Hegener + Glaser

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hegener + Glaser AG
legal form Corporation
founding 1969
resolution 1994
Reason for dissolution Takeover by Saitek
Seat Munich
Branch microelectronics

Hegener + Glaser (short- H + G ) was a company that with its chess computers of Mephisto series wrote chess history. The brand name "Mephisto" became a synonym for chess computers in Germany in the 1980s.

Foundation and advancement

Manfred Hegener and Florian Glaser founded a stock corporation in Munich in 1969 to manufacture semiconductor products for large German companies with electronic components from the USA, Japan and England.

The Mephisto Exclusive from H + G from 1987 with the pull-out module drawer. In the middle the LCD display module, on the right the basic module (from the MMIV module series) with the keypad for operating the device. The left module ( opening library HG440) is an extension of the chess computer .

The company Fidelity Electronics Inc. brought the first chess computer onto the market in 1977 with their "Chess Challenger". He did not yet have an opening library and was only of low skill level.

Hegener and Glaser recognized their chance and designed the first German chess computer. In memory of the literary chess game at Dr. Faust they gave him the name " Mephisto ". In 1978, they engaged the programmers Thomas Nitsche and Elmar Henne to develop the game logic . At the beginning of August 1980 the first Mephisto came onto the market (see photo under web links ). It reached the level of chess club players and quickly became a trademark . Because of its shape and color, it was nicknamed "The Briquette ".

The company Rawe Electronic in Weiler im Allgäu manufactured semiconductor boards (for PCs today one would say: the mainboards) for the control unit from 1985 to 1992.

In May 1985 the outstanding English chess programmer Richard Lang came into contact with the Munich company H + G and found great support there. In the few months up to the world championship in computer chess for microcomputers in Amsterdam at the beginning of September, he adapted his already successful Psion -Chess program to the Mephisto, was able to improve it even further and won the world championship by a large margin. At about the same time a PSION version for the 8 MHz ATARI ST was created . Between 1984 and 1991, Lang won all world championships with the Mephisto in a row. In 1989 over 90 percent of all chess computers sold in Germany were from the Mephisto series. At that time, the name Mephisto was almost synonymous with chess computers in the German-speaking world.

In 1989, H + G took over its former competitor Fidelity Electronics for around US $ 7 million.

Decline

Hegener + Glaser AG share of more than DM 50 from April 1994

With the advent of powerful Intel 486 personal computers and the wide range of inexpensive and powerful chess programs adapted to them, the market for high-priced chess computers collapsed in 1990. The consequences for the H + G company were severe. In 1992, the programmer Ed Schröder won the open 7th World Chess Computer Championship (WCCC) with Gideon 3.1 on a Mephisto Risc 2 (not that of the Micros) in front of mainframes and special hardware, but the company's debts were already 28 million DM. Finally, Saitek Ltd. bought it . 1994 H + G for around 7 million DM and thus became the world's largest manufacturer of chess computers.

Ironically, 1994 was also the year of Mephisto's most spectacular public success, when Richard Lang's Genius (Mephisto London, on a Pentium processor) beat Garry Kasparov at the Intel World Chess Grand Prix tournament in London.

Manfred Hegener continued his entrepreneurial activities and founded the company "Millennium 2000 GmbH Hegener & Weiner" with his former consultant and chess specialist Ossi Weiner in 1996, which among other things produced the "Millennium Chess Partner 2000" and sold it for 99 DM. In May 2002 the German Chess Federation expressed its gratitude and recognition in the form of an honorary certificate.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chess Computer: Tricks and Deception. The Mephisto from Hegener + Glaser. In: DER SPIEGEL 50/1980. Accessed on August 19, 2013 : "In addition to imports from Hong Kong and the USA, the first German chess computer" Mephisto "from the Munich company" Hegener + Glaser "has been there since the beginning of September [1980] ..."
  2. ↑ a b c Outline of the company history Hegener + Glaser in the chess computer info wiki
  3. ↑ a b Alexander Goetz: Chess! The manager. Royal game strategy and tactics for modern management. In: ISBN 3-211-22869-1 . Springer Verlag Wien, 2004, p. 114 , accessed on September 2, 2013 .
  4. ↑ Elmar Henne (1984 29 years old, qualified computer scientist) and Thomas Nitsche (1984 31 years old, qualified mathematician), co-founders of the Munich software "Firma P1 GmbH", developed chess programs and (1980–1982) programs for the BTX Working for Siemens parallel computers , worked closely with Hegener + Glaser in the first half of the 1980s in the area of ​​Mephisto chess computer development. They developed and implemented the Mephisto 1, 2 and 3 programs right from the start, with Ossi Weiner u. a. the opening library contributed.
  5. ↑ Briquettes for small coal in Computerschach und Spiele , No. 6, 1997, pp. 63–65
  6. ↑ Showcase in the Rawe Electronic showroom
  7. ↑ Göran Grottling and Richard Lang: Mr. Lang, where is the depth? (422 kB) The Swedish chess computer tester Göran Grottling interviews Richard Lang for the Swedish club magazine PLY. In: www.schaakcomputers.nl: 12-1987, module 4/1987, pp. 34–38, Göran Grottling: Interview with Richard L. 1987, accessed on August 20, 2013 (pdf file).
  8. ↑ Directory of the results of the Microcomputer Chess World Championships in the Chess Computer Info Wiki
  9. ↑ Saitek still sells chess computers in 2013 under the trademark Mephisto (see web link)
  10. ↑ Ossi Weiner, a German engineer and architect, chess player, computer chess expert, co-author of computer chess books, author of chess openings as well as entrepreneur and dealer for computer chess and games, was a management consultant at Hegener + Glaser , he represented Mephisto chess computer at various world championships for computers and Microcomputer, which led to a long-term collaboration with Richard Lang and Ed Schröder . In 1983, Weiner his own company, the hobby computer center, Weiner Vertriebs GmbH in Munich , the predecessor of 1997 together with his partner Hegener Manfred founded Millennium 2000 GmbH .
  11. ↑ Honorary certificates of the German Chess Federation on the occasion of the 125th anniversary