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Subject: Re: Speculation, Hydra

Author: Keith Evans

Date: 21:15:55 06/28/05

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On June 28, 2005 at 19:39:24, K. Burcham wrote:

>On June 28, 2005 at 19:29:08, Uri Blass wrote:
>
>>On June 28, 2005 at 18:33:26, K. Burcham wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Well it seems maybe things have changed.
>>>Has Hydra been given a huge amount of chess knowledge that Nimzo did not have?
>>>I assume that this chess knowledge came from several 2500+ GM.
>>>
>>>Or maybe I must now say that the top 20 Chess programs of today, if they played
>>>on Hydra hardware can beat a 2700+ GM most of the time.
>>>
>>>What about BamBam, Anaconda, Movei, etc...can these beat 2700+ Super GM on Hydra
>>>hardware?
>>
>>Movei cannot use hydra hardware.
>>
>>Uri
>
>No not true. With a qualified team Movei code can be written to play on Hydra.
>
>kburcham


Hydra is partially custom designed logic which has been implemented in FPGAs. So
at least part of the hardware _is_ Hydra. Take away the custom hardware and it
is no longer Hydra. Chrilly has spent years working on the system, and this is
after he already had a lot of experience with a pure software solution. (See
here for one easy to read article
http://www.xilinx.com/publications/xcellonline/xcell_53/xc_hydra53.htm)

It makes no sense to run other programs on the Hydra hardware, unless you're
just talking about the x86 portion of Hydra. If you think that it's fair to talk
about other programs using Hydra chess processors, then why not say that Movei
could be run using Shredder libraries and get a high ELO? Why is custom hardware
fair game, but software is not?

I have a feeling that Chrilly has spent a lot of time balancing the system, and
even if you did let others try to use his chess processors, that they would have
a difficult time getting good performance out of it.

Keith



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