Author: Mike Adams
Date: 07:14:10 10/21/00
Go up one level in this thread
On October 21, 2000 at 09:48:09, Arturo Ochoa wrote:
>Hello Mike:
>
>Could you answer the following questions about Pulsar?
>
>1) What's the estimated Elo of Pulsar?
Not that strong an engine right now. But i have a few more tricks i would like
to try. namely hash evaluations and pawn structure, pondering, a better book, a
better king saftey algorithm, and transpostions. Even without that its rating is
2310 icc blitz on a amd k6-2 500 machine. with those bells and whistles it might
see 2500 icc blitz i'm hoping.
>
>2) Have you thought to release freely or to sell it?
>
Ive thought about making it freeware but i want to add the above mentioned bells
and whistles. This could take time since i'm in school full time and working.
Will probably work on it more during thanksgiving and christmas break. Also i
need to debug it a bit more make it more stable. And i want to add some features
for winboard like random moves, and general winboard compatibility. Right now
pulsar does not even return checkmate when the game is over it tries to capture
the king and i guess keep on playing :). so there is more winboard issues. To
date i've only concerned myself with what it needs to know to play on icc
knowere else.
>3) Doest it have an own Opening Book?
>
Yes a small one. Dont ask me were i got it :)
>4) Can it support the Analysis Mode on the Winboard, Fritz and Chess Partner
>Guis?
>
No analisis mode. AS mentioned i've only concerned myself with what it takes to
run on icc. I can open it up in console and give it fens to read and have it
search to a fixed depth which is usefull when trying to see what it is thinking
and when.
>5) Do you use EndGames Nalimov Table Bases?
>
Nope. Pulsar is not one of the stronges winboard engines but every few months i
work on it and improve it and it gains rating points. Bear in mind i do this
for fun mainly. I am not a professional programmer nor am i a computer science
or science major. In fact i am studying accounting. My only formal programming
bacground is a couple of programming courses i took a few years ago. One of
those was a basic learn to program in c course. C is still the language pulsar
is written in.
But i enjoy programming. Before i got into chess programming I made a
couple of arcade games for dos that used the mouse. Chess programming offers
the challenge of making a project that keeps evolving and getting more complex
unlike making simple graphical games.
>If I am interested in your Winboard Engine, how could I get it?
>
right now its not available. Maybe if i can break 2500 icc blitz and fix the
winboard compatibilty problems i will make it available this summer. It might
be fun to release a handicapped version as well. pulsar light that plays 500
rating points lower for those looking for an easy engine to play against. seems
like it be easy to do. just turn off null move and hashing and take some of the
evaluate information out.
>Thanks in advance.
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