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Subject: Not another Deep Blue thread!

Author: Keith Ian Price

Date: 01:14:54 05/01/98


I just got back from a lecture on Deep Blue given at Oregon Graduate
Institute by Feng Hsiung Hsu, and was able to ask him many questions
after the presentation. Since a lot of unanswered questions have been
debated on rgcc and CCC, I thought I would ask him about several of
these subjects. It's late so I will mention a couple and add the rest
tomorrow.

1. As to whether there will ever be a rematch or a match with someone
else such as Vishy Anand or Karpov, Hsu stated that the chances are
"slim to none". In his view the program is only marginally better than
Kasparov at present, and in order to have a rematch, they would have to
make it much better than Kasparov, so that they would be able to
guarantee a win. He stated that no one on the team wanted to put that
amount of effort into it, since the history-making goal had already been
achieved.

2. The draw in Game two never showed up on DB's screen as a possibility.
After the game, Hsu went to bed thinking that DB had played the most
brilliant game ever played by a computer. When he woke up the next
morning and checked the Internet, he saw "Kasparov misses draw in game
2." At first he thought, "they just won't believe that DB could win, and
it's just sour grapes." But when he ran it on DB, Jr. for quite a while,
the possibility showed up, but he still thought there was a way to avoid
the perpetual, although to do it, would mean losing enough advantage to
make it a draw anyway. He never ran the position on DB, since
between-rounds maintenance was being done.

3. DB was dismantled right after the match because the SP2 processors
used during the match were part of an order that was shipped right after
the match. The SP2 was a brand new unit, and the upgrade orders had left
none for DB's use, so the SP2s used in the match were from a lot donated
by IBM to the NIH, and were shipped to them immediately following the
match. The frames were kept for historical reasons. The Smithsonian has
expressed interest in having Deep Blue on display some day, and that is
where the frames may show up, with new SP2s installed.

4. There are no plans for a "commercial" version of Deep Blue from IBM,
although Hsu is trying to get the rights to the chess processors. If he
does, he may consider doing a commercially available product that would
run on a PC and have a chess processor on a card to plug in. He
considers it risky, though. I asked how much each unit would sell for if
he were to sell 1 million. He said that with that amount of sales, he
could sell the program and board for under $200. I also asked about if
only 10,000 were sold. He said then it would be around $400. I told him
I would buy 3 at that price, and that I suspect there are others who
would also. The real problem is that he could not call it DB or even
Baby Blue. IBM would not want to be associated with it if they gave him
the rights. So a lot of quick advertising would not be available, which
could generate the mass sales needed to get the under $200 price.


Ok, it's late, and although I have a lot more, it will have to wait till
tomorrow :-(.

kp



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