Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 10:11:16 05/11/99
Go up one level in this thread
On May 11, 1999 at 12:48:22, blass uri wrote: > >On May 11, 1999 at 12:01:05, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On May 11, 1999 at 03:06:32, Dave Gomboc wrote: >> >>>On May 07, 1999 at 19:18:22, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>> >>>>On May 07, 1999 at 18:46:32, Dann Corbit wrote: >>>> >>>>>On May 07, 1999 at 17:48:48, vitor wrote: >>>>>[snip] >>>>>>this is off topic, but why didnt you ever try making a hardware version cray >>>>>>blitz? or is that some future project? it seems cray blitz was always up against >>>>>>hardware programs like belle ,hitech, deep thought. >>>>>Of those machines, only deep thought had dedicated chess circuits. The others >>>>>were general purpose machines, running a computer program. Just like Cray >>>>>Blitz. Cray Blitz was more than a match for all except Deep Thought, which had >>>>>specialized hardware. >>>>> >>>>>Why didn't Dr. Hyatt write special hardware circuits? That would be a pretty >>>>>expensive hobby. >>>> >>>> >>>>actually they were _all_ hardware machines. Belle was the first special- >>>>purpose chess machine... Hitech was next, built as a vlsi project at CMU, >>>>and finally deep thought which also originated at CMU. Cray Blitz was the >>>>only general-purpose computer program of the group, although CB was highly >>>>coupled to the Cray architecture, with a vectorized move generator, and a >>>>very good parallel search... >>>> >>>>And you are right, in that except for deep thought, Cray Blitz was stronger >>>>than the others... >>> >>>I was under the impression that Hitech was equal or (perhaps) slightly better >>>than Cray Blitz. It lost on tiebreak at the '86 WCCC to your program, but won >>>some of the North American tournaments in the '84 through '88 range, didn't it? >>> >>>Dave >> >> >>Berliner wanted everyone to believe this. And in 1985 it was even true as we >>were searching 80K nodes per second to hitech's 120K or so. But in 1986 and >>later, we were better. In 1989 we were 5X faster due to newer hardware... >> >>HiTech won the 1985 ACM event, we won the 1986 WCCC event (and beat HiTech in >>the final round to win, in fact). I don't remember them winning anything beyond >>that because in 1987 this pesky thing known as "chiptest" and then "deep >>thought" was unveiled... :) >> >>IMHO, HiTech was never "better" than CB. It may have been as good. But the >>only 'down' time for Cray Blitz was the 1985 event where a poor change by me >>produced some ugly pawn positional play that killed it in two games in 1985, >>and in the second round of the 1986 WCCC before I found and excised the 4 >>lines of code that were killing it. >> >>After 1987 there was never any doubt who was best from that point forward, >>the author being Hsu... > >I know that there is a doubt about it >some people(not me) believe that deep thought is not better than Fritz3(P90). > >They could prove to the public after they lost to Fritz that they are better >than Fritz by playing 20 games between them and Fritz and doing the games public >but they did not do it. > >Uri Everyone should read Hsu's paper in IEEE Micro. He mentions the 10-game match that causes such an uproar of denials, and goes on to give results over a total of 40 games... and it is pretty eye-opening.... Not to mention the fact that he may be ending computer chess as we know it by releasing a pc-compatible version of the DB chip. And for those that want to talk about commercial programmers using this hardware, forget the idea, because the concept is _flawed_. This is DB evaluation, and DB search. All that can be modified is the first N plies of the search. So trying to graft this on to some other 'engine' only produces a new flavor of deep blue, not a new flavor of the base engine. The evaluation and last few plies of search are the heart and soul of a chess program. And in this case, the heart and soul is pure deep blue. Things are going to change in a serious way before long...
This page took 0.01 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.