Who invented the first Digital Chess Clock?

[Javier]

"In the 1950's and 60's I was a very active chess player. I used to play at least 40 hours per week, was the captain of our strong college chess team and played in quite a few tournaments. Although I was not a particularly strong player, I sure spent a lot of my youth enjoying the game.

 

I am now older, and my interest in chess has subsided. However, I do want to claim my rightful place in chess history as the inventor and first commercial vendor of the digital chess clock.

 

In 1966 I retired from chess and committed my time to a professional career. However, in 1973 I was invited by a neighbor to play in a local tournament in the San Diego (California) area. At that tournament I noticed that every one of the players was still using a mechanical chess clock -- of a design patented in about the year 1900. Since I was at the time involved in electronics, I decided to investigate the possibility of commercializing a digital version of this device. More -- I decided to concurrently dramatically advance the method of time keeping in chess.

 

For the next eight years I focused nearly all my "free" time on this endeavor. In 1975 (together with my electrical engineer Jeff Ponsor, who has passed away about ten years ago) I filed for and received the first patent (Number 4,062,180) on a fully operational (microprocessor based) digital chess clock. An additional patent (USA & European) for a more advanced version with many additional features was awarded in 1981 (4,247,925).

 

My chess clock concept resulted from years of conceptualization and testing and thousands of hours of work. I even published my MBA thesis on this subject -- "Demand Analysis for a New Product (Digital Chess Clock)" -- at San Diego State University, 1978. For this thesis I interviewed and surveyed thousands of chess players from all over the world, and every chess association and identified chess club worldwide. "

 

Read the full article HERE.

[wiredknight]

The first digital chess clock was made in 1973 by a Cornell University Engineering student. This precedes Joe Meshi by 2 years.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_chess_clock