Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 13:59:20 10/29/99
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On October 29, 1999 at 15:55:41, Ed Schröder wrote: >>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. There is a _lot_ of doubt. I was using null move _before_ there was a program known as "fritz". I used it right after Beal's article. I wasn't sure about the year, you stated 1986, which could be right, since I don't have it handy. Campbell wrote a very good paper well before donninger, somewhere in the late 1980 era although I will have to look it up when I can return to the office). So I certainly don't understand your last statement above. Also, at the time, was Donninger a commercial author? Or was he an amateur like the rest of us? Besides null-move, which was a non-commercial invention, here are some things you _do_ use in Rebel, that came from 'amateurs': 1. hash table. first written up by Richard Greenblatt in roughly 1967. Later defined more clearly in papers I (and others) wrote, but we always pointed to Greenblatt as the inventor. 2. iterative deepening. Chess 4.0 1974. 3. killer moves. Chess 4.0 4. History moves. Schaeffer (you may not use this, I don't know). 5. 'panic time on fail low' first written up by yours truly in an early JICCA volume. 6. Book learning. Used by more than one commercial program, then an approach defined and written up by yours truly again. No commercial programmer would even _think_ about explaining how they were 'learning'. And I mean _none_. 7. board representations. I copied 0x88 from Coko written in 1970. An amateur program written by Ed Kozdrowicki and Dennis Cooper. Many use it today. 8. Bitmaps (you may use these in places, I don't know). They are generally credited to Slate/Atkin, and/or Donskoy/et. al (Kaissa). 9. Singular extensions (I don't know what you do, but genius, wchess, and others have/do use these) came from deep thought developers Hsu and Campbell. the list goes on and on... > >>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. No "special parallel search?" Non-trivial to do. Non-trivial to get right. etc. no unusual evaluation terms? Seems that _everybody_ suddenly decided that it was 'right' to probe in the search, not just at the root. I've been doing it about as long as Bruce (he wrote his own tablebase code, while I used the Edwards stuff that was public. Edwards was doing it before I was, obviously, as he wrote the probe code for Crafty. Whether he probed exactly as I do today is another question. But I notice that more and more commercial programs are doing that. Where'd it come from? > >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? Sure... but you guys don't get it. Intel spends a year of secrecy to develop a new processor. They spring it on the world, _and_ they publish papers describing _exactly_ what they did. IE they get the lead-time to take advantage, but then the publish details that takes the entire industry forward. Does that sound like commercial computer chess? When was the last serious technical publication by _any_ commercial chess programmer that revealed any new or novel ideas? Can you name even one? > >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 totally ridiculous. (1) I don't have anything against 'commercial programmers' other than their hatred of bright lights and their love of secrecy to try to remain on top of the SSDF and get those extra few sales. No intent to advance computer chess in general, _whatsoever_. Just an attempt to glean what information they can from others, plus add whatever they are able to to make a stronger engine. You forget that most commercial programmers were amateurs at one time. So if you get right down to it, 'amateur programmers' have provided at least 75% of all the chess developements. The other 25% are secret, and spread over several different people. All with one goal in mind, to sell another copy. We have a large 'amateur' pool that has suddenly 're-formed'. Let's see how the 'amateurs' are doing in two more years. Because we too can play this same game and keep a few new ideas here and there very quiet. And not release the source for certain special algorithms that seem to work. Another example. Every commercial program is going to use endgame databases soon. Where do those databases come from? Did the commercial programmers develop the generators, the probe code, the indexing scheme? They probably don't even understand that. But they will use the databases. Where did they come from? From yet another person who thought it would be nice to invest some time and take computer chess (in general) forward a few steps. And you don't think that should taste a bit sour to many? As I said, a "black hole". Which is a very dense object, into which stuff flows in, but nothing flows out. It wasn't meant as any sort of insulting term, just a very descriptive metaphor. I don't like it. But I can't change it. I will mention it on occasion, to keep the amateurs 'up and going'. The gap is closing. > >>That is the difference that I see.
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