Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 11:00:13 02/07/00
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On February 07, 2000 at 12:54:57, Tom Likens wrote: > >Dr. Hyatt wrote an excellent article in the latest issue of ICCA on >how rotated bitmaps work. He took an inherently difficult subject to >explain and make it fairly clear. My only complaint is that instead >of labeling the eight possible directions plus1, minus1, plus7, >minus7 etc. I always liked the nomeclature NORTHWEST, NORTH, >NORTHEAST, etc. better as it seems slightly more clear to me >(obviously this is a VERY minor complaint). I actually did that at first. But I figured that the guys south of the equator would have problems with it. :) In reality, the plus1 makes a lot of sense to me, because when you look at bishop moves, +7 or +9 is easy to understand, while "northeast" takes a bit of mental gymnastics to turn into +9. :) > >The other nice feature of the article was the explanation of how >bitmaps are used in a chess program. Worth getting if you are at >all interested in how rotated bitmaps work. And in light of Crafty's >recent ICS tournament result, if you aren't interested then maybe >you should be :) > >My one real complaint has nothing to do with the article though. >Apparently, the board of ICCA feels that chess is not interesting >enough to support an academic journal like ICCA so instead starting >with the next volume the name of the magazine will be changed to >Internation Computer Games Journal (ICGA). The new journal will >focus on all computer games. Chess will still be covered but >obviously to a much lesser extent. I saw that. And in reality, it has had non-chess stuff in it off and on for many years. But the name change is "ugly" as the organization is and always has been "international computer chess association." The journal has always been "the journal of the international computer chess association." I see no organization named "ICGA" so this change seems a tad off-the-wall to me without changing the name of the ICCA as well. Maybe they are doing that too? > >To be honest I'm not sure I'm going to resubscribe (which is >too bad since I have ALL the old issues). > >--Tom
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