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Subject: Re: DEDICATED CHESS COMPUTERS

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 08:34:10 01/17/98

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On January 17, 1998 at 07:00:15, steve blincoe wrote:

>hi bert:you are right about the saphire 2 plastic board being
>cumbersome.
>what i have done to remedy this ,was to buy a nice travel peg set(cost
>$19)
>now i play a great program, using a nice little set where the pieces
>cant fall
>out.of course at home i play on a large tournment size board.
>
>as far as the endgames databases and stronger pc programs of course i
>cant argue this,however for me at least programs playing at greater than
>2400 uscf(saphire and atlanta)on a train ride to work is fine for me.
>the issue of laptops is a difficult one.on a plane ride you will run out
>of battery power very quickly.unless you bring with you several extra
>battery paks
>you wind up having your game ruined.in addition when i commute to work
>having a laptop on my lap is kinda uncomfortable on a crowded commuter
>train.not so with a calculator style chess computer and small peg set.

this is changing.  I have a Gateway 9100 with a 233mmx P5 processor,
the so-called "Tillamook" chip at 1.8 volts.  With 32mb of SDRAM, and
a 5 gig disk, one battery lasts for over 4 hours without dropping the
CPU to some slow cycle time.  Remove the combo floppy/cdrom module,
insert
the second battery, and my machine lasted all the way from New York to
London, non-stop, somewhere around 7.5 hours.  And it wasn't beeping
when
I arrived.  I've never timed it with two batteries, but it goes way
beyond
8 hours.

Pretty remarkable for a machine with all that speed, plus a TFT 13.3"
LCD
display (no passive-matrix stuff)...

And I run Linux only.  Oh yes, I also keep a modem and ethernet PC card
plugged in.  Removing them would save some additional power.  In short,
you could play a game at 40/2, and it would last for at least 80 moves
and
two time controls.  :)  Or about 2 hours longer than most GM games go
before
adjourning for the evening.  :)



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