In May 1983 Scisys decided to challenge the newly released Novag Constellation for the highly competitive top end market with an all new chess computer to be programmed by Julio Kaplan . Midway through its development it was entered in the World Microcomputer Chess Championships held at Budapest in October 1983. The intention was to compete anonymously during a period of rapid program development. The organisers though used the name Superstar X to Scisys’s dismay. No doubt they would have been happier if Superstar X had finished better than 13th. This sounds bad but the Superstar X did finish equal with the Novag Constellation and Fidelity Sensory 9, on 3 points from 7 rounds.
To compete for the lucrative Christmas market the Superstar was hurriedly released soon after.
The Superstar turned out to be a little weaker than the Constellation, Elo 1530 compared with Elo 1597 (Wiki). Also the Constellation had a long head start and sold in large numbers.
The strength of the Superstar was at longer time intervals with better than average endgame play. It was upgradeable and accepted a version of the KSO openings module. One nice feature it had was a replay function which allowed the user to step backwards and forwards through a game. The design, as in the case of the Mark V and the Explorer, was the product of Ian Sinclair’s design studio.