Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 08:21:59 11/17/01
Go up one level in this thread
On November 17, 2001 at 08:11:40, Albert Silver wrote:
>On November 16, 2001 at 19:19:14, Christophe Theron wrote:
>
>>On November 16, 2001 at 17:57:56, Roy Eassa wrote:
>>
>>>On November 16, 2001 at 13:56:14, Roy Eassa wrote:
>>>
>>>>Agreed: having the strongest chess program for the PC will lend MS significant
>>>>prestige.
>>>>
>>>>Anybody think they have a chance at accomplishing this without buying out Tiger
>>>>or another of the current top engines?
>>>
>>>
>>>For the record, I think the answer is No.
>>
>>
>>
>>I think the answer is yes if they are ready to spend several years on it.
>>
>>I do not underestimate the skills of the people working at Microsoft. But I
>>think it will take them time if they want to start from scratch.
>>
>>If they are keen on this they will simply try to buy a strong existing chess
>>engine, start selling it, then improve on it.
>>
>>
>>
>> Christophe
>
>I think it would definitely take years if they did it from scratch, and the
>investment would have to be huge. Think of it. Engine development nowadays
>remind me very much of the 100 meter dash. We're still seeing improvements
>appear, though not in the huge leaps and bounds department, but rather shaving
>off a few hundredths of a second here and there. If you already run the 100
>meters under 10 seconds, then those micro gains seem like leaps and bounds, but
>otherwise, it is merely a few hundredths of a second. It's much harder to
>measure if you try to analyze the greyer area of machine vs. man. The above
>description was already limited to comp-comp testing for the most part. They
>would (let's not forget this MS-Chess talk is speculation - but fine, let's
>speculate) have yet to reach the the lower bounds of top strength, and then the
>question of shaving off enough hundredths of a second (refining the Search Tree
>and not forgetting the Eval) is much less easy to reach, even with enormous
>funds. The Deep Blue guys were spared this in a way, not to besmirch their work,
>because they could and did go beyond the hardware limitations that you PC engine
>programmers are confined to. What are your thoughts of teamwork on an engine? I
>know you and Ed have exchanged ideas and seen each other's work, but it still
>continues to be a one-man job for the most part.
>
> Albert
Yes we both still have our engine. We do not interfere in each other's engine.
We exchange ideas and try them in our own engine.
I can't imagine myself modifying Rebel, and surely Ed would be lost in Tiger's
code.
Christophe
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