Author: GuyHaworth
Date: 05:38:46 07/03/02
Go up one level in this thread
I think that the challenge of computer games and competition has been an important stimulus to IT-innovation over the years. Put simply, people like to innovate, learn and have fun at the same time. Ken Thompson is a prime exemplar of that and I'm sure there have been many others. Would BELLE have come to the surface without the carrot of competition - and would we have had CHIPTEST, DARK THOUGHT and DEEP BLUE Mks I and II? Their existence has surely added value to our experience. The 'chess engine' is not just software but the symbiosis of hardware, software, input (opening and endgame books), and runtime operator (not spilling coffee on their IT !). Certainly, if you want to assess only the software components of the chess engines, you would have to normalise the other parameters - opening books (?), hardware, use of hardware (?) ... and maybe remove the endgame tables. [ The recent Fritz/Shredder - AMD/Intel duel just featured Fritz playing itself in a KNKBB ending won in 57. From the moves, it looks like neither side had the KBBKN EGT and the attacker made only 8m progress in 50m. Lack of the EGT subtracted from the event, in my opinion, but others may find it interesting to see how intrinsically difficult KBBKN appears to be. ] Also, is the distinction between software and hardware clear? The FPGAs are reprogrammable I believe, so presumably one can change the setup of an FPGA during the game. So is an FPGA hardware (yes, at one level) or merely a fancier receptacle for software than RAM? Personally, I welcome the fact that chess is once again being used as the testing-ground for new hardware innovations. These will benefit us all on a broad front in the mid-term. g
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