except for "Chessmaster 2000 Apple" which employed extensive technology to run at high speed.Īfter a deal with Fidelity Electronics in 1988, Software Toolworks continued the Chessmaster series for Apple computers with a Sargon III based program by Kathe and Dan Spracklen, market as Fidelity Chessmaster 2100. Novag's programmer Dave Kittinger also was the programmer of the three PC software entries under the name "Chessmaster". The PC version was a rewrite in C based on the 6502 assembly version, which also went into Novag's dedicated Constellation some years before, as mentioned by Larry Kaufman in the USOCCC 1986 tournament report : CM 2000 was released for various 8- and 16-bit home computer platforms based on 6502, Z80, 680 processors, such as Amiga, Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Macintosh, and DOS PCs. Duffy, with a chess engine by David Kittinger, loosely based on M圜hess II published by the same vendor since 1984. Chessmaster XI - House of Staunton chess sets, 3D Graphics Board Chess Engines M圜hess IIĬhessmaster was first released as Chessmaster 2000 in 1986 by Software Toolworks, Inc., a software and computer game publisher located in Los Angeles, co-developed by its founder Walt Bilofsky and Michael E.