The original Fidelity Phantom, model 6100, arrived in 1988 and the Chesster Challenger was released in 1990. The Phantom sought to update and improve on the highly innovative early 1980s Milton Bradley family of chess robots. Most particularly with a stronger chess engine based on the Par Excellence program. In this it was quite successful. The Chesster Challenger used the Designer series hardware and software and added extensive speech features with phrases chosen to teach, entertain and provoke the human player to try to beat it. Some years ago I did a Schachcomputer.info Wiki item on the Chesster Challenger which can be found here (link).

It was the Fidelity way to mix and match the best features of its chess computers and with the demise of the company not far away the options for new models must have been drying up along with the market. So it was that Chesster Phantom (model 6124) found its way into production combining the best selling points of the Phantom and the Chesster Challenger. This happened around mid 1991. However within months Fidelity came up with an improved model, the Phantom Chesster “Eyeball”(model 6126). This included a movement sensor located at the front of the machine which enables the chess computer to detect the presence of any passing human whereupon it invites them to a game of chess, helping them get started if they are a novice. You can find my webpage on the Eyeball here (link).

As there was little difference in pricing between the Chesster Phantom and the Chesster Phantom Eyeball the more interesting machine effectively replaced the original model of which few were made or sold. Hence the Chesster Phantom (model 6124) is a very rare chess computer today.

There are a couple of short videos below which feature Phantom Chesster introducing itself and also playing in Autoplay mode.