Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 22:03:36 01/29/99
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On January 30, 1999 at 00:45:27, KarinsDad wrote: >On January 29, 1999 at 22:15:15, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >[snip] > >> >>>>2) If it would be possible, not one line of code would be optimized to use that >>>>kind of hardware so the performance would be a disaster compared to Deep B. >>> >>>Yes and if the Deep Blue hardware had no C compiler written for it, you would >>>have to either write one or re-write the code (similar to what Bionic did) into >>>a supported language. And, you would have to re-optimize the code. That does not >>>mean that the basic algorithms of the current PC software could not be used and >>>would not be better. >> >> >>there is _no_ C compiler for the DB hardware. the chips are vlsi circuits >>and not something that is 'programmable'... >> > >The following quote comes from the following IBM web page: > >http://www.chess.ibm.com/meet/html/d.3.2.html > >The software inside of Deep Blue is one all-inclusive program written in C, >running under the AIX operating system. Deep Blue utilizes the IBM SP Parallel >System called MPI. "It's a message-passing system," says Hoane. "So the search >is just all control logic. You're passing control messages back and forth that >say, well, what am I doing? Did you finish this? OK, here's your next job. That >kind of thing at the SP level." > > >I also seem to recall that in the first match, the programmers tweaked the >software between games. How could this be done in hardware? Nobody would go back >to a game with newly burned chips that did not have significant tests. But a >small tweak of the software, piece of cake. > >What am I missing here Robert? > >KarinsDad > >[snip] A whole lot of hardware. :) DB has two distinct parts. A traditional chess engine running on the SP machine (C) code... And the chess-specific hardware that this C code uses to manage the board, plus do the last 4-5 plies of search + captures and that stuff, + the static evaluation. That part of DB is pure silicon. And anyone using it would have to write code similar to the part of DB running on the SP (ie a parallel search) that uses the special-purpose hardware to play chess. _that_ is why a commercial program can't be 'ported'. 'ported' is the wrong word, perhaps "morphed" is better, because the commercial program would suddenly look just like the current DB, necessitated by the DB hardware protocol requirements...
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