Should Computer Chess Club get a dedicated chess computer subforum

[mclane]

Discussion of dedicated computers belongs on the main forum. There are not enough users in general to justify splitting into ever smaller sub forums.

I agree.

I don’t think so. None of the 3000+ ELO guys is really interested in ELO engines between 1300 and 1700 ELO or even 1950 ELO.

They mainly laugh about this or think ELO 1300 - 1950 is kind of neanderthaler computerchess.

But for people like me, who began in 1978, this age is not fetish or whatever.
Ron nelson and david broughton and thomas Nitsche were our heroes. Ulf rathsmann, spracklen, kittinger and martin bryant, mike johnson and Larry Atkin , don daily and richard lang and frans and ed and many others build the bridge from dedicated chess computers to software computer chess.

[mclane]

IMO a subforum would help to differentiate the different ELO interests.
I am not interested in zillions of 3000+ engines.
I am mainly interested in the roots,
That began with dedicated units or Sinclair zx80 or zx81 homecomputers.
Limited in cpu , ram, rom and generally resources.

But it was the beginning of commercial computerchess.

[towforce]

There should be a 4th option in the poll:

"Yes , dedicated chess computer and vintage software are the roots of computerchess and should be discussed in the main forum."

Should be allowed there and not OFF Topic

Has a thread about dedicated chess computers been attacked as off-topic?

[Juan P. Naar]

It definitely deserves a dedicated subforum. It would be way more active and attractive than the almost dead "Engine Origins" subforum.

[fkarger]

I think it wouldnt hurt. So why not.

I looked at the existing forums and wondered if there is some common ground
with the 'Engine Origins' forum.

[mclane]

Who cares if someone copied from stockfish and makes a new 3000 elo engine from the scratch. Nobody is downloading it. Why should he ?

[chrisw]

I think it wouldnt hurt. So why not.

I looked at the existing forums and wondered if there is some common ground
with the 'Engine Origins' forum.

We don’t make structural changes to the forum on the basis of “why not”. Alteration requires strong positive reasons to overcome the undesirability of splitting an already small space into several smaller ones.

There’s no common ground with the rather ridiculous Engine Origins forum which has been made deliberately difficult to read and is supposedly not accessible to crawler bots (historical reasons).

[mclane]

We don’t make structural changes to the forum on the basis of “why not”.

But you could make „structural changes“ on the request of the members.
At least from the members who read the poll and voted, 65% would like a dedicated chess computer subforum.

[chrisw]

We don’t make structural changes to the forum on the basis of “why not”.

But you could make „structural changes“ on the request of the members.
At least from the members who read the poll and voted, 65% would like a dedicated chess computer subforum.

The poll is ridiculously binary and muddled. Two of the options are entirely negative in tone and it's unclear, to say the least, what is being voted on. That vintage engines are the roots of computer chess? Well obviously. That would be the definition of roots. But wanting a dedicated forum as well? That's not so obvious. Anyone would imagine an amateur poll author was trying to bias the result and I, for one, would not accept this degree of bias in a poll as meaning anything.

[mclane]

It is not my intention to „manipulate“ a poll.
There are 3 votes:
Yes
No
Don’t know.

IMO this is what democratical votes are about.
Either you vote for yes/no or don’t know.

So you ignore the 65% result ?
With which legitimation to do so ?

You are one of the founders of this forum and of Talkchess forum.
What is the point that legitimates your decision?


Do you really believe people who use dedicated chess computers are interested in 3000+ ELO engines on today’s hardware and GPUs and vice versa ??