Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 07:00:35 12/13/99
Go up one level in this thread
On December 13, 1999 at 01:53:02, Christophe Theron wrote: >On December 12, 1999 at 20:55:15, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On December 12, 1999 at 19:07:26, Christophe Theron wrote: >> >>>On December 12, 1999 at 10:10:58, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>> > >(snip) > >>>>gets the move from the server, the time starts. It is now up to the program >>>>to read the input, act on it, and produce a move. Remember, "crafty" is 10 >>>>years 'behind' the commercial programs, so I see no point in telling them how >>>>to fix such problems. :) >>>> >>>>But they _can_ be fixed. Crafty can play a 60 move game in one second if you >>>>want to see something _really_ fast.. :) >>>> >>>>Bob >>> >>> >>>If you want to quote me, Bob, at least do it correctly. >>> >>>Reminder: >>>* You attacked commercial programmers in several ways, you even said they were >>>stealing things in Crafty. I think they don't need to. >> >>First, I _never_ said commercial programmers "steal" things from crafty. How >>would you steal something that is given to you? However, I can likely point >>out several ideas from Cray Blitz (and now Crafty) that are in _your_ program >>as well as others... > > >Go ahead and tell me what ideas from Cray Blitz and Crafty are in my program? > >Something that you have invented yourself, of course. > > I'll name one everyone can confirm. When your score drops significantly, and you run out of time in the normal search allocation, do you stop and play the move that you know has turned sour, or do you search longer in an effort to try to fix the problem? (sometimes called a fail-low time extension). So far as I know, "blitz" (prior to cray blitz) was the first program to do this, as I watched too many programmers at the 1975 and 1976 ACM events sitting in a panic wondering if they would find a better move before time ran out. This was written up in an old JICCA, and so far as I know, _everybody_ now does it. Do you take extra time on the first non-book move? I used to and this was also in the same JICCA article. Do you use the "PVS" search? Murray Campbell and I talked about this, and implemented it in a backup version of "blitz" in the late 70's. I then ran this in an ACM tournament game when I had to switch to the backup version when the primary machine went down. Several watched the game and asked about all the fail highs which were unknown back then. I would hardly say it was 100% my idea, as we hatched it up during the usual round-table chess discussions. I definitely implemented it first and then explained how it was working. > >>>* I said that commercial programmers have been ten times more creative than you >>>have been (which is indeed a subjective point of view). >>>* I did not said you are 10 years behind. I do not know how many years behind >>>you are exactly. But I think you are about 100 elo points behind the best >>>commercial programs. That's why you need 3 or 4 times the processing power to >>>get close. >> >>Warped thinking. Lets play a match using a 16 cpu alpha system. Since you >>are 'ahead' you ought to crush me, right? I mean, parallel search is not a >>creative thing to develop, so you should be able to have one up and going by >>tomorrow? I'll contact DEC. :) > > >Creativity is in my opinion also doing new things with common hardware. > >Why do you need those rare and expensive computers to show your creativity? Your definition of creativity is totally warped. "creativity" means to "do something new". Not "to do something new with old hardware". Otherwise we would see no creativity in the automobile industry, the electronics industry (do you call today's VCR technology "creative"? yes you say? Yet you do know that these things first cost way over $1,000 US when they hit the market?) As for "rare and expensive" do you have any _clue_ how many of these "rare and expensive" computers are playing chess on ICC and FICS _right now_? I have _two_ students in a class of mine, both with dual-processor "rare and expensive machines". You should look around, you might be surprised just how "rare and expensive" these things _really_ are... > >There are plenty of things to do with a single processor. There are plenty of things to do with a dual/quad/etc processor as well... single processor machines are the past. Dual/quad processors are the future. It is likely that within 5 years a microprocessor chip will have multiple processors, just like today's micros have multiple pipes. > >Reminds me of these children in Africa, India and south America. You would be >amazed by their ability to create toys with wood and used cans. And they have a >great time playing with them. And there is nothing wrong with that. But I wouldn't call the folks at Mattel, Tonka, Fisher-Price, and the rest "uncreate" just because they are using high- tech digital stuff rather than sticks and stones.. > >On the other hands, I see countries where children are unhappy with expensive >computer toys, cellular phone toys,... Their biggest pleasure is to destroy >them, not to play with them. > >While you play with your very expensive toys and repeatedly insist that I play >with you, let me remind you that almost all computers on this planet are single >processor ones. > You had better wake up and look around. "almost all" is far from reality now. You only have to check with motherboard manufacturers to discover how many dual-processor boards they are shipping. Many are on a 3-6 month back- order due to demand. Quad-processor MBs from Intel are _very difficult_ to obtain due to backlog. Yes _most_ machines are single-cpu. But a long way from _all_ machines... >You give away your program for free, but still show an elitist philosophy about >the computer that must be used in order to get acceptable results from it. Hardly. It runs fine on single-cpu machines. It just happens to run better on multiple-cpu machines. > >If beating commercial programs by using 8 to 16 times more computing power is >what makes you happy, then no doubt you'll stay happy for a while. > > > >>Your comment says this: "what I (you) work on is creative. What you (me) works >>on is not creative." I say _horsefeathers_. Perhaps after you start to work >>on a parallel search, and use all the information I and others have published, >>you will be able to 'create' exactly what we have done? > > >We'll see when I work on this problem. So far it's not in my priority list. > >My goal is to write a good chess program for everybody's computer, not to win by >having more computing power. So far single processor is the most common computer >platform for my "target". > > > > Christophe So far. 10 years ago everyone was saying "32 bit processors are too expensive and we simply don't need that much computing power in home computers." Does that sound familiar? Does it sound something like what you said above? Check back with me in 5-6 years...
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.