Novag

The Chess Champion MK I was Novags first dedicated chess computer released in September 1978. It had a Fairchild F8 8-Bit processor running at 1.78 MHz, with 2 KiB ROM and 256 byte RAM.

The program was a clone of the Data Cash Systems Inc. CompuChess program, which was developed by David B. Goodrich & Associates [1] , while other sources claim David Levy was involved in the development [2] [3] .

Since the cloned software was already more than a year old, it was a weak program even for that early time. Additionally the program could only play with Black, accepted illegal moves, and could even play without Kings. With its strongest level 6, it usually replied not until several days with a move found [4]. It was marketed in the US by JS&A, and in Germany by Horten [5] and Quelle in different outward variations [6]