Author: José Antônio Fabiano Mendes
Date: 07:23:47 01/17/03
Please see ==> http://www.chesscafe.com/REVIEWS/books.HTM
Behind Deep Blue: Building the Computer that Defeated the
World Chess Champion, by Feng-hsiung Hsu, 2002 Princeton
University Press, English Algebraic Notation, Hardcover, 298pp., $27.95.
Hsu’s specialty is chip design, the creation of “electronic blueprints”
for the microscopic circuitry that is, in effect, a computer’s central
nervous system. This is a specialized high-tech skill about which even very
computer-literate laymen (including this one) know next to nothing and can find
incomprehensible. On the other hand, Hsu himself is not really an avid chess
player (he does not even have a USCF rating). One might therefore expect his
book to fall between two stools, being on one hand too like a technical manual,
full of dry prose, confusing acronyms and hacker jargon, and on the other
hand lacking enough chess sophistication to keep serious players interested.
Not so. Instead, the technician has turned out to be quite a competent writer,
able to convey both cybernetic esoterica and the human side of his story in an
articulate, accessible and highly interesting fashion. No great computer
knowledge (or chess knowledge for that matter) is necessary on the reader’s
part. And while the book is not heavy on games, serious chess players will
find much of interest, especially if they have the least curiosity about
how computers have become so good at the game, and about what really happened
in the two GK-DB matches.
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