The village I grew up in was not very friendly to kids wearing glasses who rather played chess than football. As a consequence, I got very attached to a chess pal with the funny name "fidelity voice chess challenger". I think this chess computer was one of the first machines that could produce a relatively decent game without thinking forever before producing a move. And, to make this even more exciting: my chess computer could talk! As soon as the silicon opponent was treated to a dose of electricity, it uttered its name and asked what level of play was desired. The YouTube video below reproduces one of the most magnificent sounds of my childhood...
For those of you not used to retro computing, this translates as "I am Fidelity's Chess Challenger, your computer opponent. Select your level".
The fun thing is that I still have my chess challenger, and it is working like a charm. Yet it seems even easier to beat it now than years ago 
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Even in its age, the qualities of the chess challenger were sometimes doubted by its human opponents. The machine we're talking about now was passed to me by my grandfather when he got a more advanced version, but when he was still playing it, at some point he wrote me the following letter:
"Dear Paul,
I was playing the computer with black and reached the following position:
The computer played Qd3-c3 and I responded b5-b4. Do you see the trap? If white wants to take the bishop he now first needs to take with the queen. And he ended up doing that. Well, that concluded the game rather quickly.
Qxc6 - Qxc6
Nxc6 - Rd1+
Rxd1 - Rxd1 checkmate.
The computer can't see past 2 or 3 moves. (sorry - dutch expression...) His nose is not very long!
Daag, Opa"
It seems ages ago that my grandpa was alive and kicking (checkmating) me... Imagine a time where humans looked with disgust at the performance of their electronic opponents... Finding a letter like this one brings back those happy days, if only for a minute!