Author: Dave Gomboc
Date: 04:28:47 03/31/99
Go up one level in this thread
On March 31, 1999 at 06:57:39, Harald Faber wrote: >On March 31, 1999 at 06:42:00, Dave Gomboc wrote: > >>>> The last paragraph states that he is forming an independent start-up >>>>company to create a new chess chip for consumers , that would make it possible >>>>for a desktop machine to defeat the world champ in a formal match by 2000 .... >>> >>>That confirms my assumption that Hsu has gone ***... >>>A chess chip becoming WC in 2000....nonsense. >> >>The quote says "a desktop machine". It does not say "one chess chip". I'd >>expect there to be many chess chips in one machine. Total hand-wave here: if >>there were 16 chips per PCI card, and 4 PCI slots on a mainboard, that'd be 64 >>chess processors in all. Now if a (Dual? Quad? More? :-) Pentium III can keep >>them busy, I can readily imagine such a machine opening up a can of serious >>whoop-ass. :) >>Dave Gomboc > >Maybe I am wrong. >But I don't believe Hsu nor anyone else being able to CREATE a chess chip (read >above), build several of them on a special board maybe and write a software that >a) handles these multiprocessors with appropriate tasks and b) becomes WC, all >within one year. >Just my opinion. Hsu has already designed two chips, maybe he's got incremental adjustments for the third in mind, or maybe he's just planning on using the second design. IBM has fabricated the chips before. Seeing as Hsu worked for IBM for many years, it seems reasonable to me that they could work out some kind of arrangement. As for "special boards", well, they've done this already too. I think they are VME-bus, but it can't be that hard to use PCI instead. What's left? Parallel search? Not a problem. They already do that. So really, I don't see any major technical obstacles. My guess is that it will be the business side of things that will determine how successful he is. Marketing people have a saying, "shoot the inventor". :-) As for becoming the world champion on a desktop machine, I'll agree with you there, that sounds like hyperbole to me. And you're right, these things will all take time. Maybe 2000 is doable, but probably not January 2000. :-) Dave Gomboc
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.