Re: computer-go: Is the Go Modem Protocol used in actual tournaments ?

[William Harold Newman <william.newman@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Jan 05, 2001 at 12:11:22PM +0000, Nick Wedd wrote:
> Darren Cook <darren@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
> >>The go modem protocol is used in most computer go tournaments.  Most progams
> >>implement it, and it is easy to set up the rs-232 connections.  A
> >network-based
> >>protocol would be nice, but setting up a network is a lot more work and 
> >>cost,
> >
> >Don't you mean the other way round? :-)
> >
> >Network cards are cheap, and many newer computers seem to come with a
> >connector on the motherboard. No messing around with baud rates, null modem
> >cables, different pin types, etc. (and don't some machines require you to
> >go into the BIOS to disable the internal modem/infra-red before the serial
> >connector will work?).
> 
> When I organise a computer Go tournament, with a mixture of PCs provided
> by the sponsor and various machines brought by the competitors, I find
> it quite easy to plug a modem cable into their serial ports, and maybe
> tell people what baud rate to use.
> 
> I really would not fancy getting my screwdriver out, installing network
> cards, and trying to install network drivers.   Also I doubt the
> sponsors would welcome this.

I wrote my own implementation of the necessary subset of Go Modem
Protocol long ago. (If anyone needs a Perl hack which speaks GMP on
its stdio while running your Go-playing engine as a Unix subprocess
and using its command line interface on *its* stdio, let me know.:-)
When I have to talk the IGS protocol, I use cgoban to translate
between GMP and IGSP. So I'm all set for GMP. And everything I've
heard from tournament organizers, here and at the AGA Congress,
suggests that GMP works pretty well in practice. However, I still
think it might be reasonable to switch over to the IGS protocol.

One thing that I really like about Ethernet connections and the
IGS protocol is that they're not pairwise connections between
contestants, but pairwise connections between contestants and the
tournament organizer's machine. That way, if there's a bug or failure
of some sort, you can tell which of the two contestants is responsible
for the broken link.

Another thing that I like about Ethernet connections and the IGS
protocol is that the tournament organizer could make the server
available over the Internet before the tournament, so that people
could test the compatibility of their protocol implementations in
advance.

Finally, I tend to agree with Darren Cook that modern networks in
general and Ethernet in particular are easier to connect to physically
and logically than serial ports are. I still own a serial breakout
box, but I'll be happiest if I never have to use it again. Of course
you'd have to require people to come with their network adaptors and
drivers already installed, but even today that's likely to be a
non-problem for most contestants, and it should be even less of a
problem as time goes on.

-- 
William Harold Newman <william.newman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
software consultant
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