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Subject: Re: How much would a program like Ruffian cost in the 80's?

Author: Keith Evans

Date: 11:24:34 07/04/03

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On July 04, 2003 at 08:44:42, ludicrous wrote:

>If a super strong program like Ruffian was taken back in the early 80's in the
>form of a 3.0 Ghz PC, with a chessbase interface, about how much would a chess
>fanatic back then be willing to pay (including the PC) for it?
>
>Just a thought.

Wasn't the Fredkin award established in 1980? If this computer and program could
only play chess and not be used for something like bomb design, then you could
expect it to be worth at least what the outstanding prizes were worth which is
at least $100,000. Comparisons to Deep Blue aside, I would expect such a thing
to perform really well against humans in 1980 because it would take the GMs by
surprise.

I think that this establishes a minimum price anyways.

If you could present such a machine to a top GM then you might fetch more if
they were convinced that they could gain a competitive advantage with the
machine and win prize money.

Note: $100,000 in 1980 is worth about $220,000 today.



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