Chronogamer - Schach for Channel F

RSS Bot · March 31, 2006

Schach (Channel F, 1979)

I know, I said I was only going to do US releases, that's why this is a "mystery" game.

This is a quote from a post I made back in May of 2005

QUOTEFairchild cart #20 by SABA in Germany is called Schach, which is apparantly German for Chess. So far, the electronic mind hasn't impressed me (I beat it and I suck at Chess) but it does make its moves a damn sight faster than the VCS version of Video Chess. It also has a little light on the end of it to indicate that it is "thinking" which is really unique for a cart from back then. When I won my first game, it "rewarded" me with random tones that sounded like they were designed to torture monkeys and small chidlren. Please, don't think I'm being overly critical. I've actully designed tones for torturing monkeys and these were right on the money.

If anyone has the instructions for this, I'd appreciate you letting me know how to bump up the skill level, please. I'm afraid that I might win again and have to listen to the victory melody.

One of the cool things about the #20 Schach cart is that it can be modified into a Fairchild Channel F MultiCart!!! Whoo-hoo! Every Fairchild game on a single cart! Now I need to learn how to do the mod.

As far as I know, it's the only game program for the Channel F that didn't come out in the US. The cart, with that "glowing thinking light", was probably more expensive to manufacture and, based on past market performance of the Channel F, it was probably decided they wouldn't make enough money on Chess(which is the English word for Schach) in the US market. That's just my idle speculation, however, and I'd be curious to know if a reason has ever been given.

I've no intentions of altering this cart into a multi-cart. For one, I don't have the mad skillz. For two, well, even though it isn't worth a ton of money as-is (at least, not in Germany), even though it isn't really, really rare, I think that it is rare enough that I'd rather keep this copy intact as just a Chess cart. A poor analogy might be: if you had an original copy of "Citizen Kane" would you colorize it? Yeah, that's actually a pretty useless analogy. I welcome someone else to give an analogy that would better express how I feel. Just read my mind and see what you can come up with.

I played this cart only a few times after I got it. I just don't seem to have the time to have a game of Chess anymore. (I'd rather write rambling blogs about it) For the record, I wasn't able to beat it again. I think I won my first game because I was excited and focused which usually makes me smarter and better looking.

Here are pictures:

Shh! It's trying to think! It only takes about 10 seconds, tops, for a move. I haven't won since I beat it my first lucky game. It's that damn, eerie, "thinking" light that rattles me.

This is how the chessboard looks. When a move is made the coordinates of the move show up on the side. Which, uh, I should've gotten a picture of I guess.

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?a...&showentry=1417