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Subject: Re: Answer of Chess Master Team about Chess Master 7000

Author: Christopher R. Dorr

Date: 13:42:44 06/16/00

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I do understand your frustration, but I think it's important to remember that
CM7000 is a mass-market program; 99.99% of their customers don't care about the
hash table issue. On a modern machine, this is perhaps the difference between a
USCF 2550 level and a USCF 2535 level. For the vast majority of users, it makes
no difference. At blitz time controls, which is what the vast majority plays
most of their games at, this would make even less difference.

To fix this would probably require several dozen hours of coding, testing, and
distributing. Let's say 50 hours of developer/tester time. At $40 an hour, this
is $2000 to fix a bug that makes virtually no difference in strength, and affets
a *very* few customers. Additionally, it pulls a developer away from his/her
work on the next version. I wouldn't fix it either.

The 'professional' programs sell 90% of their programs to afficionados who *do*
care about such things. Thus they are much more likely to fix these problems, as
they directly impact their bottom line. I think the response of the CM7000 team
is both reasonable and to be expected.

Chris



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