Author: Tom Kerrigan
Date: 10:47:27 08/27/01
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On August 27, 2001 at 13:35:13, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On August 27, 2001 at 08:59:00, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On August 27, 2001 at 04:14:33, Tom Kerrigan wrote: >> >>>There are some issues here that have not received due attention. >>> >>>First, [as most of you already know,] part of DB's search algorithms and all of >>>DB's evaluation function algorithms were implemented in custom VLSI chips. This >>>made it phenominally fast and also means that it can't exist as a PC program >>>(because you don't have the chips). However, PCs have general purpose >>>processors, which means they can run any algorithm you can think of, so the idea >>>of running DB on a PC isn't quite as stupid as most people seem to think, if >>>you're talking about the algorithms. There are two issues at play when >>>discussing implementing DB as PC software: >>> >>>1) Work involved. Speaking from experience, the time-consuming part of writing >>>an evaluation function is not the actual coding, but instead deciding which >>>terms to include and what their weights should be. If you already know _exactly_ >>>what an evaluation function is supposed to do, (and the DB team does,) I bet >>>implementing even the most complicated one would only take a couple of weeks. > >I missed that statement first time around, until someone sent me email. I >don't know what kind of evaluation _you_ have written. But _mine_ was not a >two week implementation project. None of mine have been two week projects. Sounds like you're accounting for development time. Are you saying that, given a list of Crafty's evaluation terms and their weights, you could not reproduce the function in two weeks? I bet I could. >You are behind times. First, ASICS don't cost "millions of dollars". Just read >some of Hsu's old papers. The first run of the Deep Thought chips cost them >a couple of thousand dollars, total. And second, it didn't take "years". Well, duh. Weren't they using some 4 micron student process? That's worse than apples and oranges. >After >the first Kasparov match, Hsu took time off, then completely re-designed the >chips to create the DB2 version, had the chips fabbed, and had everything >working for the match one year later. Design, implementation, fab, testing, >assembly, tuning, all in under one year. With all the design and testing done >by one person. Okay, so me saying "months" was accurate. And are you trying to imply that one year of work is trivial? That Hsu would spend an entire year blindly implementing algorithms that he jus' figgered were good? -Tom
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