Recently somebody posted a video of the WMCC held in 1985! (link at the bottom of the page)
This video is of the World Microcomputer Chess Championship (WMCC) held in the World Trade Center, Amsterdam, 1985! Overall 16 teams participated and it was won by Mephisto! In fact, Mephisto had 3 versions running in that tournament and they took the first 3 spots! (The programs were written in Assembly language!!!)
Mephisto was designed by Richard Lang (yup the same guy who later designed Chess Genius)
Mephisto was running on a 16-bit Motorola 68000 microprocessor (back in those days, my company Motorola made microprocessors! Now it is a “software company”, having outsourced the manufacturing unit to Flextronics)
On the rest day, the Dutch GM Gennadi Sosonko (2550) gave a 31 board simul including 10 computers! The simul lasted a whooping 8 hours and he scored 25.5 – 5.5
An interesting position
In this position, Turbostar played 61… Rb6? and the game ended in a draw after some moves.
Instead 61… Rxb7!! (Engines like Critter find this move and the winning line in a few seconds! ) 62. Rxb7 f2 63. Rb4+ Kf5
64. Rb5+ Ke6 (64… Kg6?? 65. h5+ and White wins) 65. Rb6+ Kf7 66. Rb7+ Kg6
and the Black pawn cannot be stopped from Queening.
Tournament Crosstable (Top 5)
| Rank | Program | Country | Hardware | Score | Games | SOS | SoDOS | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mephisto Amsterdam 1 | 68020 (32 bit, std. freq.) | 8.0 | 8 | 29.0 | 29.00 | Champ! | |
| 2 | Mephisto Amsterdam 3 | 68000 (16 bit) | 7.0 | 8 | 27.5 | 24.50 | ||
| 3 | Mephisto Amsterdam 2 | 68000 (16 bit) | 7.0 | 8 | 27.5 | 24.25 | ||
| 4 | Princhess 6 | 6502 (8 bit) | 4.5 | 8 | 35.0 | 12.50 | ||
| 5 | Blitz Monster Y | 6502 (8 bit) | 4.0 | 8 | 36.0 | 14.00 |
source: http://www.grappa.univ-lille3.fr/icga/round.php?tournament=63
PGN download
Video (in German) – also features Susan Polgar in the end!
Source : Ed Schroder mentioned about these videos on his site and on talkchess.com.