Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Ruffian played exdactlly like Fritz 6 old (PGN) !!!

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 20:25:41 09/23/02

Go up one level in this thread


On September 23, 2002 at 20:47:38, Peter McKenzie wrote:

>On September 23, 2002 at 17:59:35, Dann Corbit wrote:
>
>>There is zero chance that Ruffian is a copy of Fritz 6.  None at all.
>>
>>Fritz 6 does not play under Winboard.  Ruffian does.  Nobody has the Fritz 6
>>code except the original author.
>>
>>Not even any sort of slight, remote chance is involved.  You are barking up the
>>wrong tree.
>
>Dan, you are getting carried away here.  Just because you say something 4 times
>doesn't make it true.

Worked for a German political party in the 30's and 40's.  OK, OK, -- you've got
me there.

>It is of course possible to disassemble Fritz or any other chess program,
>thereby gaining access to everything you need to steal the engine.

That could happen.  I don't see a connection to the claim that this is a
modified version of a commercial engine.  If you reverse engineer something in
that way, I also expect it to be a lot harder than writing it from scratch.

>Impossible? Absolutely not, no way, nada, not on your life.
>Unlikely?  Yes.

I have the binary.  It's not a copy of Fritz 6.  In fact, I will say that it is
impossible.  Is it a reverse engineered Fritz?  Well, an asteroid could strike
this area before I hit the post button.  I think it is about the same liklihood.

>But I've spoken to at least one chess programer who has had a peek inside a
>commercial engine using a disassembler.  I believe that you can easily find out
>quite a bit if you have the right skills.

I could do that too.  To reverse engineer a chess program would take many years,
though.

>Of course I'm not at all suggesting that Ruffian is the result of disassembling
>Fritz, I wouldn't have the slightest idea about that although it seems unlikely.
> I'm just saying that in theory (and it would be quite alot of work) it is
>possible.

Lots of things are possible.  This could be a copy of Fritz.  But it isn't.  It
could be a supercharged TSCP.  But it's not.

If it were a copy of anything, I would say that Pepito as a base is the only
chance of it.  It has about the same branching factor and both Winboard and UCI
support -- in both ways like Pepito.  That's on the one hand.  On the other
hand, I don't think it is a clone of Pepito.  I think it is an original program.
 But it isn't a commercial program, which has been ran through a string editor.
It just isn't.  The probability is zero.  The chance that it is a reverse
engineered Fritz?  I'll grant you one in a trillion here.



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.