Author: Ed Schröder
Date: 01:15:42 10/25/98
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>I sort of agree with you, except on the point of 'go out an buy it'. (now). >I bought Rebel7 & 9, and had the same situation that my hard disk would 'grind' >a lot during the programs operation, and sometimes the program would just exit >from windows without reason, at least for no reason that I understand. Also, >the program's clock stops for several seconds when I exit book, and neither >side is moving & the mouse disappears. I find this quite irritating! 4 different >computers now, and the Rebel programs (except, free Decade), demonstrate the >same behaviors... This is because you have started Rebel10 with a too big hash table. Just lower the hash table size. More info in the README file or on the Rebel FAQ page at: http://www.rebel.nl/faq.htm >I don't have these problems with any of my Windows chess playing programs, nor >with the TASC Base 'King' program, and (paradoxically),I don't have this >problem with Rebel Decade 2, also by Shroeder, which is a joy to play at its 2350 >strength. (on a 200MzH, MMX machine). That's because Rebel Decade has a limited hash table size of just 512 Kb. It avoids the Windows swapping, see above. >Of course, I just play speed chess with these things, & occasionally analyze >some tactics positions, or a GM game with them. I almost never play any kind of >serious chess with them, and in fact I'm kind of the 'insane type', that >Fernando talks about in his review of Comet A96. - I want to have always, the >latest and coolest new program out there, which is certainly true of Rebel10, >and Junior5, and many of the other's that will be coming out during the next >months. >So we have here a paradox of sorts. The Shroeder company gives away a >tremendous good program that is stable, and never crashes, and its free! >And it also continues to improve a tremendously complicated, superior, >entertaining, and yet flawed program on the other. I wonder if they are as >frustrated by this, as I am? Happily, they are working furiously on the first >windows version of the Rebel program, so when that comes out I will buy it >immediately. (Even though we'll have to worry about the usual bugs). Good you mention this. I guess we all are used to that? Except for chess programs I never buy first versions of complex software myself. And when I still do I realize that most likely I have to download one or two patches. It's (mostly) not the fault of software producers. In every released software are bugs that's unavoidable but the main trouble these days is the 10,000 of different hardware combinations that is supposed to work without any problems with complex operating systems like Win95/98/NT etc. That's impossible. Bug-free software was possible with an easy OS like DOS. This is the price we all have to pay for progress. Windows 3.1 was a sensation but heavily bugged. Windows95 was another breakthrough but the very first versions were a real disaster. The last versions of W95 seems to run rock solid. Sometimes in exceptional cases I advice people to upgrade to a newer version of Windows (or to re-install) Windows and many problems people face simply disappear also with their other software. I am not sure about W98. My first impression is very positive. Any Rebel version runs rock solid on the first official version of W98 and the world wide almost freely distributed BETA-3 W98 version. To my own surprise you can even switch tasks (ALT_TAB) all DOS programs without any problems. Microsoft has done a great job and Windows is much more stabile now. Now to Rebel10, if there are bugs which are simply errors of Rebel we will fix them and make a patch. It only takes some time to investigate. I have read about complaints producers are miss-using customers. It is said they release a buggy product as a kind of beta-test and then make some patches available. I think this is not true at least not in the chess software area. It's more the fact that chess software (concerning features) has made a tremendous progress during the last years. Complex programs, more risk on bugs. This in combination with thousands of different hardware combinations, printer drivers, mouse drivers, video drivers, sound drivers, cdroms drivers and an operating system that is supposed to work bug free with all these possible combinations. Mission impossible. I personally hate to buy a program and then are forced to download a patch. But it is a tendency that unfortunately is hardly to avoid these days. Sofar the bad news. The good news about patches is that producers (if they are smart) add a few new features to patches. It's not so difficult to guess the why :-) - Ed - >mrslug - the inkompetent chess software addict!
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