

Open Letter from Feng-hsiung Hsu, one of the main programmers of Deep Blue - amichail
http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/feng.html

======
amichail
Reply here: <http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/owenfeng.html>

~~~
kaitnieks
Thank you for the reply - things make sense after reading it. I know a few
people like Hsu - they usually are convinced that they are objective and are
absolutely unable to grasp the fact that other people might have different
values and goals. They are conviniently overlooking things they don't like.
These people often do achieve much but are absolutely dreadful to deal with.

~~~
chez17
I don't know if I agree. Owen's letter seemed to pretend that Kasparov didn't
lose the last match. Why would Hsu need to establish himself as a competitor
when he won the last match? That doesn't make any sense to me. When he says
things like, "All he had was a computer chip with no organization or sponsor
behind him." it's ridiculous. That chip is the chip that contains the data and
knowledge that beat Gary last time, and he can't get any sponsors because they
won't commit to a match. Looking at both letters, it seems that all Hsu wanted
to do was get another match and Kasparov didn't really want to do it. I
certainly could be wrong, but it sounded like they were making excuses.

------
smanek
Deep Blue '97, which beat Kasparov, was a: "RS/6000 SP Thin P2SC-based system
with 30-nodes, with each node containing a 120 MHz P2SC microprocessor for a
total of 30, enhanced with 480 special purpose VLSI chess chips." (from
Wikipedia)

I'd be interested to know what exactly those VLSI chips contained ... My hunch
is that a few dozen modern FPGAs should be able to match a few hundred ASICs
from over a decade ago. Then it shouldn't cost more than ~$10K for enough
hardware.

Hsu could easily bootstrap that sort of machine. Then, after winning a World
Computer Chess Championship, he would be in a much better position to issue a
challenge to Kasporov.

~~~
shard
It depends. Having designed medium sized VLSI ASICs over a decade ago and
worked with FPGAs recently, I'd have to say that it may still take several
FPGAs to equal one ASIC.

------
danbmil99
I believe there is a consensus in the chess world that given any incentive, it
would be easy for someone to put together a machine that can beat any human
alive.

The algorithms at this point are well-known and tested; it's just a matter of
having enough hardware to search deeply enough to match a world-champion
player within the tournament time constraints.

edit: <http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=54499>

~~~
mwpolen
I do not think this is the case. If you follow chess and the matches where a
top GM plays a computer you will find most of the time it is a draw. There was
an article on chessbase many years ago that showed that chess program rating
had stopped growing as fast and they were leveling out just as player ratings
level out. <http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1292>

~~~
ca98am79
This is definitely the case. Check out Rybka - it has been rated 3200+. No
human being comes close.

~~~
mwpolen
After further reflection I'm not sure my belief is wrong.

The match between GM Roman Dzindzichashvili and Rybka has finished with a
somewhat surprising (at least to me) score of 4-4.

<http://www.chessville.com/Wall/DzindziRybka.htm>

~~~
jibiki
From the article:

"the odds were changed to - Roman gets White every game, the computer offers
up a different pawn each game."

So the computer gave Dzindzi an enormous handicap.

~~~
mwpolen
I failed to make my point...sorry. A human rated 3200 would win more than 4
games even given the restrictions against a GM rated ~2550. Ratings are not as
as transferrable as one would think, especially when a computer is involved.

------
cubedice
Pardon my ignorance, but why is it that Deep Blue can't be recreated on a
reasonably fast modern PC in software? In fact, why is it that this sort of
program would be considered difficult at all?

EDIT: answered my own question via wikipedia

"In a recent match, Deep Fritz vs. Vladimir Kramnik in November 2006, the
program ran on a personal computer containing two Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs,
capable of evaluating only 8 million positions per second, but searching to an
average depth of 17 to 18 plies in the middlegame."

------
jah
Here's a link to the games from the 1997 match. The game logs (showing Deep
Blue's actual output) are pretty fascinating.

<http://www.research.ibm.com/deepblue/watch/html/c.html>

