Author: J. C. Boco
Date: 10:48:50 09/19/01
REBEL CENTURY for DOS, the loss of one of our only two positional chess programs in the future? When I started down the path of PC computer chess, I used a Macintosh using the only real chess program available, HIARCS. This was (and is) a great program, and was pleased that it had a more Human-like playing style. Fast forward a few years and I now have a Gateway. A tough decision had to be made, HIARCS or REBEL? I wanted a Human-like style and these were the only choices. I chose REBEL because Ed was working on this program to be the strongest against Human players, even though he had to forgo the glory of having this program play computers for the SSDF ratings. As a sweetener, REBEL came with a database which I could use as an opening book. REBEL was no. 1, HIARCS a somewhat close second. I’m thinking of upgrading my REBEL CENTURY to the latest version, but some news has given me pause. I understand that if there is going to be a REBEL CENTURY four, it will most likely be in DOS. Century three is in DOS now, of course. That’s fine with me, the benefits outweigh DOS. But I’m concerned about the newest operating system for Windows coming out soon, which will soon become the canonical operating system for most computers. Will the newest operating system continue to run REBEL CENTURY under DOS? I have heard on this forum that the newest operating system will only Emulate DOS? Is this true? When I had Macintoshes, I had a PowerPC running a then-new HIARCS program which had to emulate the 680XX code, and the result was my 100MHz PowerPC chip (then quite fast) ran HIARCS slower than my 20MHz 680XX chip. Thankfully, later there was a PowerPC version of HIARCS. It was ported to the new chip, and I bought it. I’m scared that if there is DOS emulation the slowdown of REBEL CENTURY will be too much. If so, this program will surely die. I don’t understand why 100% effort isn’t dedicated to porting Century to windows. As I understand it, this positional REBEL program was what made the Rebel company what it is today, successful. Is this program not selling as well as the newer Tiger and Gandolf programs? If so, then I can understand why there are no resources to spend on Century (but I will assert that if this is the case, the only reason the newer programs are more lucrative is because Century is still in DOS, and that Century would make more money if it were modernized). Anyway, I hope someone can shed some much needed light into whether the newest operating system for windows will only “emulate” DOS, or actually run DOS well. Like I said, if it is an emulation, Century will be lost from the hard drives of the future. If this comes to pass, what to do? The only program left that has a Human-like playing ability is HIARCS. If there are others please let me know.
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