Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 02:42:11 10/17/97
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On October 17, 1997 at 03:01:10, Chris Whittington wrote: >Try it from the point of view of the majority who are going to run on K6 >233's provided by the organisers. > >Some of these people think they are in with some sort of chance to win, >they think the program they've been working on all year might have >something (I exclude myself from this list, I don't think CSTal will >win). Of course you also need to criticize those who are bringing 300 mhz PII's, and whatever else people manage to scrape up. And you might also point out that this happens every year. Last year I brought a Pentium Pro 200 mhz machine to Jakarta because I knew that these machines were going to blow the hell out of the supplied Pentium 133's. The machine I brought last year was approximately 2.3 times faster than the supplied machine, this year maybe <= 1.8 times (with my program in both cases). I wasn't the only one to bring a machine last year. There were several Pentium Pro 200's, one Pentium 200 (Fritz, they went faster on this than on a Pro), and I think that the Nimzo guys even over-clocked theirs to 220 or 233. The one major 133 mhz hero at the last event was Virtual Chess (actually maybe he brought a 166, I can't remember), but Pascal Tang managed to borrow a 200 for the playoff with Fritz (and maybe for the speed event, I think he might have used Crafty's machine). The year before, I didn't bring a machine, and I had to use one of the 120's supplied by Peacock, while Richard Lang had a 133 (probably with more and better memory, who knows), also supplied by Peacock. I asked why he got a faster one and I was told that he had made a "special arrangment with the sponsor". There were other machines brought by competitors as well, and we also had Sun sponsoring the event, so there were Sun work-stations all over the place, which were faster than the Peacocks. I think there was maybe one team who brought their own 100 mhz machine to that event (I don't know why), but other than that, I was on the rock-bottom hardware at that event. I also saw some of the teams at Hong Kong bring their own (faster) PC's despite the fact that nice PC's were supplied (I brought my own, only because the organizers wouldn't guarantee that there would be a PC there for me, because they initially left me off the list of people requesting hardware). I think that Frans Morsch brought a very nice (for that time) 120 mhz machine to that event. I had a 100 mhz machine (it was the machine from my office at Microsoft, I got a VP to say I could take it). I think the supplied machine may have been a 90. I'm sure that this all goes further back, but I don't go further back, so I don't know first-hand. What I learned from all of this is that part of the competition is organization. Dark Thought has always been great at this. They achieved a close relationship with DEC, and have brought DEC hardware to every event that I have attended, and I would be surprised if they have ever had to pay anything for their hardware. Other teams, this year, have also managed to get hardware sponsorship. I am not good at this kind of thing. Last year I tried to get Gateway to sponsor me and they sent me some key rings and pencils to give away. I still have some. I couldn't even get any T-shirts, much less a computer. This year I decided to at least try to be a little smarter. I noticed one of the Crafty's on ICC was going at a completely outrageous speed, and I asked the operator what he was using. He told me, and I learned that I could go fast without paying twenty thousand bucks, so I ordered one. I figured that I would have a chance against whatever Dark Thought appeared with this year, but they scored again with this Kryotech thing. >Only somebody is apparently turning up with a 750 MHz alpha, and Bruce >with his 10,000,000 GigaHertz machine. I am bringing a 533 mhz Polywell. I think it is possible I will be able to wrangle one of these Kryotech 767's as well, but maybe all I will get is key rings, we will see. >So now, five guys, ten guys, suddenly have these good winning chances >much reduced. Not becuse their programs have suddenly changed, not >because they did something wrong; but because two (?) of the strong >programmers decided to put themselves way out in front with this special >hardware advantage. Three or four Alphas. At least three PII/300's. The PII/300's may not be as fast as the Alphas (probably not, but I haven't tested one), but they are the best x86 you can get now, so obviously someone is trying pretty hard to compete in this area. It's an open-hardware event, Chris. If you want to take advantage of the hardware provided by the sponsor, fine, but otherwise you can bring your own. But the provided hardware is quite likely always going to be a notch below the best you can get. It is an advantage to have a faster machine. I would definately like to have the fastest machine, no doubt about it. But it is not a crushing advantage. I have been using the 533 for a month or so, and it has lost numerous games against programs on weaker hardware. I want to win, but I am not betting on Ferret to win. I think that having a 233 mhz K6 will increase everyone's tactical awareness markedly, and so you will see more examples of mid-pack programs beating or drawing front-pack programs than you did last year. >I see this as both selfish and self-advancing at others expense. I see that evaluating and acquiring hardware is another aspect of the competition, along with writing a good (and in this case portable) program, and building a good opening book. You can devote as much effort to any of these areas as you wish, it is part of the competition. Last year I learned from Dark Thought to be better about acquiring good hardware. bruce
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