Fidelity Prestige Upgrade

Fidelity Prestige
Photo (c) Mike Watters

This is a beautiful chess computer that was marketed between 1982 and 1984, with different program versions:

  • 1982: Standard program (also known as "Pre-Budapest")

  • 1983: Budapest program

  • 1984: Glasgow program

In addition, many cartridges were made for it.

And each unit was marketed with a different speech language.

These are the basic specifications:

  • Microprocessor: 65C02 (8-Bit)

  • System Clock: 4 MHz

  • RAM: 4 KByte

  • ROM: 24 KByte

The upgrade consists of:

  • System clock increase: From 4 to 6 MHz

  • Multi-program: Standard, Budapest and Glasgow

  • Multi-speech: English, German, French and Spanish

  • Multi-book: CB9, CB16, TDF, SDF and Encyclopedia of Chess (EOA, EOB, EOC, EOD and EOF)

The implementation of these improvements requires the modification of the motherboard, and the addition of several modules designed and made by me.

Multi-Book and Multi-Speech modules for Fidelity Prestige

Details of the improvements:

  1. System Clock 6 MHz: Replacement of the quartz crystal, modification of the frequency divider and replacement of some semiconductors with faster ones.

  2. New faster 65C02 microprocessor.

  3. EPROM containing all program versions, with new address bus decoder.

  4. Multi-Speech module.

  5. Multi-Book module.

  6. High-quality rotary switches.

Whole assembly

Multi-Program EPROM and decoder

Multi-Speech module

Multi-Book module

Finally Wolfgang Zugrav and master craftsman Johann Fleischhacker take care of the finishing work: