Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 16:41:30 05/26/98
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On May 26, 1998 at 18:58:35, Fernando Villegas wrote: > > > >Dear Don: >Clearly we are talking of different things, but that confusion has been >useful as much as on the ground of your post I have been made some about >this entire issue and get some conclusions I believe are worthy of your >attention. >In the first place, let me ensure you I have not the intention to stop >nothing, to hinder creativity in chess and programming skills, etc. Why >should I? I have not vested interest of any sort, including in the >concept a supposed stubborn adherence to some doctrine about what is >good, fair or desirable in this field. Of course not to have intentions >is not enough; I could be stopping progress -in he degree just a >customer can do that- just because of wrong ideas, so I will explain >these a little more. Please, be patient with me: >Maybe my expression platform suggested something that I did not intend >to mean: as far as I know, platform is a concept that involves entire >different class of operative systems and his respective hardware >peripheries. Well,tehn, no; I was talking of just the same platform with >somewhat different amounts of memory and speed, not more. I am sure than >in this level, by example, comparing a P133 with a P200, you cannot >talk anymore of different platforms, but of the same basic platform with >different performances. And if you accept this, you will accept that the >fact that a program is running in the fast one does not speak of a >previous creative effort from the programmer to make the program run >there. Even Colossus X vintage programs can run in P133 or 200 although >they were created for XT machines. So, if you make a tournament between >Colossus running in P200 and, by example, Mychess by Kittinger of a >similar era running in a XT, I am sure you would not say hey, let >Colossus make good of the creative capability of Martin Bryant to do it >capable of using the better hardware . Why? Because there is there >something arbitrary; the same could be Mychess running in the faster >machine. >In short, there is a difference between a program developed and fitted >to run in a determinate hardware AND the random fact that a program is >put in this or that machine in a competition. In other words, IF a >program is so made that only can run at full steam with, let us say, >Alpha 600 Mhz, wonderful; that s the hardware the program must use. We >are going, then, to congratulate the programmer and we ll see another >further step in the development of this field such as you want and I >want. But if a program that is prepared tu run normally in a p-200 is >run in the same Alpha just to get a kick from a faster processor, then >the situation is the same of a human athlete that goes to the race camp >with a dose of chemical in his blood to get a supreme effort beyond his >normal capabilities. >You see, mine is, I believe, a fair position: I don t blame programmer >that produces more sophisticated programs hungry of more complex system, >on the contrary, that is in favour o my interest and pleasure; at the >same time, I cannot accept as fair if a program is put in steroids above >and beyond what is normal in her performance. And what is normal? Is >normal that was clearly stablished in the box where the programs comes. >If you beyond that precisely to get the most in a competition we are >very clearly not looking a further step in nothing, but just an unfair >step from equal conditions -to measure software progress, not to stop >nothing- to commercial benefit. >I hope that my point now is clear. Maybe wrong, but clear. >Truly yours >Fernando let me add one thing on the SSDF's behalf... note that their "rating" pool is very old with no human games over the past few years. As a result, the *only* way to rate a program on a new and faster machine is to play it against programs that do have SSDF ratings on older/slower machines. So some of that is necessary... and even then they suffer from serious rating inflation as a result. The programs (so far) are not banging on 2600 FIDE rating levels... not even 2500... but without games against older programs there would be *no* way to calibrate the new arrivals and new hardware...
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