Emulator for dedicated Mephistos

This has been around for a few years, but I'm just now starting to play with it. I thought some of you might not be aware of it. It's an emulator program that you can use to play with simulations of the old Mephisto dedicated chess programs. It's almost exactly like playing on the original dedicated units; The only difference is that you'll be using a mouse to do everything. (Moving the pieces with the mouse can be finicky at times; You might need to work with it a bit to get the technique down pat.)

This is old-school stuff - These emulations aren't very user-friendly. You'll have to enter any special commands on the module, just like you'd have to do with the actual dedicated units. You'll need to download the manuals for all of the game commands. Finally, if you want to record a game, you'll have to use pencil and paper.


The link below is in French; You can use Google translate if you want.
http://eric.terrien.pagesperso-orange.fr/page6/page7/page7.html#EMULATEUR


At first I was a little confused about the installation, but it's not that hard. The installation is entirely manual; The emulator is a standalone executable file with no setup program.

1) Download the mess132c.zip and the ROM.zip files from the links provided.

2) You'll also need to download the applicable pdf manuals from Alain Zanchetta's site. The link to Alain's site has changed. You'll have to go to http://www.zanchetta.net/ and then select Documentations, then select Mephisto from the pull-down menu. You'll need to download manuals for the Amsterdam, Dallas (German only), Mephisto III (this is the manual for the Mephisto III-S Glasgow), MM IV, MM V, Rebell V, and the Roma.

3) Unzip the mess132c.zip and ROM.zip files. (When you unzip the ROM.zip file, you'll get a ROM folder containing seven other zipped files, such as amsterd.zip, dallas.zip, etc. You'll have to unzip these seven files to get to the actual ROM files.)

4) Copy all of the unzipped ROM files into the mess132c\roms folder.

5) Now you're ready to go. You can double-click on the messtinyui.exe file located in the mess132c folder to start the MESS emulator. If you want, you can also create a desktop shortcut to the messtinyui.exe file.

6) To start one of the Mephisto emulator programs, just double-click on one of the emulators in the MESS emulator window. (If the chessboard doesn't display, moving the mouse or pressing any key should bring the chessboard up.)


Have fun - I'm (only somewhat - see edit below) enjoying it!

Edit - A somewhat disappointing update. I probably should have used the emulator more before posting this thread. I've discovered a couple of "wet blankets".

I thought I was getting used to the periodic glitchy move input system, but it's still causing problems for me on occasion, sometimes even forcing me to abort a game due to lockup.

Also, I've discovered that when I promote a pawn, there's no way to change the pawn to a piece. Internally, the program recognizes the newly promoted piece, and it can be moved as the new piece, but it's still shown on the board as a pawn. So I just have to remember that that pawn is now a piece. (With the real dedicated unit, this isn't a problem, because you physically replace the pawn with a piece. You just can't do that with the emulator.)

Does anyone knows what playing strenght have the dedicated Mephisto units?

I'm not sure about the ratings of some of the models on the ratings lists, as some of the abbreviated names on the lists are confusing to me.

However, if you want to try to decipher the lists, you could take a look at some of the Computer Chess Reports back issues. Look for the "CCR Rating List - Dedicated Units", for example in Vol 5 No 2, starting on Page 40.

http://www.chesscomputeruk.com/html/computer_chess_reports.html

Edit - Alternatively, if you go to the emulator download page, there is another "Infos sup" link that will take you to the applicable Schachcomputer info page. Maybe you can trust those elo estimates?

Thank you, good link. Mephisto rose from 19xx in 1986 to 21xx in 1989 and 22xx in 1990.

Hello, old thread and new question.

The unzipped Roms have several versions inside, for example the Glasgow rom has the files ME3_1_1L.410, ME3_2_2l.410 and so on. What is the difference between these and do I need them all? I'm thinking of renaming them. Bad idea?

I wonder, is there a way to remove the speed emulation? I want the Roma rom to use the full speed of a modern cpu whilst emulating the instruction set of it's own processor.

Don't unzip them. The emulator will unzip the relevant rom(s) automagically.

I gave up on the emulator programs a long time ago. They're just too buggy to be much fun. That's been my experience, anyway.

Another source for strength comparisons is the long list at SSDF:

http://ssdf.bosjo.net/long.txt

For dedicated machine ratings, start at the bottom and work up!

Actually, the method as described by EscherehcsE does work for the engine-roms given on that website. I tried those. I also tried others from other websites, such as the Mephisto Academy (I have that one) but that rom doesn't work.