Author: Terry Ripple
Date: 01:50:33 09/29/99
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On September 29, 1999 at 03:14:06, Ed Schröder wrote: >>Posted by José Berdiñas Bonefua on September 28, 1999 at 21:23:08: >> >>I am waiting the auto232 support for Rebel 10. >>You promise it!!. >> >>José > >This is not true. > >I promised that I would set free auto232 in case I was able to solve the >auto232 problems I have seen. That is quite something else. > >Anyway it is good that you bring up the topic as now after 8-9 months of >close investigations I can share some remarkable findings about auto232. > >I know now there is not a (big) problem other than that I have noticed the >below list of weird things which are good to know for everybody who use >auto232. > >#1. In rare cases I have seen Rebel's NPS drop with a factor of 3 during >an auto232 match. Thus playing a match on a PII-450 the machine at some >moment in the auto232 match the PC Rebel was running suddenly behaved >as a PII-150 machine. The factor 3 is remarkable because it is an indication >it smells to hardware and not to software. > >Of course the outcome of these matches are worthless and I wouldn't exclude >the possibility such things also happen on the machines of Rebel opponents. >The BIG problem is: how do you recognize it? Perhaps it happens a lot more >because it is difficult to notice it. I think that for the future I will add >some code to test the reliability of the program after each game. > >#2. I have seen Rebel and Rebel opponent crashes. Not that I consider an >auto232 crash as a big deal as after all auto232 is tricky software and you >are asking for trouble. But if after a crash the BIOS is corrupted too I >consider that as very serious. In such cases I consider such a match as >worthless as I have noticed in such cases Rebel or the Rebel opponent has >a big advantage in the match sore (silly match scores like 15-1) which is >a clear indication the other PC is totally nuts. > >#3. Quite often after "exit program" the memory of the PC is corrupted. I >have seen for example error silly error messages like, "Sector not found >abort, retry... " or other strange stuff. In such cases you sometimes >even can't run another program, you have to reboot first to get the PC >working again. Of course this raises the question, "how valid was the >match you just played?". > >#4. I have seen Rebel (and other programs) play moves that couldn't be >reproduced while Rebel is programmed to do so. I have not much of such >cases but the fact it happens isn't a funny thought as you don't have >the time to check every auto232 move. > >#5. I have seen Mchess give away a rook to Rebel without any reason as the >position was drawish. It was impossible to reproduce it manually. I saw the >Mchess case by accident because I was watching the game. > >#6. I remember a case (which is similar to #3) that after an auto232 session >the PC in question couldn't recognize the modem anymore when I tried to >log-in to the Internet on that machine. The most worse thing on this case was >that I was able to reproduce it time and time again. > >So far the list (which is not complete) but these are the cases I remember. >It made me conclude that auto232 is more fragile than I already thought. An >important second conclusion for me was that the problem isn't related to >Rebel but that all programs sometimes go nuts because of auto232 for >totally unknown reasons. > >I therefore see no reason any longer that Rebel10 should not support >auto232. Auto232 in Rebel10 becomes active if you copy a file. To be >more precisely do: > >COPY USERINFO.CFG to AUTO232.CFG > >Then check the menu OPTIONS (F3) and the "auto232" option should >be present. > >Ed Schroder > >Posted on CCC and Rebel-Board ============== It sounds like "Single engine matches" have a better chance to produce more - accurate results than auto 232! Terry
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