Author: Uri Blass
Date: 15:18:16 06/05/04
Go up one level in this thread
On June 05, 2004 at 17:46:05, Mark Young wrote: >On June 05, 2004 at 10:13:53, Uri Blass wrote: > >>On June 05, 2004 at 09:54:55, Marc wrote: >> >>>Maybe a bit off topic here ... >>> >>>Of course it is nice to watch a much too strong engine to wipe you of the board, >>>over and over again. But eventually this gets a bit boring. >>>So I wonder, has anybody programmed an engine which is not really strong, but >>>fun to play against? (about ELO 1700-1900) >>> >>>Crippling a strong engine is somewhat dissatisfying, for some reason. >> >>The problem is not in the engines but in the hardware that you have. >>It is too fast. >> >>It is only the hardware that make the impression that engines are better than >>1900. >> >>You should ask for hardware that is 10000 times slower than the hardware that >>you have. >> >>The real smart people are not the programmers but the people who build hardware >>that is faster every year and I have no idea how they do it. >> >>The fact that it seems to me that most of the progress in the last 30 years were >>done thanks to better hardware and not thanks to better software suggest that >>we(the programmers) are relatively stupid. >> >>Uri > > >"The fact that it seems to me that most of the progress in the last 30 years >were done thanks to better hardware and not thanks to better software suggest >that >we(the programmers) are relatively stupid." > > >Wow! Now you tell me. I could have saved much money on chess programs. > >You need to tell this to the newer versions of Fritz, Shredder, and Junior etc. >They have yet to here this decree made by you. And for some unknown reason. The >newer programs seem to do much better then the older generation of programs, on >the same hardware. Be it computer vs. computer, computer vs. human, or test >positions. > >All kidding aside. I wonder if other programmers here agree with this. As only a >tester and not a programmer I disagree strongly. Much progress has been made in >both areas. I think the data strongly backs it up... I agree that much progress has been made in both areas but I feel that the progress in hardware in the last 30 years is bigger. The question is how to compare it and the problem is that programs of 1974 do not run on hardware of today when programs of today do not run on old hardware. I see the main job of programming as better algorithms and not translating programs so they can work on a new hardware so we need to have some estimate for the speed difference between the hardware of today and the hardware of 1974 and play a match between best of 2004 and best of 1974 when best of 1974 get more time in order to compare. I think that it is not easy to have these matches and maybe the solution is to have seperate match for times of 10 years Based on my memory: Genius3 was the best of 1994 P90 was the hardware of 1994 when it beated kasparov. If we want to check the last 10 years then the question is if Shredder8 on p90 can beat Genius3 on the fastest single processor(I think that it should be hardware advantage of 30:1 for Genius3) Uri
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