Author: Adam Oellermann
Date: 07:51:46 06/20/02
Go up one level in this thread
It's the money. PCs are cheap because they are mass-produced for huge markets; the market for chess computers is *tiny* by comparison. Therefore the quantities are much smaller, and the costs are much higher, and the stock moves much slower, so the margins go much higher... It surely would not be a big deal technology-wise to embed a PC into a dedicated chessplaying machine. Heck, buy a DGT board and you're nearly there; a custom case housing notebook type components with DGT-board type stuff integrated shouldn't be particularly tricky. Gluing in <<insert name of your favourite engine>> would not be hard; the right thing would be to support "engine modules" (probably just CDs) which allow you to upgrade the software. But it'd cost a damn sight more than a PC, and in two years PC hardware advances will mean it's obsolete. Of course, it'd still be strong enough for the only purpose you'd use a dedicated table-top chess machine for: playing chess. My GK2100 is plenty strong to kick my butt, and it's probably 4-5 years old (I bought it on a surplus stock sale for R500 - about $40 - which was truly a bargain). Long and the short of it: the dedicated chess machines are history. Between PCs and PDAs, they're pretty much dead. Nice boards like DGT etc have potential, but they're just too expensive. Adam On June 20, 2002 at 10:16:33, Robert Henry Durrett wrote: > > >I'm sure my experience is typical: > >Many years ago, I bought a "chess computer" which looked like a chess set. You >actually moved pieces on it. Then I bought another, which was better. Several >more went by. Then PC's became king. You hardly ever hear about those >dedicated chess-playing machines anymore. Mine is in a closet gathering dust. > >But is that the way it will always be? > >After reading the UNISYS ES7000 webpages, I got to thinking. Why not make a >computer dedicated to chess using that computer as a starting point? You could >rip out all the server stuff and just leave whatever is absolutely essential for >playing chess. May as well have 32, 64, or more processors. Why not? It's >just money. > >Or, if having a rack-mounted chess-playing machine is a problem for someone, why >not do the same thing for a PC? I guess the market is just not there for that >either. But how about building your own?! [Might take a little effort.] > >Are dedicated chess-playing machines "history"? > >Bob D.
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.