Author: Albert Silver
Date: 04:20:15 12/18/99
Go up one level in this thread
On December 17, 1999 at 21:12:52, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>On December 17, 1999 at 18:14:27, Greg Lindahl wrote:
>
>>On December 17, 1999 at 12:15:04, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On December 17, 1999 at 00:36:08, Greg Lindahl wrote:
>>>
>>>>On December 16, 1999 at 21:08:16, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>But you are going about it wrong. First step: enumerate _all_ the problems
>>>>>that have to be solved...
>>>>
>>>>And then you go on to wonder why on earth I feel that I have been personally
>>>>attacked? I am "naieve" (over something I didn't propose) and "going about it
>>>>all wrong" (for asking "who's interested?"). Heck, I'm trained as a scientist
>>>>and I'm quite used to blunt discussions, but this is a bit much.
>>>>
>>>
>>>First _I_ didn't say "naive". Second, I didn't say you are "going about it
>>>all wrong".
>>
>>Someone else said "naive". What you said is quoted above, for all to read.
>>
>
>
>It certainly is. I specifically said "you are going about it wrong". And "it"
>is not the FPGA approach... it is about your not wanting to understand the
>serious problems ahead, _first_. You don't have a clue about how a chess engine
>works.
Yes, I suspect the whole problem is here. Perhaps Greg would feel less
antagonized if you explained not only what a hardware-based engine would need,
as you are clearly the most appropriate person to do so, but a quick run through
on what a chess engine is constituted of: Move generator, alpha/beta, eval
function. I think that your explanations on what is needed are lost on him
because he still doens't really understand how a chess engine is built. This
isn't to berate him, but to try to close the widening communication gap here.
Albert Silver
> That is a good recipe for disaster. Because you can't build something
>if you don't have any idea how it works...
>
>I have been trying to explain some of the issues that have to be solved. You
>continue to take them as personal attacks.
>
>
>
>
>>> I pointed
>>>out some serious issues that _must_ be solved for this to fly.
>>
>>Incorrect. If the FPGA design doesn't need any memory, then no one needs to
>>solve the problem of getting memory in an FPGA. You pointed out a straw man.
>
>
>No, _you_ are incorrect. The chess engine _must_ have memory. There is _no_
>evaluation that works as a finite state automaton. There is no way to represent
>alpha/beta as a finite state automaton. So a pure FPGA design isn't going to
>work. Which was my original, _and_ present point. You originally said you
>wanted to do the eval in an FPGA design. That is no good. At the very best,
>you can speed up a chess engine by a factor of 2-3, assuming that they use 2/3
>of the compute cycles in the eval. This isn't true for many programs. And
>a factor of 2-3 for all the hardware work isn't worth the effort. Just wait
>2 years and the factor of 2-3 will be here via faster cpus. DB proved that to
>make the thing fly, the _entire_ engine. Search, move generator, make/unmake,
>repetition check, evaluation, move ordering, etc. _all_ has to be done in
>the hardware, to get enough of a speed advantage to make this worthwhile.
>
>
>
>>
>>>Certainly... But you started with the idea of a single-chip engine.
>>
>>I did not. You act as if my mention of some technology issues was like I had
>>decreed a design. That's the very straw man you continue to talk about. If
>>you're going to discuss a straw man, quit claiming I proposed it.
>>
>>This point is not very complex. I'm surprised you continue to post again and
>>again about it.
>>
>>-- greg
>
>
>
>I'm not going to post again about it. You have a psychological problem about
>taking _every_ comment as a personal attack. Every response you have gotten
>was treated the same way... I'm glad this didn't get off the ground with me
>involved, because I can't work like that.
>
>Good luck, as I'd love to see something hardware-ish work. But if you don't
>get rid of the paranoia, the pig isn't going to fly...
>
>Now, I'm going back to work on making _my_ pig fly...
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