Also, I was wondering about the surprisingly fast progress of the Obsidian engine. I checked the forums and discord servers. I checked evals. It seems to be ok, which I also gave expression to by publishing an article on the 10th release of this engine. It took me several hours just to prepare this article at the level to which the chessengeria reader is accustomed. I am writing this to express my respect for the work of the Creator of this engine.
Yes, the rate of progress of Obsidian jets is astonishing.
Yes, it used to be (as Frank wrote) extremely challenging to write an engine with an elo of 2500.
Yes, it used to be (I also refer to what Frank wrote) that creating an online forum was quite a challenge.
Yes, it used to be... But now it is now!
Now is the time of a new era of chess creators, new forms of communication including direct communication, now people have apps on their phone and can go to the toilet with it to react, read, write back, give an emoticon
It used to be in the past. Now it is now.
And this does not mean, in my understanding, that it used to be better. On the contrary - it was harder! At least for me.
I have been a fan of computer chess since the 1990s. It all started when I was a teenager.
When I was finishing school (mechanic), I wanted to write my own chess engine. Although I was not and am not a programmer, within a few weeks I had learned from one book (I still have it to this day) programming in C at such a (low) level that I was able to write a move generator (no bitboard, nothing sophisticated) and then added a simple alpha-beta search plus an embarrassingly weak move evaluation function.
The engine worked and communication was through a Linux terminal. I was using at the time, and it was 2000, a Linux distribution called Gentoo.which I compiled myself. How proud I was of my engine (and also of Gentoo ). The engine he at the level of maximum 1200-1300 Elo and was weak, but... it was mine. I was the one who created it by putting months of my work and heart into it. I was a very young man at the time, I was reaching the age of 20.
What was next for my engine. There was nothing. I had to go to work. I started working at a corpo in a 4-shift system often with overtime as well. I was not able to further develop my engine
Why am I writing this?
Because more than 24 years ago, writing a chess engine was quite an achievement considering 100 times less possibility to obtain information, data, literature and also open source engines than it is today. And most importantly, there was no possibility of such easy, fast and - let's not be afraid to say it - fruitful interaction between chess engine developers.
Today there is such a possibility. Today there is discord (or similar solutions), theme servers and masses of people associated in these themes through just such ways of communication that discord makes possible.
Whiskers wrote that the combination of these factors adds up. And I agree with that. The synergy effect: information, data, relationships between developers, speed and ease of communication -> and we have in January 2024 Obsidian, an engine that is probably not yet 1 year old and plays at the level of the best computer competitors. And there are more such (though not the same) Obsidians. But that's not a bad thing.
This is the "price of progress" associated with open source, with openness of information and the development of communication technology.
Discord is just a tool - and it works. There used to be forums and other oldies - and they also worked.
I, for one, am in favor of sharing knowledge. chessengeria is a site aimed at popularizing our hobby. In 2024, this is the only thing I have time for between contracts, the strength and the desire to occasionally write an article, do a course or how-to, write about some Oldie Goldie or a rising star of engines that is undoubtedly Obsidian. This is my humble contribution.
And I don't feel like going back to programming anymore after more than 20 years, although it was fun to discover it all
I regret that 24 years ago I did not have such possibilities of communication that exist today, perhaps the story with my engine would have turned out differently.
About Obsidian
Moderators: hgm, Rebel, chrisw
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- Posts: 367
- Joined: Sat Jun 13, 2015 10:08 am
- Location: Poland
- Full name: Dariusz Domagała
Re: About Obsidian
Regards, Darius
https://chessengeria.eu
https://chessengeria.eu
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- Posts: 3387
- Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:15 pm
Re: About Obsidian
This Obsidian is really tiny program only 3 Mbytes! Other top engines I have are 10-70 MB. With bigger net Obsidian is soon number 2?
Jouni
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- Posts: 6829
- Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2009 7:16 pm
- Location: Gutweiler, Germany
- Full name: Frank Quisinsky
Re: About Obsidian
Hi Dariusz,
I think both can still exist.
This forum is part of the history of computer chess.
1.000 fights and about 1 billion words, often for nothing. Like an association board meeting and after the meeting the secretary writes ... a lot was discussed but no result was achieved. No, no ... all the members have produced very good results and material many years.
We must not work on it with brute force (brute-force, a combination of words that programmers understand immediately) in order to give it up. Everything is wonderful and all the ladies here and the small group of gentlemen can use it. And if many programmers find a new love in discord, that too is wonderful.
OK, not everything is wonderful here.
The forum has had some technical problems for some time.
Sure, members are working on it.
I like your words, I started with 10-11 years with a Chess Challenger 7 chess computer and play test games between the chess computers for different dealers, most of the dealers don't know what they offer in chess computer times. I often try to explain this. Sometimes the old warhorses even listened.
Today I am 57, not one of the oldest, but often a bit crazy. I learn TurboPascal, and Cobol in younger years, but never have fun with it. So my part was different in computer chess. My main role is to drive the programmers crazy, you know (secret information for you). Like the Ethereal programmer.
No, no ...
But the whole discussion in the Obsidian thread is very interesting.
This is not a "Zeitenwende" and not a "Doppelwums", as a well known German would like to say.
Best
Frank
PS: I have an important news:
With the key combination DM & PB (pressed in reverse order) ... Chess Challenger 7 can play games against itself. Before you do that, you can switch from level 1 to level 4 ... these are my first chess tournaments. One move with level 4 takes about 20 minutes, level 6 = one move takes about 6 minutes. Often level 2 won against level 7 (blitz won against tournament level). I made my first bug list ... the list was long. What I wrote to DM and PB are undocumented features. Try it ... on ebay you can find it for games against Obsidian. Maybe, not an good idea I think. I found it ... on the day I had my 11 birthday, means one of the biggest secrets in computer chess, speaking form DM & PB on the keyboard.
I think both can still exist.
This forum is part of the history of computer chess.
1.000 fights and about 1 billion words, often for nothing. Like an association board meeting and after the meeting the secretary writes ... a lot was discussed but no result was achieved. No, no ... all the members have produced very good results and material many years.
We must not work on it with brute force (brute-force, a combination of words that programmers understand immediately) in order to give it up. Everything is wonderful and all the ladies here and the small group of gentlemen can use it. And if many programmers find a new love in discord, that too is wonderful.
OK, not everything is wonderful here.
The forum has had some technical problems for some time.
Sure, members are working on it.
I like your words, I started with 10-11 years with a Chess Challenger 7 chess computer and play test games between the chess computers for different dealers, most of the dealers don't know what they offer in chess computer times. I often try to explain this. Sometimes the old warhorses even listened.
Today I am 57, not one of the oldest, but often a bit crazy. I learn TurboPascal, and Cobol in younger years, but never have fun with it. So my part was different in computer chess. My main role is to drive the programmers crazy, you know (secret information for you). Like the Ethereal programmer.
No, no ...
But the whole discussion in the Obsidian thread is very interesting.
This is not a "Zeitenwende" and not a "Doppelwums", as a well known German would like to say.
Best
Frank
PS: I have an important news:
With the key combination DM & PB (pressed in reverse order) ... Chess Challenger 7 can play games against itself. Before you do that, you can switch from level 1 to level 4 ... these are my first chess tournaments. One move with level 4 takes about 20 minutes, level 6 = one move takes about 6 minutes. Often level 2 won against level 7 (blitz won against tournament level). I made my first bug list ... the list was long. What I wrote to DM and PB are undocumented features. Try it ... on ebay you can find it for games against Obsidian. Maybe, not an good idea I think. I found it ... on the day I had my 11 birthday, means one of the biggest secrets in computer chess, speaking form DM & PB on the keyboard.
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- Posts: 6829
- Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2009 7:16 pm
- Location: Gutweiler, Germany
- Full name: Frank Quisinsky
Re: About Obsidian
OK, OK ...
My news is 46 years too late, sorry about that.
Hm ...
Not important!
At the moment Superultra 2.0 NN is playing blitz here.
The move average is high, but many games I have seen are great.
46 years later ...
We have a nice hobby, we all ... today with so many possibilities and today we really have more than 1000 experts. We did not have so many experts in chess computer times, not in MS DOS times and not in Winboard times.
If you think about it ...
Why do we have so many experts?
Think about our history of computer chess and about TalkChess!
About people like Bob Hyatt, where most of us (often a bit crazy, but I like him more than anyone else here) explain computer chess. Every day Bob is looking for a new victim. No, no ... he does this because he is "computer chess for life".
Frank, your math is bad ... what a provokation from Bob Hyatt.
But he have a reaon for it and I have to give him the proof.
That's computer chess, with all the provokations and Bob Hyatt understand it more as every one else to give people a motiviation!
That is TalkChess!!
Best
Frank
My news is 46 years too late, sorry about that.
Hm ...
Not important!
At the moment Superultra 2.0 NN is playing blitz here.
The move average is high, but many games I have seen are great.
46 years later ...
We have a nice hobby, we all ... today with so many possibilities and today we really have more than 1000 experts. We did not have so many experts in chess computer times, not in MS DOS times and not in Winboard times.
If you think about it ...
Why do we have so many experts?
Think about our history of computer chess and about TalkChess!
About people like Bob Hyatt, where most of us (often a bit crazy, but I like him more than anyone else here) explain computer chess. Every day Bob is looking for a new victim. No, no ... he does this because he is "computer chess for life".
Frank, your math is bad ... what a provokation from Bob Hyatt.
But he have a reaon for it and I have to give him the proof.
That's computer chess, with all the provokations and Bob Hyatt understand it more as every one else to give people a motiviation!
That is TalkChess!!
Best
Frank
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- Posts: 6829
- Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2009 7:16 pm
- Location: Gutweiler, Germany
- Full name: Frank Quisinsky
Re: About Obsidian
Jamie is talking about "Basics". Yes Jamie, we all give you the basics and now you can offer us your result with your own chess program Akimbo. Thousands of people who have worked on the basics are looking for it, and I am sure they are all happy if you can understand it, and if you can continue what others have started. With your power, energy and programming knowledge ... and most important with your own ideas ... and much more important as own ideas ... fantasy. This is the typical cause-and-effect chain, nothing new ... with or without Discord!
Oh shit, again 3x QuisiQuasi or what the Japanese like to say to me --- Qui-Sin-Sky.
Sorry!
Oh shit, again 3x QuisiQuasi or what the Japanese like to say to me --- Qui-Sin-Sky.
Sorry!