Author: Roberto Waldteufel
Date: 06:11:02 11/09/98
Go up one level in this thread
On November 08, 1998 at 15:51:31, John Wentworth wrote: >On November 08, 1998 at 14:34:00, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On November 08, 1998 at 12:51:19, Christophe Theron wrote: >> >>>On November 08, 1998 at 08:13:10, John Wentworth wrote: >>> >>>>10 to 20 years ago there were a lot of chess programs on mainframes and these >>>>were competing in the ACM tournaments. All of a sudden they disappeared, cost >>>>and the advances in PCs I'am assuming. However, seems like there must be someone >>>>out there programming on a mainframe, I mean they are so superior in speed over >>>>the PC's it's laughable. Last I heard Deep Blue no longer existed, and someone >>>>was working on Socrates, but you never hear of that anymore either. >>> >>>Socrates is Don Dailey's baby, who post here often. As far as I know Don is >>>still working on an "all platform" multiprocessing chess program called >>>"CilkChess". Cilk is a parallel oriented language. CilkChess is written in Cilk, >>>and so has the ability to be compiled for uni- or multiprocessor platforms. >>> >>>Unless I am wrong, Don can produce a PC or mainframe version of his program when >>>he wants. >>> >>>Don, please correct me if I missed something. >>> >>> >>> >>>> Also, like to know where all the older programs are now, like Belle, Cray >>>>Blitz, Nuchess, BEBE etc. Probably been erased or sitting on a shelf somewhere, >>>>just curious if anyone knows. >>> >>>Cray Blitz was written by Bob Hyatt, who post here more than often. I've heard >>>that Cray Blitz has not been erased at all, and has even run some long test >>>suite recently (less than one year). >>> >>>Cray Blitz' successor is the well known freeware program Crafty, which is >>>discussed here very often. >>> >>>Bob, your turn to correct me. :) >>> >>> >>> >>> Christophe >> >>Pretty much correct. Cray blitz still exists... but is not being modified >>since Crafty was started. I started the "crafty" project after the 1994 ACM >>event in Cape May... machine time is *very* difficult to get, there is little >>room for the "unexpected" (such as a weather delay or whatever) since the >>machines are so tightly scheduled... >> >>I wearied of the process of setting up machine time every year, dozens of >>phone calls, emails, begging, borrowing, etc... >> >>The Cray's will still blow off any collection of microprocessor-based machines >>you'd care to use, but at $60,000,000 they are expensive and difficult to get >>hold of. >> >>I gave up not because the micros were catching up in speed (which they weren't, >>not even close) but because the micros are so much easier to get access to... > >Come on Bob let's Cray Blitz going again. I would love to see it kick some butt. >Let's see, if each CCC member took out a $100,000.00 mortgage maybe we buy our >own Cray :) It would be nice, wouldn't it? But I think I might fall behind on the repayments, and I would not want my building society to re-posses a piece of the communal Cray! On a more realistic note, If Hsu ever gets permission to market his chess chip boards (as used in Deeper Blue), they could boost the speed of a chess program immensely. I don't know how a rack of several of these boards, driven by a host PC, would compare to a Cray in terms of raw speed, but I am sure the price would be more manageable than $60,000,000. The point is that this technology was designed for chess from the outset, unlike a conventional mainframe that was designed for multi-purpose use and probably has many excellent (and expensive) features that are not very useful for chess. I think for maybe a few thousand dollars it might be possible to put together a pretty awesome chess playing machine using Hsu's technology - it's such a pity that IBM hold the rights to the chip, since they have a vested interest in never letting it be used. Best wishes, Roberto
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