Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 11:19:48 06/20/02
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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"? Hsu/Campbell, et. al. have a chip that could make a pretty good one. But then again, it would be just as good or better to make it into a board to cram into a PC. Even at that, there does not seem to be enough impetus to drive development forward. The current dedicated chess machines are no challenge for even the best amateur programs, let alone the professional ones. Actually, a dedicated chess machine seems pretty pointless to me. The same CPU power can be used for other valuable tasks. So if you are going to design a chess dynamo, it will take a lot of compute power. Why not make that power available for other tasks? A PC already has the display hardware, etc. all worked out and paid for. A chess machine is simply a bad idea. For me any way. Other people might like them. Well, to a degree anyway. If the Deep Blue chip ever works its way into something I will be standing in line to buy one.
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