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Subject: Re: Hydra Mystery Remains Unsolved

Author: Bob Durrett

Date: 12:23:57 02/17/04

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On February 17, 2004 at 13:01:24, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On February 17, 2004 at 12:25:18, Anson T J wrote:
>
>>On February 17, 2004 at 10:30:32, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On February 17, 2004 at 08:41:16, Bob Durrett wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>The fact is that Hydra whipped a bunch of conventional chess computers at
>>>>Paderborn.  That fact is indisputable.
>>>>
>>>>How???
>>>>
>>>>How could Hydra, chugging away at the clock rate of a slow snail, win against
>>>>the high-nps conventional machines?
>>>
>>>
>>>I don't understand the question.  Hydra probably hit speeds of 15-20M nodes per
>>>second.  How is that "a slow snail"???
>>>
>>>It was the fastest thing playing there by a factor of at least 4x...
>>
>>I think he is talking about the clock speed of the boards. I don't know the
>>clock speed of the boards but I would imagine they are slower than GHz.
>
>Yes, but who cares?  It is the NPS that determines how fast a chess program
>searches, and their NPS was above anything else by a big margin.

Bob, please indulge a "slow learner."  I still don't get it.  Are you saying
that the best way to get ***really*** high nps rates is with hardware [maybe
such as used by Hydra?] as opposed to using a PC?

Incidentally, I am really feeling ignorant right now.  How did Hydra get such
high nps?

I hope you don't mind helping a beginner along on this confusing stuff. [Mark
thinks I'm pretty dumb.]

Bob D.

>
>Would it matter if someone showed up with an Indy car that ran 300mph but with
>an engine that only turned 4,800 RPM?  Would that be considered "slow" since the
>rest are hitting 10K+ on their tachs???
>
>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>They say "nps isn't everything."  But could the truth be "nps isn't anything"?
>>>>
>>>>Maybe conventional wisdom ["The Earth is flat"] isn't right after all.
>>>>
>>>>Does anybody understand what happened?  I feel that the results were monumental!
>>>>
>>>>Bob D.



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