Author: Ed Schröder
Date: 12:55:41 10/29/99
Go up one level in this thread
>Posted by Robert Hyatt on October 29, 1999 at 13:11:33: > >The thing that Ed is missing is this: I was doing this in 1970. He hadn't >even thought about computer chess in 1970. The first program who had null-move (in the it is used now!) was the one of Don Beal during the WCC Cologne 1986, I remember it very well. And that moment Don had null-move only in Q-search. After Cologne his article "Selective Search without tears" came. Frans Morsch immediately fell in love with null-move after Cologne 1986 because of this talks with Don. In that time Frans and I almost daily phoned each other to discuss computer chess programming and exchanged many ideas. I decided not to use null-move, Frans did, you can see the result in Fritz. Then after some years the Donninger null-move article came in the ICCA, I forgot about the year, maybe someone can have a look, and the ball got rolling. I clearly remember the heated discussions in RGCC in 1995. From that moment on null-move (using it as selective search) became kind of standard in chess programs. Frans Morsch and Chrilly Donninger gave you null-move in the way it is used now in chess programs. There is no single doubt on that. >I know how open we _all_ used to >be. The real fun from 1970-1986 or so was to discover something new, keep >it a >secret until the next ACM or WCCC event, spring it on everyone, and then tell >them (in discussions during dinner, or during games, or at technical computer >chess presentations) what you had done the last year. And then everybody sort >of "caught" up with each other, and everybody went their separate ways for a >year, and then we repeated this the next year. But slowly as the PC platform >got faster, the number of commercial entries got larger. And we ended up in >these group discussions with the 'research engine' authors describing what >they had done, >and the 'commercial engine' authors doing a fine job of emulating a >black hole. And here we go again....... There is nothing special I have seen in the Crafty source code. Just the basic things, well tuned and documented, but nothing special. And what do you expect people to do with your source code anyway then to have a look at it? Isn't that the purpose? What do you have against commercial programmers anyway? They give a lot of people the joy of a good program and interface to enjoy their hobby named chess. Because some are commercial they can afford to spend all their time improving their product. Without being commercial the interface and engine would be on a level of years back. Ed >That is the difference that I see.
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.