Author: Ed Schröder
Date: 10:43:51 03/29/01
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On March 29, 2001 at 11:21:30, Fernando Villegas wrote: >Hi: >In 1989, in Paris, the very first day of my very first visit to that lovely >city, I went to "Le damier de l'Opera", a shop like ICD specialized in chess >stuff, and there I met with a surprise: the guy that was in charge was chilean >like me. He was living in Paris since ever. Eventually this guy was going to >produce his own magazine, La puce Echiquien, dedicated top chess computers. As >many others, it is by now completely dead. The magazine, I mean. Well, this guy >said to me the Mephisto MM IV unit was the best buy at the moment even if it was >somewhat old for the time. But it was not too much; besides the price was good >so I got it and since then I played againts "him" lot of games until the day >came when advanced software and fast PC's made of MMIV not only a somewhat old >piece of chess computer, but an awfully obsolete one. >Nevertheless, from time to time I put it again to life exhumating it from the >drawer where usually sleeps and I play a game to see if my years of hard >trainning againts top programs have had some value after all. Well, yes. It is >in these ocasions when you perceive that your chess has improved even if you are >mauled 9 times of ten by the current crop of Tigers, centuries or Fritzses. MM >IV is tactically strong and can give you more than a surprise if you are >carefree and lazy, but it is enough strategically weak to give to a decent club >player more than a chance to trash him IF you avoid his tactical blows. >So this post has the this purpose: to advice you to do as me, playing at least >one game in five to any of these old and venerable monster in order to boots >your ego with some victories and to see how much better player you has became. I >clearly recall that my first games agains MMIV were almost all defeats even if I >worked hard at every move, but yesterday I trashed the poor criature almost >without thinking. Clearly, with time, a chess fan get more and more tactical >acumen and so the only weapon of those old programs is absolutely dented. >And now, Ed, tell me if I am right you was the programmer. And tell me about it. >How much Kb the program has? Which is his relation with programs that came >after? Any story about this loved monster of mine, now again sleeping in the >drawer, would be cherished and welcome. >Fernando Hi Fernando, The MMIV was mine indeed. I believe it was released in 1986 and was massively sold during 3 years when it was replaced by the MMV. In those days it seems that everybody would like to have a chess computer to impress their neighbors all against the firm price of EUR 400 but in those days nobody seemed to care about that. It still relative was new that a computer could play chess and pretty strong too. To make the program was quite a challenge if you realize its system requirements, just 16 Kb ROM and 8 Kb RAM. To compare, these days Rebel is over 800 Kb ROM and 4000 Kb RAM minimum. From these 16 Kb ROM (16,000 bytes) more than 4 Kb went to the openingbook and about 6 Kb was in use for the Interface. Thus the left space for the chess engine was 6 Kb. Almost mission impossible to write a good positional chess program but somehow I managed. The MMIV was weak in tactics but was praised for its playing style. My direct concurrent in these days was Frans Morsch (Fritz). Although we worked for the same company there was a high competition between us. Frans had even less resources, if memory serves me well he had only 8 or 16 Kb ROM but much less RAM, 1 Kb or so. Still Frans managed to be in close competition with me regarding playing strength even with that great handicap. In these days I have been asked several times to write a chess program with such low resources as Frans but I never saw a possibility to do the job. I must admit that my interest was not in that direction, lower resources meant lower playing strength and I preferred to spend my time improving Rebel than making more money. Much to the dislike of the company I invested all my time in a new processor the ARM RISC processor which was much faster than the 6502 chip. In a way I was digging my own commercial grave (I could afford it) but the inner urge to more strength was too strong and also it was crystal clear to me that the 6502 chip was a dead-end street. The ARM RISC processor was a totally new concept, 16 x 32 bit registers, no RAM limitations, a programmers paradise. In the end everything went well, my investment has honored by TASC. Without knowing from each other TASC had invested in the same processor. We met each other for the first time at the AEGON tournament where Johan the Koning (ChessMaster) also had a program running on the very same RISC processor. From one thing came another, the hard- and software combination later became known as the ChessMachine. I still have about 10-15 ChessMachine cards lying somewhere under the dust. This was the year 1989 for me, the year you bought a MMIV in Paris and I earned about DM 20 because of that. Thanks :) Ed
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