Author: Djordje Vidanovic
Date: 16:58:05 07/03/04
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On July 03, 2004 at 18:01:07, Fernando Villegas wrote: >Consider all that follows as a very short, unuseful and >born-from-saturday-boring-musings despicable essay. It's purpose is to discover >and explain the obsolete, almost preposterous pleasure of some people here that >persist purchasing, playing and cheriching old -very old, sometimes- chess >dedicated units. >Why? >Some reasons has been given already, even by the sinners themselves, but those >reasons are flawed and evade the real point. Let us see what has been said: >a) Chess computers, specially older, let's the owner get draws and wins. >b) Chess computers offer the pleasure of a sensible, material thing, its beauty >of design, the feeling of a "real thing". > >But both, no matter how many times has been repeated, are false or at least does >not touch the core of the matter. >Why? > >a) Because chess software also let's the owner to get points if he want to, just >weakening the engine trought many available ways. In this area some software >even gives the added chance to learn something with specially customized weak or >less-than-the--strongest levels. In this area a dedicated unit has not advantage >at all. >B) because that sensorial feeling of playing a pretty "real" board you can get >the same with any software simply using a wood board with, if you want, the most >lovely pieces your money can get. In this field only the most expensive >dedicated units can give you a similar pleasure. Normally they are just plastic >imitations of wood and/or wooden pieces of the most fragile, light and cheap >stuff available. > >Then, which is the real reason behind the charm of a dedicated? > >I suppose it is this one: only a dedicated unit is an entity, an unextrincable >unit of body and soul. A person. "THIS" fellow that plays this way and has these >features, NOT a disengaged spirit lurking in the RAM of a PC in paralell with >perhaps some other dozen processes. Not a ghost without body except the equally >phantom-kind existence of a screen an its pixels or a far away board acting as a >kind of contrivance for a crippled guy, a separate article, an artificial >member. > >When playing my Par Excellence Fielity unit I do not say "I will play chess >againts a program", but I say "I will play Par Excellence" and saying that I am >saying an altogether different thing. >As we christen our cars, we, old farts, has chiristened our units. They are real >persons waiting for us, perhaps desirous to take revenge or repeat a win. There >is a relatiship between them and us. They ARE real in a way a program cannot do. > >(All this written as playing Karpov at 40 moves in one hour) > >fernando Dear Fernando, with all due respect to the charming piece you carved out of your soul, I have to say that sometimes you get really carried away. Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading your "musings" :-). Djordje
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