Powerchess and Heiss

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Fernando
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Powerchess and Heiss

Post by Fernando »

Who knows something about this programmer and his soft?
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spacious_mind
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Post by spacious_mind »

I always assumed he was American, but know nothing about him.

Copyright 1989 W. Wild, H. Heiss

Copyright says Wild as well as Heiss.
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Post by Fernando »

Yes, it is a mistery. I did not find nothing in chess encyclopedia
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Post by spacious_mind »

Well its my bad for assuming. It looks like they are two Germans possibly medical scholars.


Wild W, Heiss H, Kotanko P (1984) Die computergestützte Auswertung zur Erkennung von Nierentransplantatabstoßungen unter Verwendung des Kanalmodells der Informationstheorie. In: Gell G, Eichtinger Ch (eds) Medizinische Informatik '84 R. Oldenburg, Wien München, S 45–48

What would be the chances of two different W. Wild and H. Heiss people writing an article in 1984? Coincidence?

http://link.springer.com/article/10.100 ... ccess=true

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Post by Fernando »

spacious_mind wrote:Well its my bad for assuming. It looks like they are two Germans possibly medical scholars.


Wild W, Heiss H, Kotanko P (1984) Die computergestützte Auswertung zur Erkennung von Nierentransplantatabstoßungen unter Verwendung des Kanalmodells der Informationstheorie. In: Gell G, Eichtinger Ch (eds) Medizinische Informatik '84 R. Oldenburg, Wien München, S 45–48

What would be the chances of two different W. Wild and H. Heiss people writing an article in 1984? Coincidence?

http://link.springer.com/article/10.100 ... ccess=true

regards

WEIRD
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Post by spacious_mind »

I need to get Sherlock on the case :P
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Post by Fernando »

spacious_mind wrote:I need to get Sherlock on the case :P
In any case is not a good program. Even with 60 seconds the move it does not see an evident attack.
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Post by spacious_mind »

It's the second worse one.. Rival 1.5e is the worst. Maybe as bad as Sargon 4 ?
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Post by Fernando »

spacious_mind wrote:It's the second worse one.. Rival 1.5e is the worst. Maybe as bad as Sargon 4 ?
No. Sargon 4 is the very worst program EVER produced.
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Post by spacious_mind »

What I also find convenient with D-Fend is that it lets you play some old engines under DOS which means I can play them against for example DOSBox Rebel 9 or Genius 3 etc under similar conditions. It is not very fancy but playable and fun if you want the old retro experience :)

Crafty 8.7 under D-Fend

Image


Image

I had set Crafty up to play at 60/30

It gives you the very early computer days feel :)

Some very old winboard engines work this way. But not all of them.

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Post by Tibono2 »

Hi, talking about fun retro experience... One step beyond (& my choice):

1) scale DosBox CPU cycles according to your preferred set of benchmarking tools, including some DOS chess programs of course (best with nps display). Thus create your cycles/PC model (or CPU and clocking) table.

2) review per year (or period) which DOS Personal Computers where available on the market, and define your own storyline based on either high-end, common, or low-end computers. As it is virtual, you are free to assume you refresh your PC each and every year (if you lack virtual money - or time for detailed settings - you may change your computer every 2 or 3 years)

3) for each DOS chess program you run with DosBox, find the year it was produced

4) Set the DosBox (or D-Fend) cycles consistently with the chess program you run, to get closer to the actual user experience back in time.


As an exemple, I run Crafty 8.11 from 1995 with 26.800 cycles which is my personal benchmark for a 80486DX2 @66Mhz I suppose many would have used in this time back.

Add some hardware emulators you won't need to tune - by design they should be able to provide the very accurate historical speed (add the compatible chess programs accordingly). (Find many Commodore 64 programs on a very nice website many should know about - thanks Nick)

Now you can set historical competitions, such as per year computer chess championships (excluding mainframes)... Two warnings:
- this is highly time-consuming
- make sure no one knows about what you do, you might be considered crazy

Here is the table I use:
# 304 cycles=8088@4,77 PC/XT 1981-84 ~ 100 to 150 n/s
# 1.275 cycles=286@8 PC/AT 1985-1987 ~ 300 to 700 n/s
# 2.720 cycles=386@16 1988-1990 ~ 1.000 to 1.500 n/s
# 13.300 cycles=486SX@33 1991-1993 ~ 5.000 to 7.500 n/s
# 26.800 cycles=486DX2@66 1994-1995 ~ 10.000 to 15.000 n/s
# 57.800 cycles=P75 1996-1997 ~ 25.000 to 35.000 n/s
# 113.300 cycles=P150 1998-1999 ~ 45.000 to 65.000 n/s

(Of course expected nps are very rough averages - highly depending on the chess program you run)

Before 1981? Get emulators such as TRS-80, TI-99, Atari 800....or MESS emulated chessboards!
Past 1999? Sorry my current laptop is not powerful enough to run DosBox at higher cycles...

kind regards, Tibono
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Post by Fernando »

Tibono2 wrote:Hi, talking about fun retro experience... One step beyond (& my choice):

1) scale DosBox CPU cycles according to your preferred set of benchmarking tools, including some DOS chess programs of course (best with nps display). Thus create your cycles/PC model (or CPU and clocking) table.

2) review per year (or period) which DOS Personal Computers where available on the market, and define your own storyline based on either high-end, common, or low-end computers. As it is virtual, you are free to assume you refresh your PC each and every year (if you lack virtual money - or time for detailed settings - you may change your computer every 2 or 3 years)

3) for each DOS chess program you run with DosBox, find the year it was produced

4) Set the DosBox (or D-Fend) cycles consistently with the chess program you run, to get closer to the actual user experience back in time.


As an exemple, I run Crafty 8.11 from 1995 with 26.800 cycles which is my personal benchmark for a 80486DX2 @66Mhz I suppose many would have used in this time back.

Add some hardware emulators you won't need to tune - by design they should be able to provide the very accurate historical speed (add the compatible chess programs accordingly). (Find many Commodore 64 programs on a very nice website many should know about - thanks Nick)

Now you can set historical competitions, such as per year computer chess championships (excluding mainframes)... Two warnings:
- this is highly time-consuming
- make sure no one knows about what you do, you might be considered crazy

Here is the table I use:
# 304 cycles=8088@4,77 PC/XT 1981-84 ~ 100 to 150 n/s
# 1.275 cycles=286@8 PC/AT 1985-1987 ~ 300 to 700 n/s
# 2.720 cycles=386@16 1988-1990 ~ 1.000 to 1.500 n/s
# 13.300 cycles=486SX@33 1991-1993 ~ 5.000 to 7.500 n/s
# 26.800 cycles=486DX2@66 1994-1995 ~ 10.000 to 15.000 n/s
# 57.800 cycles=P75 1996-1997 ~ 25.000 to 35.000 n/s
# 113.300 cycles=P150 1998-1999 ~ 45.000 to 65.000 n/s

(Of course expected nps are very rough averages - highly depending on the chess program you run)

Before 1981? Get emulators such as TRS-80, TI-99, Atari 800....or MESS emulated chessboards!
Past 1999? Sorry my current laptop is not powerful enough to run DosBox at higher cycles...

kind regards, Tibono

My retro experience is a half retro as much I try to run old dos at maximum speed. I want to know how goo they are in current comps.
F
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Post by spacious_mind »

Tibono2 wrote: Before 1981? Get emulators such as TRS-80, TI-99, Atari 800....or MESS emulated chessboards!
Past 1999? Sorry my current laptop is not powerful enough to run DosBox at higher cycles...

kind regards, Tibono
Hi Tibono,

You are missing some important emulators if you are looking to try out various chess programs for old computers.

Some that spring to mind are:

BBC Model B or Master emulator (Important for Martin Bryant with his White Knigth Mk 1 & II as well as Colossus)
Sinclair Spectrum emulators (lots of chess programs that were only available on Sinclair and important for Chris Whittington's Superchess programs that precede Chess Player 2150)
Sinclair QL Emulator - Important for Psion Chess that precedes PC or Atari therefore the original Psion Platform
Amstrad Schneider emulators - various chess programs but most can be had also under Sinclair, but a couple of unique ones.
Dragon emulator for 1 Dragon Chess Program
Oric1 or Atmos emulator for a couple of chess programs
Acorn Archimedes has a couple of chess programs

Most of the above is history and matches the early dedicated chess computer efforts, but typically not as strong because of lesser hardware.

Best regards
Nick
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Post by spacious_mind »

Regarding Psion here is the original Psion Chess for Sinclair QL on its Microdrive cartridge:

Image

The Sinclair QL was the worlds first Motorola 68000 Computer for home use. It was followed shortly thereafter by Amiga 500 and Atari ST.

Here is Psion for a PC on a 5.1/4" Floppy disk.

Image

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Nick
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Post by Tibono2 »

spacious_mind wrote: Hi Tibono,
You are missing some important emulators if you are looking to try out various chess programs for old computers.
....
Most of the above is history and matches the early dedicated chess computer efforts, but typically not as strong because of lesser hardware.
Best regards
Thanks for the list, I do get some (Sinclair, BBC...) but I will start chasing the Dragon, Oric...
A nice startpoint (it has been mine): http://www.andreadrian.de/schach/
8080 Chess on Processor Technology Sol 20 emulator is the oldest chess program (1977) I managed to run. A must have!
I also run some gaming console emulators for chess programs (usually of less interest), Win 3.1 on DosBox, Palm emulator, VirtualBox for some Win95/98 chess programs...
Very time consuming, as I wrote... Will be happy to share experience with anyone getting trouble to run an emulator or program I managed to setup (on Win7/64).

kind regards
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