Author: Ian Osgood
Date: 14:28:40 02/01/99
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On January 30, 1999 at 22:01:00, D Ridge wrote: >On January 30, 1999 at 07:43:04, Dr. Dietmar Wolz wrote: > >>Recently I bought a Palm Pilot III and was suprised how well it can be used >>as travel chess machine with the free program pocket chess 1.1. The only >>problem is its strength. The Pilot has a 68k 16 Mhz Processor with 2 MB >>(will be 4MB with the next model very soon), a gnu gcc port >>and an emulator for windows PCs are available. Has anyone tried to port a good >>free program (crafty for instance) to this machine. Perhaps someone >>can convince Richard Lang, who has written many good programs for the 68k >>processor to produce a commercial program. There are millions of pilot users >>out there, many would pay some money for a good chess program. >> >>Dr. Dietmar Wolz > >Dr Wolz, I'm very interested in the possble uses of a Palm Pilot for chess. Can >you give me a little more detail on the estimated playing strenth of pocket >chess. How would it compare to other pocket dedicated chess computers such as an >Opal plus. > >I'm not a master by any means, rating around 1700 to 1800. do you feel it plays >well enough to be amusing for quick games on the go? > >Dave R The engine of PocketChess 1.1 is based on the public domain source for SCP (Stanback's Chess Program), the ancestor of GnuChess. It was ideal to use, because it had a very small memory footprint (no hash, 16-bit mailbox move generator, very few piece-square tables and a minimal evaluation function). I have heard estimates of 1600-1700 for PocketChess. To compare, Deep Green (which is based on the same engine) on the 160 MHz Newton MessagePad 2000 maintains an 1800 blitz rating on FICS. I think the small size and touch screen make the Pilot an ideal portable chess machine! Someone really should persuade Richard Lang to port some early version of Genius or Psion to the Pilot. He is the master at creating small, deep thinkers (such as his chess program for the Psion line of organizers). Personally, I am holding out for Crafty running on the 200 MHz Itsy prototype. :) Ian Osgood
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