Sinclair ZX Spectrum CHESS

CHESS was a game for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, written by Psion and MicroGen Companies in 1982. It was an upgrade to the prior 1 K Chess game available for the ZX81. It is in machine code and requires 48 KB of RAM. You load the program in the usual manner as you would any other program.

The chessboard and pieces are in high-resolution graphics for 1982 standards. There were ten levels of difficulty and most people would have had difficulty with level 2, however I always played it at level 9. I liked the machine to give me all it had, however I was still able to beat it most of the time, which provided immense satisfaction.

To make a move you simply entered the coordinates of the piece you wanted to move and then the coordinates you wished to move it. The coordinate system used numbers for the y-axis and letters for the x-axis, hence columns are from A to H, and rows are from 1 to 8. The computer will check the moves and only allow legal ones. Castling and en passant were legal by entering the king’s move.