This really shows how far programs have come. Komodo does not register even 1/10 of a second before finding the move, but back in the 70's I doubt many computers would find it at all.
On my laptop Rookie v3 plays Nxe6 at 1 ply with +1.8 eval and sticks to it in all later iterations. Time should be about 50 microseconds but it gets rounded down to the nearest millisecond when printed (0.000 s).
My previous program (v2) does not find it at all. It wants Bxe6 O-O and score around 0.0, no matter how deep I search.
Progression indeed. Still using Ritchie's C though!
bob wrote:I was born in 1948 and am now 63. Berliner would be 82 if my math is correct. I never asked Greenblatt about his age, and had always assumed he was significantly older than me. Not just 4 years.
I guess that Ken Thompson is getting up there as well, and Larry Atkin and David Slate are no spring chickens either. On the east side of the Atlantic, perhaps Mikhail Donskoy is the grand old man still on this side of the grave.
For my modest little self, I'm probably among the last to have started in computer chess while still in the days of punch cards and paper tape.
I had forgotten: Mikhail Donskoy passed back in January of 2009. RIP
I'm thinking that article is wrong. I think the first WCCC was in 1974. He was also right about my age. I've not seen nor talked to him since the WCCC in 1977, which I think was the last event the group attended... Kaissa was not the best program. Slate/Atkin lost to Tree Frog in an unusual game, and didn't play Kaissa during the event. They played an exhibition game after the tournament that I believe was drawn.
It was Chaos on a Univac that you were thinking of (Chess beat Ribbit). Here is the key position, not a bad find for the computers of the day.
[d]rq2k2r/3n1ppp/p2bpnb1/8/Np1N4/1B3PP1/PP2Q2P/R1BR2K1 w kq -
This really shows how far programs have come. Komodo does not register even 1/10 of a second before finding the move, but back in the 70's I doubt many computers would find it at all.
I think David annotated that game at some point. Turns out chess 4.x was EXPECTING Nxe6. It just didn't realize how strong it would be with all the pins completely tying black up. I think I have the analysis Slate sent to me, in a paper file at my office somewhere. I have a lot of random stuff, including complete logs printed by Belle for some games it played at an ACM event, etc...
I think a similar position came up when David played chess 4.x around 1978 or so as the first real challenge to his 10 year bet. I'll have to dig that one up as well... The old programs were not THAT weak... They often played really good moves, just not seeing all the way to the "end" like we often do today...
