Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 20:59:05 08/23/01
Go up one level in this thread
On August 23, 2001 at 10:41:40, Eduard Nemeth wrote: >On August 23, 2001 at 10:33:58, Amir Ban wrote: > >>On August 23, 2001 at 07:34:58, Eduard Nemeth wrote: >> >>>On August 23, 2001 at 07:20:04, Graham Laight wrote: >>> >>>I agree. But, PC from Junior was cruched, so he play on an another PC! >> >>Junior did not switch computers. The problem was overheating, and it was solved >>by putting a ventillator next to the machine (thanks Jaap for suggesting the >>solution). >> >>On the 21st move, after more than 20 minutes of thinking without getting a move, >>a check showed the CPU's idle. We took an official timeout, rebooted and >>restarted. After a few minutes this happened again. We then took a second >>timeout, put the ventillator, and everything was fine after that. Junior lost >>about half an hour on the clock overall. Did the ICCA change the way the time-out rule works? IE in the events I have been at, it was necessary for the computer to _crash_ before it could be re-started. I lost at least one game in the exact circumstance you described, which sounds more like a program bug than a system problem. And when Cray Blitz "hung" the question asked was "did the cray go down, or did the program just deadlock?" When we showed that the cray was still up (ie like your checking the status to see that both cpus were idle) we were told to "sit and wait" since the machine was alive and well. We did and lost on time. The thinking back then was that program bugs were just that, program bugs. And if a program deadlocked itself, that was a problem, just as if the program went into some sort of tight loop due to a subscript overflow or whatever. The problem with allowing re-starts is that it is _impossible_ to restart the engine in the same identical state it was in when it hung... IE the program could become convinced it had a lot of extra time due to a bug in the time-control algorithm. It could go into a deep think, and run out the real clock and lose, or it could be re-started which would cause the clock to be restored to the right value as well. We always played as though the operator was a "passive I/O device" that was not allowed to make _any_ decisions at all such as declaring "something is broken, I have to reboot." I don't claim any of this is wrong. Just different than the rules used to be applied at the ACM and WCCC events... >> >>Judging by the result, the ventillator was really something. >> >>Amir > >Thanks for this information, Amir! > >My congratulation to the Title! > >Deep Junior is strongest program in this tournament. > >Eduard
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