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Subject: Re: Good old days, early '80s

Author: Dave Gomboc

Date: 19:53:11 11/23/99

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On November 23, 1999 at 11:59:46, Christophe Theron wrote:

>On November 23, 1999 at 03:54:48, Ed Schröder wrote:
>
>>>Posted by Christophe Theron on November 22, 1999 at 18:25:35:
>>>
>>>>>Was it better than Sargon II, or just equal?
>>>>
>>>>It was better because Sargon was outplayed by search depth in most
>>>>cases. In that days Rebel was able to look 6 plies deep all very selective
>>>>and much holes involved but very effective playing a program thinking
>>>>just 4 plies deep.
>>>
>>>6 plies on a TRS-80 in the time Sargon took to compute 4?
>>>
>>>I have the old Sargon II for TRS-80 manual just in front of me. A green manual:
>>>"Hayden computer program tapes, Sargon II: A computer chess program by Dan and
>>>Kathe Spracklen". I have kept it as a souvenir (I also have the cassette,
>>>but I don't dare to open the box).
>>>
>>>The manual says that it took 6 minutes (average) to compute to ply depth 4.
>>>
>>>You are saying that in 6 minutes you were able to compute to ply depth 6 on a
>>>TRS-80???
>>
>>6 plies indeed all very selective but a friend of mine had doubled the
>>processor speed from 1.77 Mhz to 3.5 Mhz. On standard 1.77 Mhz Rebel on
>>40/120 was only able to compute 4 plies and some moves on 6 plies.
>>
>>The first Rebel was a strange animal. I had to re-invent the wheel
>>completely as I had no access to documentation, I wasn't even aware
>>documentation existed.
>>
>>No alpha/beta, no windows, no Q-search, the program could only think
>>in steps of 2 plies. Thus 2,4,6,8 etc.
>
>
>???
>
>How did it work? Why the always even depth?

Maybe he had a big odd/even effect.  Funny that he didn't choose 1, 3, 5, 7 ...
though.

Dave



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