Author: Marc van Hal
Date: 07:05:00 12/05/02
Go up one level in this thread
On December 04, 2002 at 11:19:48, Vincent Diepeveen wrote: >On December 04, 2002 at 10:48:16, Timothy J. Frohlick wrote: > >>Vincent, >> >>My condolences to Jan and his family. How old was he? >> >>TJF > >We can calculate it a little. He was around 18 i guess when >he survived the nazi concentration camps. Add to that 58 years >and you'll get to around 76. > >Jan started computerchess in the 70s already. > >Knowing i am born in 73, i am very happy that Jan never hesitated >to tell all the things how computerchess in europe started. > >A big year was 1981 for Jan Louwman. He organized a big computerchess >event here in Utrecht. > >Thousands of spectators watched. > >Not soon after that world championships computerchess started. Jan attended >all of them, with exception of Jakarta which he boycotted because of the >political problems there. > >Even despite his bad health he even was short at the 2002 world championships >in maastricht. > >His company compuchess never made much profit. He was such a big computerchess >fan that after talking enthusiastically with his customers, he gave them >all discounts. > >Jan invested a lot in computers himself too. Always the latest hardware. > >In the 80s he was a major help for commercial programmers. Especially playing >games for them. In those years the dedicated chesscomputers, which dominated >of course computerchess with regards to sales, had no auto232 player nor >other protocols to automatically test. > >So Jan already from back in the 70s was testing programs by hand. In his >glory days he operated at 40 in 2 levels computers by hand about 5 >games at the same time (10 dedicated boardcomputers at the same time). > >For insiders it is amazing that Jan managed to keep alive that long. His >very strong will to not die must have kept him alive for years. Swallowing >11 to 13 medicines a day (weak heart, cancer problems, and another load >of problems) is not very good for a body of a person. So where he was >still very alive a week ago (but deteriorating a lot in this sense >that he could not leave his bed anymore) in his mind, when i >visited him, we must take into acount that the last 25 years or so, >Jan has lived with immense pains. > >It doesn't take away that a great man with incredible energy has deceased. > >I expect to see more chessprogrammers at his funeral than we see on >average at a world championship. > >Vaste majority of commercial chess programs in europe have profitted from >Jan's testing. In my case, besides testing thousands of games (40 in 2) >mostly at many of his 20-30 computers, Jan has helped me incredible >also with contracts and other things. > >A great man has gone. I will never forget him. > >A small list of programmers Jan has somehow helped, operated for, tested for >or helped in some other way (mentionning programs make no sense because >without exception all programmers have produced more than 1 program >which get/got sold under different names): > > - Chrilly Donninger > - Ed Schroder > - Frans Morsch > - Richard Lang > - Christophe Theron > - Bart Weststrate > - Peter McKenzie > - Gian Carlo Pascutto > - James Robertson > - Vincent Diepeveen > >And endlessly others which i must have forgotten. > >This is just the list i remember that quickly from head. > >Especially the commercial programmers among them have worked >a lot together with Jan. > >A crown onto Jan's effort was most likely the world title >that Rebel won in Madrid around 1991/1992. > >>On December 04, 2002 at 10:40:43, Vincent Diepeveen wrote: >> >>>Hello, >>> >>>Apologies to post it in this forum, but many here knew >>>Jan Louwman. As one of the founders of commercial >>>computerchess, with hundreds of friends all around the >>>globe, it is clear to me that i should inform people >>>here. >>> >>>Jan Louwman died this morning 4 december 2002 around 11.30 in >>>his bed. For more information, don't hesitate to email me. >>> >>>Best regards, >>>Vincent Diepeveen Acording to me you fogot an other name still wondering Why this person did not respond himself. Marc
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