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Subject: Re: Microsoft Chess program

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 05:44:51 01/07/99

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On January 07, 1999 at 00:57:25, blass uri wrote:

>
>On January 06, 1999 at 18:43:38, Bert Seifriz wrote:
>
>>
>>>>>>Microsoft could probably have the strongest engine in the world in 2 years and
>>>>>>if they wanted to,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>This is exactly the point. Why should Microsoft care to build a
>>>>chess engine? They do not have the slightest reason!
>>>>And if? They would either buy an existing company or
>>>>engage some of the chess programmers you already know.
>>>>After all why do you think the persons we know are in any
>>>>way inferior to a Microsoft engineer?
>>>>There are for example only a handful of persons in the world
>>>>who are able to program chess in assembly language! And these
>>>>are not MS engineers! Bert
>>>
>>>Sorry, but I'm absolutely sure that I *can* write reasonable
>>>good chess engine. Actually, I had done that 9 years ago (you
>>>can download Siberian Chess from GambitSoft chess site;
>>
>>Hi Eugene,
>>I know that because I put it there!
>>
>>>was not modified after 1991, I think; and then I knew much less,
>>>had no access to Western publications/experience, etc). Yes,
>>>it was written mainly in C, only absolutely time-critical parts
>>>of it were in assembly (first 8080, later I rewrote in 8086).
>>>But if necessary, I can write engine in "100% pure assembly".
>>>
>>>And I'm Microsoft engineer :-)
>>
>>I know that, too! What I wanted to say is that the chess programmers
>>around are in no way inferior to any other software engineers.
>>You certainly know
>>more about Microsoft than others who do not work there. But the original
>>question was somehow what MS could develop within a year. My
>>opinion is they could not overtake the current status of chess
>>programming within that time. Remember IBM's endless efforts with
>>Deep Blue. Although that was maybe more a hardware problem.
>>But when MS has more engineers with a past like you it might be
>>different!! Bert
>
>I remember that IBM did not use 1,000,000,000$  to decelop deep blue.
>
>You can do more with 1,000,000,000$.
>
>Uri


Nobody is going to do that.  To break even, you'd have to sell at least
one million copies at over 100 dollars per copy, just to recover your
development and distribution costs.  And no program sells one million
copies.  IE the last time I looked I found well over 500,000 different
IP address/users that had downloaded crafty (for free, of course) over a
3 year period.  That would barely get back 1/2 of that one billion dollars
assuming I had been charging 100 bucks per copy...



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