Mephisto was a line of chess computers sold by Hegener & Glaser (H+G). In addition to integrated travel and sensory computers, they also sold a line of modular electronic autosensory boards (Modular, Exclusive, München, and Bavaria) which could accept different program, processor, and display modules.

Its strongest software was written by Richard Lang, who later ported it to personal computers as Psion and ChessGenius

ChessGenius

ChessGenius is the name given to a chess playing computer program written by Richard Lang who has in the past written programs that have won the Computer World Chess Championship on 10 occasions.-History:...

. Lang's Mephisto programs won six World Computer Chess Championship

World Computer Chess Championship

World Computer Chess Championship is an annual event where computer chess engines compete against each other. The event is organized by the International Computer Games Association...

s (WCCC) from 1984 to 1990. H&G also sold engines licensed from Johan de Koning, Ed Schröder, and Frans Morsch. Different models used different 8-bit

8-bit

The first widely adopted 8-bit microprocessor was the Intel 8080, being used in many hobbyist computers of the late 1970s and early 1980s, often running the CP/M operating system. The Zilog Z80 and the Motorola 6800 were also used in similar computers...

, 16-bit

16-bit

-16-bit architecture:The HP BPC, introduced in 1975, was the world's first 16-bit microprocessor. Prominent 16-bit processors include the PDP-11, Intel 8086, Intel 80286 and the WDC 65C816. The Intel 8088 was program-compatible with the Intel 8086, and was 16-bit in that its registers were 16...

 and 32-bit

32-bit

The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295. Hence, a processor with 32-bit memory addresses can directly access 4 GB of byte-addressable memory....

 processors

Central processing unit

The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...

, including MOS Technology 6502

MOS Technology 6502

The MOS Technology 6502 is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch for MOS Technology in 1975. When it was introduced, it was the least expensive full-featured microprocessor on the market by a considerable margin, costing less than one-sixth the price of...

, Motorola 68HC05

Motorola 68HC05

The 68HC05 is a broad family of 8-bit microcontrollers from Freescale Semiconductor .Like all Motorola processors that share lineage from the 6800, they use the von Neumann architecture as well as memory-mapped I/O. This family has five CPU registers that are not part of the memory...

, Motorola 68000

Motorola 68000

The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit CISC microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor...

 and others.

Hegener & Glaser and its Mephisto brand were bought in 1994 by Saitek

Saitek

Saitek is a designer and manufacturer of consumer electronics founded in 1979 by Swiss technologist Eric Winkler. They are best known for their PC gaming controllers, mice, keyboards especially the Eclipse series of back-lit keyboards, and their Flight Yoke System.- History :Saitek was founded in...

. Their computers currently sold under the Mephisto brand use programs written by Frans Morsch.

Hegener & Glaser (Mephisto)

• 1969 established in Munich
  Munich
  Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
  
   by Manfred Hegener and Florian Glaser for the production of semi-conductors
• 1978 the programmers Thomas Nitsche and Elmar Henne came into contact with H+G Thomas Nitsche and Elmar Henne
• 1980 the "Mephisto" Tradename was created. The 'Brikett — the first German Chess Computer — programmed by Thomas Nietsche and Elmar Henne, appeared in the stores.
• 1983 Introduction of the Modular system, with the Mobil, Modular, and Exclusive boards and MM I module.
• 1984 with Richard Lang and his Psion chess (Winner of World Microcomputer Chess Championship 1984 in Glasgow) began a long series of World Championship successes.
• 1985 introduction of Lang's first Mephisto module, the Amsterdam 68000
• 1989 over 90% of all chess computers sold in Germany were Mephistos
• 1989 H+G buys "Fidelity Electronics Inc." for ~ 7 Million US $
• 1990 the market for high-priced chess computers collapses. The cause is the growth of high-performance 486
  Intel 80486
  The Intel 80486 microprocessor was a higher performance follow up on the Intel 80386. Introduced in 1989, it was the first tightly pipelined x86 design as well as the first x86 chip to use more than a million transistors, due to a large on-chip cache and an integrated floating point unit...
  
   PCs and the availability of newly developed low-cost strong chess software for PCs.
• 1992 H+G shows losses of 28 Million DM
• 1992 Ed Schröder wins with Gideon
  REBEL (chess)
  REBEL was a world champion chess program developed by Ed Schröder. Development of REBEL started in 1980 on a TRS-80, and it was ported many times to dedicated hardware and the fastest microprocessors of the day:...
  
   3.1 (later sold as Mephisto Risc 2) the open 7. WCCC — ahead of large mainframe computer
  Mainframe computer
  Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...
  
  s and special hardware machines
• 1994 H+G is bought by Saitek for ~ 7 Million DM
• 1994 Richard Lang’s Genius (Mephisto London) beats Garry Kasparov
  Garry Kasparov
  Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
  
   in the Intel World Chess Grand Prix Turnier in London on a Pentium Processor
• 1997 Manfred Hegener and Ossi Weiner form the company "Millennium 2000 GmbH Hegener & Weiner" and produce the "Millennium Schachpartner 2000", sold at 99 DM
• 2005 Phoenix Chess Systems releases the Resurrection module for existing Mephisto modular boards. The hardware uses a 200MHz ARM processor to run modern chess engines, resulting in the strongest dedicated chess computer ever created.
• 2007 Phoenix Chess Systems releases an updated module set, the Resurrection II, with a faster 500MHz XScale processor.

Mephisto Modular System

Boards:

• Mephisto Mobil (folding magnetic board)
• Mephisto Modular (plastic autosensory board)
• Mephisto Exclusive (40x40 cm wooden autosensory board)
• Mephisto München (50x50 cm wooden autosensory board)
• Mephisto Bavaria (50x50 cm wooden piece recognition board)

Modules:

• Mephisto Almeria 68000
• Mephisto Almeria 68020
• Mephisto Amsterdam
• Mephisto B&P
• Mephisto Dallas 68000
• Mephisto Dallas 68020
• Mephisto Genius 68030
• Mephisto III-S Glasgow
• Mephisto London 68000
• Mephisto London 68020
• Mephisto London 68030
• Mephisto Lyon 68000
• Mephisto Lyon 68020

• Mephisto Magellan
• Mephisto Mirage
• Mephisto MM I
• Mephisto MM II
• Mephisto MM IV
• Mephisto MM V
• Mephisto MM VI
• Mephisto MM VI Schröder - was never distributed
• Mephisto Mystery Modul
• Mephisto PC Modul
• Mephisto Polgar
• Mephisto Polgar 10 MHz Beware: modified Exclusive Board

• Mephisto Portorose 68000
• Mephisto Portorose 68020
• Mephisto Rebell 5.0
• Mephisto Risc 1MB
• Mephisto Risc 2
• Mephisto Roma 68000
• Mephisto Roma 68020
• Mephisto Roma II
• Mephisto Senator
• Mephisto Vancouver 68000
• Mephisto Vancouver 68020

Tournament machines

Mephisto sold limited edition versions of Lang's championship winning programs in dedicated boards with upgraded processors, cooling, and memory, similar to the hardware used in the championship tournaments.

• Mephisto TM Roma (68020, 25 MHz)
• Mephisto TM Almeria (68020, 30 MHz)
• Mephisto TM Portorose (68030, 36 MHz)
• Mephisto TM Lyon (68030, 36 MHz)
• Mephisto TM Vancouver (68030, 36 MHz)
• Mephisto TM London (68030, 36 MHz)
• Mephisto Wundermaschine (80486, 66 MHz)

Other chess computers from the manufacturer Hegener & Glaser

• Mephisto Academy
• Mephisto Advanced Travel Chess Computer
• Mephisto Alaska
• Mephisto America
• Mephisto America II
• Mephisto Atlanta
• Mephisto Avanti
• Mephisto Beach
• Mephisto Berlin 68000
• Mephisto Berlin Professional
• Mephisto Bistro
• Mephisto Champion
• Mephisto Chessbook
• Mephisto Chess Challenger
• Mephisto Chess Explorer
• Mephisto Chess Trainer
• Mephisto College
• Mephisto ESB 6000

• Mephisto Europa
• Mephisto Europa A
• Mephisto Excalibur
• Mephisto Excalibur Glasgow
• Mephisto Expert Travel Chess
• Mephisto Explorer Pro
• Mephisto HG 170
• Mephisto HG 240
• Mephisto HG 440
• Mephisto HG 550
• Mephisto I
• Mephisto II
• Mephisto III
• Mephisto Junior (Sensor)
• Mephisto Junior (Tasten)
• Mephisto Junior Master Chess Computer
• Mephisto Madison
• Mephisto Maestro Travel Chess Computer

• Mephisto Manhattan
• Mephisto Marco Polo
• Mephisto Master Chess
• Mephisto Mega IV
• Mein erster Mephisto
• Mephisto Merlin 16K
• Mephisto MeXs
• Mephisto Miami
• Mephisto Micro Travel Chess Computer
• Mephisto Milano
• Mephisto Milano Pro
• Mephisto Mini
• Mephisto Modena
• Mephisto Monaco
• Mephisto Mondial
• Mephisto Mondial II
• Mephisto Mondial 68000XL
• Mephisto Montana

• Mephisto Monte Carlo
• Mephisto Monte Carlo IV
• Mephisto Monte Carlo IV LE
• Mephisto Montreal 68000
• Mephisto Montreux (Johan de Koning)
• Mephisto Mystery
• Mephisto Mythos
• Mephisto Nigel Short
  Nigel Short
  Nigel David Short MBE is an English chess grandmaster earning the title at the age of 19. Short is often regarded as the strongest English player of the 20th century as he was ranked third in the world, from January 1988 – July 1989 and in 1993, he challenged Garry Kasparov for the World Chess...
  
  
• Mephisto PC Schachbrett (Electronic chess board connected to a PC)
• Mephisto Phantom
• Mephisto Schachakademie
• Mephisto Schachschule
• Mephisto Schachschule II
• Mephisto Super Mondial
• Mephisto Super Mondial II
• Mephisto Supermini
• Mephisto Talking Chess Trainer
• Mephisto Talking Chess Academy
• Mephisto Travel Chess

External links

• Mephisto page on saitek site
• Collection of chess computers
• Mephisto on computer-chess wiki (German)