Re: [computer-go] question regarding Hydra Chess Supercomputer

[Don Dailey <drd@xxxxxxx>]

> >How many nodes per second are evaluating Hydra? ;)
> >Or it's a secret?
> >
> No secret. Simply forgot. Theoretically about 40 MPosition/sec. But one can
> not really compare it. E.g. Hardware search is less efficient than software
> search (no hashtables, search logic is simpler).

You say  hardware search  is less efficient  than software  search.  I
tried to make this  point a few years ago with regard  to Deep Blue on
the computer chess  group and got heavily criticized  by Bob Hyatt who
defended Deep Blue on this issue.  

His claim was  that Deep Blue is far better than  any PC program could
be even  doing the same  number of nodes  per second as Deep  Blue.  I
really thought this  was completely insane, but I  couldn't argue with
Bob who knows more about this than I do.

I couldn't figure how the  hash table implementation would be as good,
or  how the  evaluation  could be  as  good because  it's  so easy  to
engineer software code  than hardware code.  In fact,  it seemed to me
that if these  things were a problem, there  must be other compromises
that you  would either  have to make  or have slightly  less efficient
workarounds.

Bob was  so strong in  his opinion  that I just  had to shut  up.  His
conclusion was  that Deep Blue  had no compromises whatsoever  in it's
search and was  in fact more efficient and that  the evaluation was of
much higher quality than the PC programs.  I still don't believe this.

- Don
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