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Subject: Re: How about open weaponry boxing championship?

Author: Uri Blass

Date: 10:29:25 07/15/04

Go up one level in this thread


On July 15, 2004 at 13:00:07, Eugene Nalimov wrote:

>On July 15, 2004 at 12:24:37, Uri Blass wrote:
>
>>On July 15, 2004 at 12:16:53, Eugene Nalimov wrote:
>>
>>>On July 15, 2004 at 05:11:21, Uri Blass wrote:
>>>
>>>>On July 14, 2004 at 22:05:25, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On July 14, 2004 at 14:40:17, Omid David Tabibi wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On July 14, 2004 at 14:17:33, Matthew Hull wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On July 14, 2004 at 13:00:15, Omid David Tabibi wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>The goal is the best computer chess.  You can't have that unless it's open
>>>>>>>>>hardware.  It has always been open hardware,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>You forget WMCCC.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>No I don't.  This is not WMCCC.  It's WCCC.  The best chess will be played on
>>>>>>>big hardware.  That's why it's open hardware.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>If you want to argue for inferior chess, then go organize thw World Inferior
>>>>>>>Computer Chess Championship.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Meanwhile, the rest of us want to see the best computer chess the world has to
>>>>>>>offer.  We want to see the envelope pushed as far as it can go.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>The best computer chess in the world is supposed to be seen at the World
>>>>>>>Championship.  You can't do that by limiting hardware.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I don't know how many different ways it needs to be said.  Your idea is fine
>>>>>>>for some other event that is not the WCCC.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I did not suggest to abolish the open hardware format to begin with. What I
>>>>>>suggest is to hold two events, WCCC for open hardware, and WMCCC for uniform
>>>>>>hardware. Just the way it used to be. In WCCC you will find the best
>>>>>>engine+hardware combination, and in WMCCC you will find the strongest chess
>>>>>>program.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Absolutely and totally bogus statement.
>>>>>
>>>>>What processor will you pick?  I want 64 bits.  Others want 32 bits.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>The best solution is to give the participants the possibility to choose the
>>>>hardware when the participants do not need to care to bring the hardware that
>>>>they choose and the organizers do it for them.
>>>>
>>>>If we talk about WMCCC then a better alternative than uniform hardware is that
>>>>programmers will be able to ask the organizers to give them every machine that
>>>>they ask(behind some price) with only one codition that the machine does not
>>>>have more than one cpu.
>>>
>>>Programmer A spent several months to implement parallel search in his program.
>>>
>>>Programmer B spent those months to rewrite his uni-proc search into assembly
>>>language.
>>>
>>>You suggested rule favors programmer B. Why?
>>
>>A can participates in WCCC when B participates in WMCCC
>>
>>I did not say not to have WCCC
>
>Programmer A asked (and got) from the organizers acess to 1-CPU Power5 system
>that costs $20k.

I think that WMCCC should not be for expensive hardware so I think A should not
get it
and there should be some limitation about the price of the computer that the
organizers give.

>
>Programmer B asked dual Opteron system that costs less than $3k. Should he get
>it? Chances that average chess program user will get dual Opteron system are
>much higher than chances that she will get Power5 system.

I suggest that B should get it only for WCCC and not for WMCCC.
>
>Programmer C asked for new Pentium 5 (or Pentium 6, or ...) system that have
>*efficient* implementation of multithreading. I.e *one* CPU can run 2 threads
>simultaneously, with effective speedup (say) 1.8x. Should he get it? Cost of
>system is $2.5k.

I think no.

All the idea of one cpu for WMCCC is to not to test parallel code that is tested
in WCCC.

>
>Programmer D asked for new AMD K9 (or K10, or ...) system that have dual cores
>*on chip*. I.e *one* physical chip contains 2 CPU cores, with effective speedup
>(say) 1.95x. Should he get it? Cost of system is $1.8k.

Again no.

>
>Programmer E asked for new Itanium4 system that have 8 cores *on chip*.
>Effective speedup is (say) 7.5x. Should he get it? Cost of system is $20k,
>exactly as cost of Power5 system we gave to programmer A.

Again too expensive so no.

>
>Programmer F asked for off-the-shelf CPU with built-in FPGA (right now there are
>such CPUs for embedded systems). He can use FPGA to dramatically speed his
>search. Cost of system with such CPU is $300 (CPU/memory/serial port, all the
>interface is running on plain PC). Can he use it?

Allowed for WCCC but if this is not machine that other can buy(if the FPGA is
some special hardware that the programmer designed) then the answer is no.
>
>Programmer G brought with him FPGA or ASIC system designed by him. Total cost of
>all components is $1.5k. Can he use it? BTW, his hardware can do 16 independent
>searches in parallel, but there is exactly one CPU in his system.

No
Again WMCCC is only software competition and you should use some standard
hardware that people can buy.
>
>Programmer H asked some time on $100k S/3090. His program can use only one CPU,
>and single-CPU performance of S/3090 is 2x less than Opteron 2GHz. To partially
>compensate for this his program is written in the S/3090 assembly language, so
>it cannot be ported anywhere. He points that he don't get *any* hardware
>advantage from running on sych a system compared to *any* WMCCC participant, so
>he should be entered into WMCCC.

Again no

WMCCC is not about expensive solutions.
>
>Programmer J wrote his program for the $40 "Gameboy Portable" with z80 CPU.
>There are good chances that when he will not get 1st place he would say
>"competition was not fair -- they have hardware advantage". Should he be
>allowed?

Yes and congratulation for J for winning the tournament because J was the only
participant after the other programmers that you suggested were not allowed to
enter with the hardware that they wanted so they decided not to play:-(

Uri



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