Author: Vincent Diepeveen
Date: 20:30:38 08/03/01
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On August 03, 2001 at 21:10:12, Dann Corbit wrote: >On August 03, 2001 at 17:28:24, Vincent Diepeveen wrote: > >>On August 03, 2001 at 16:48:47, Roy Eassa wrote: >> >>>Does the existence of such strong free programs eat into profits? Might it >>>signal the beginning of the end for commercial programs? (I hasten to say, I >>>keep buying 'em, especially now that they no longer cost USD$100+ apiece.) >> >>How many versions did they sell then, and who for **** sake can get >>a winboard version to work except a few freaks who are like 0.001% of >>the people big companies like chessmaster and CB sell to? > >My guess is that Winboard engines ENHANCE program sales. This is something only someone a freak would write who has nothing to do with marketing something. Making a program listen to a protocol which no one in the world can get to work except a few freaks is obviously not INCREASING sales. It's so obvious that i'm amazed people ask questions about it. I once made for a company a backup system that needed next combination each day to backup: 'enter' 'escape' 'enter'. Well, it was a disaster, no one except me could backup the database! The combination was too tough! Now you're talking about oldies (freaks hardly buy software) who need to get winboard to work with a program? Note that winboard is green by default, despite that i'm playing chess a year or 22 now (started at 5), i never will get used playing with something green! If someone would ask me at my chessclub after winboard i'd say: "how can you take this serious, a1 is green!!! hahahahaha" He would laugh with me and never again take that program serious. >We become enthralled by the strongest Winboard engines, and want more delightful modify that in 'a few freaks that live at an inaccessible corner of the internet called CCC'. >and intricate moves to be made at our beck and call. > >I played with Winboard engines long before I bought any commercial software. I was so sick about being a winboard engine that i created my own interface. >The big difference between Winboard engines+Winboard and commercial systems is >features of the commercial systems, ease of use and ease of installation (as >Vincent pointed out). >With SCID you can get a pretty nice free database also. But the professional >offerings like Chess Assistant are certainly more fully featured and easy to >use. SCID is a joke. i'm a programmer and not worlds most stupid user, but i never got it to work under windows. >I suspect that SCID will also sell a lot of chess database systems, rather than >compete with them. I have both SCID and commercial chess database, and I like >them both. >Winboard engines can be used to ENHANCE commercial systems, since they are able >to operate the Winboard engines. If you make your engine winboard you sure will not get commercial, of course commercials can load winboard engines. >I very much like the brave reverse direction that ChessMaster has made, in >allowing ChessMaster to run as a Winboard engine! Which means obviously that i'm not happy to create diep back into winboard. i've got my own interface now and i've been a winboard engine. Being a DOS interface sucked bigtime. Being winboard in the end sucked bigtime for the progress of my program. I could get no testers, no book makers, no one at all do something for me. I could never quickly improve my program as i would had to place allt he pieces at the board first before i could see what disaster move it made in a position x, now i just scroll a few moves and there i see it. I couldn't see my search lines and other loads of debug stuff, now i all see it graphically which is cool. My books in winboard time were in textmode made. Very slow to add bookmoves. In 3 years time i only managed to create a handmade book of 6000 bookmoves, and i never knew which move i had turned on or off. Like what happened in WMCCC2000 against tiger was because of this. Diep played kings indian, ONLY because i hadn't seen that somewhere in my huge textfile a '!' was behind the move Nf6 at move 1. After that i was lost! Being winboard sucked bigtime. Winboard for me represents for me the middleages of DIEP. Only students and nerds seriously create from their engine only a winboard engine and don't care for the rest! With your engine being only winboard you can say good bye to progress! >If I just wanted to play chess on FICS, I would rather use Winboard to do it. >If I wanted to use a chess engine, then certainly ChessMaster 8K would be a top >choice for that arena as well. >Similarly, I don't think that tools like GCC will ever hurt the compiler sales >for the commercial vendors. I have GCC, but also buy every compiler in sight if >I think it can help me to do my job better. Right as long as things are that amateuristic slow, then they won't be a threat for commercial compiler builders. Idem for winboard. >Free stuff like that really has no downside, that I can see. Free stuff doesn't enhance sales it gives you not a penny if you sell your program as freeware.
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