Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 21:22:03 03/28/01
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On March 28, 2001 at 15:12:02, Peter Berger wrote: >On March 28, 2001 at 14:12:49, Robert Hyatt wrote: >> >> >>I have said this before, but I have not said it recently, so here goes: >> >>"auto232 is a piece of trash". >> >>Nothing else to be said. When a protocol has built-in timing dependencies >>that get fried when they are not met, such a protocol is trash. At one point >>Crafty worked perfectly. Then someone got a faster CPU. I had to add a delay >>to not move _too_ quickly else auto232 would miss the move and the game would >>hang. If I probe endgame databases too hard, the interrupts somehow cause >>auto232 to hang. >> >>To have to have a function "Delay()" in your code, and to have to have a >>command "delay N" where N is in milliseconds, is terrible. But when you then >>have to tell users "you have to find N for yourself. Try the default and if >>it hangs, try other values until it doesn't" makes my software engineering >>skin crawl. Think about how many different values there are for up to a one >>second delay. :( >> >>And a user has to experiment to find the right one? And then he upgrades >>something (faster processor, faster disks, more memory, new operating system, >>faster/slower version of the chess engine) and then he has to go Easter-egg >>hunting again trying to find the right delay value? >> >>trash, trash, trash. Can't say it enough. :) > >There was an extremely nice answer to this and similar posts published in the >German CSS magazine in an article by Chrilly Donninger some time ago. > >It would simply be great if it could be put to the Web ; it explained how the >autoplayer started and developped and really opened my eyes . > >After reading it I understood the problems of the autoplayer and the reasons for >them much better . > >I don't know who holds the rights for it but it was > >a.) very convincing >b.) understandable to any non-programmer guy , too . > >pete Don't believe everything you read. I wrote serial I/O multiplexing code using an 8080 microprocessor. I had _no_ timing dependencies. If you see old pictures of Cray Blitz and my electronic chess board, you will see a chess board with a built-in modem, all driven by a Z80 microprocessor. That thing talked to the cray, to the chess board, and to a dumb terminal so we could see what the Cray was thinking. Maintaining three separate streams of data context. Nary a timing issue. There were ways to write auto232 without the timing nonsense. It simply wasn't done. And as a result, it belongs in a "hefty bag" if you know what I mean. :)
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