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First chess database used stereo cassettes
05.10.2020
Chessbase co-founder Frederic Friedel, who recently turned 75, recollected on video the story of the first commercially available chess database. It was part of a chess computer named “Intelligent Chess” and developed by him and David Levy. It hit department stores in 1980. This machine displayed games that were stored on compact cassettes as usually used for music. Stereo cassettes had two channels, one was used to store the moves and the other for voice annotations. It took several more years until searchable databases for personal computers changed chess training forever.