cracraft@VENERA.ISI.EDU (Stuart Cracraft) (12/05/87)
Ken,
This might be of interest to the AI readership. I'll leave the
decision up to you...
*** C.R.A. Rates Commercial Chess Machines at American Open ***
by Stuart Cracraft (copyright (C) 1987, 1988)
At the American Open, held during the Thanksgiving holidays, three chess
machines were certified. Certification involved having each machine play
48 rated games against strong human opposition. The result is a rating for
the machine.
The three manufacturers who submitted machines for certification are as
follows.
Fidelity submitted a machine that is still somewhat of a mystery.
[Editorial comment: C.R.A. policy should be amended to require full
disclosure by the manufacturer. --Stuart] Fidelity representatives refused
to reveal information about the micro-chip(s) inside the machine,
memory-size, and search-speed. (Rumor has it that this was a 16mhz 68020
with a minimum of 128K memory for transposition table. Rumor also has it
that this would be prohibitively expensive to market.)
Mephisto came with the much-acclaimed Mephisto "Dallas" program in the
commercial Mephisto Mondial unit (available exactly as it was in the
certification, from U.S.C.F. for about $400) the winner of the 1986
world-micro championship (when running on a 28mhz 68020 which is available
from Mephisto commercially only at 14mhz). At certification time, it was
running at 12 mhz on a 68000.
Novag came with the "Super-Expert" a follow-on to the Novag Expert.
Super-Expert ran at 6mhz and contained a 6502 processor.
Due to variations and fluctuations in the ratings of the machine's
opponents and the actual certification rating process itself (a
complicated procedure), no final rating-per-machine was calculated, though
estimates are available. Please remember that these are estimates only
and that the actual, final, certified rating will be available shortly.
Please also note that unless the machine is commercially available exactly
as it existed at certification time, the certified rating is not available
for advertisment purposes nor can the manufacturer place the C.R.A.
rating seal on any other machine.
So, with that disclaimer aside, here are the results of the tournament,
and at the very end are the estimates ratings for each manufacturer's
entry. Results consist of six-games per round, organized in tabular
format. A 0 means a loss for machine, .5 means a draw, and 1 means
a win for the machine. The ratings are of the human opponent
the machine played.
Round 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Fidelity (16mhz 68020? with 128K+ memory for transposition? by the Spracklens)
2300-0 2185-0 2139-.5 2067-1 2256-0 2144-.5 2116-0 2274-1
2283-0 2204-0 2175-0 1778-1 2244-0 2115-1 2105-1 2103-0
2209-.5 2244-0 2260-1 2226-1 2351-0 2119-1 2161-1 2434-1
2129-1 1969-.5 2163-0 2183-0 2067-1 2073-1 2055-0 2002-1
1966-1 2175-0 2168-0 2122-.5 2134-0 2191-1 2181-1 2106-.5
1944-1 2106-1 1963-1 1954-1 1970-1 1987-1 1890-1 1866-1
Mephisto (12mhz 68000 with "Dallas" program by Richard Lang)
2286-0 2189-0 2137-0 2242-1 2243-.5 2250-0 2183-0 1871-1
2267-0 2179-.5 2000-1 2069-1 2140-.5 2227-0 2123-.5 2058-.5
2145-1 2216-0 2145-1 1929-1 2358-0 2074-1 2171-0 2172-.5
2139-0 2174-1 2109-1 2167-.5 2175-0 1966-1 2127-0 2006-1
2298-0 2119-1 1953-.5 2156-1 2117-.5 1958-1 2145-1 2053-1
1924-0 1875-1 2182-0 1962-1 1947-.5 2109-1 2216-0 2030-1
Novag (6 mhz 6502 with "Super-Expert" program by David Kittinger)
2294-.5 2262-.5 2261-.5 2320-.5 2250-0 2213-1 2217-0 2235-0
2274-0 2209-0 1958-0 1966-.5 2115-0 2000-0 2145-1 1992-1
2264-1 2389-0 2257-0 2219-0 2249-0 2068-1 2206-.5 2233-1
2144-0 2122-1 2114-0 2074-0 2053-1 2160-1 2092-1 2000-1
2137-0 2106-0 2156-1 2069-0 2050-.5 2089-1 2010-1 2167-0
1854-1 1950-1 1922-1 1941-.5 1989-0 1952-1 1814-1 2157-1
Estimated ratings:
Fidelity Experimental (not currently commercially available):
USCF 2190-2200
Mephisto Mondial 68000 XL (just becoming available commercially):
USCF 2150-2160
Novag Super-Expert (just becoming available commercially):
An estimated rating for this machine is complicated by
the fact that the first 30-games of the certification
were played with a selective-search feature, and the last
18-games were played with the feature disabled (done with C.R.A.
permission.) C.R.A. agency extended an invitation to Novag to use the
latter 18 games as the first 18 games of a new certification
(requiring 30 more games be played).
The overall concensus is that a commercial master will first become
available in one year or less. Certainly, the prestige associated with
being the manufacturer of such a product, especially if attractively
priced, would be immense. There is clearly a race to be the first
manufacturuer to do so.
Stuart
-------