Hi Gian-Carlo, "Gian-Carlo Pascutto" <[email protected]> > On 29/05/2016 13:48, "Ingo Althöfer" wrote: > > ... ChessBase was founded in 1985 ... > > Very early Garry Kasparov (World Champion in those days, 1986) > > got involved and presented his use of the software in PR events. > > ... the obvious question here is: what were they actually using the > software for? Chess programs on PC's must've been very, very weak in 1986.
The best in 1986 were stand-alone machines (Mephisto), programmed by Richard Lang, rating about 2100. They improved quickly. > ... mostly for the database functionality > and variation saving during opening analysis right? (A strength of > Kasparov). Right, in the very first years. But in 1990, Karpov [sic!] already used a (stand-alone) chess computer (strength around 2250) for help in analysing adjourned games in his title match against Kasparov. In Winter 1990/91 ChessBase published the PC program Fritz which directly became an analysis engine for the database program. (And in November 1992, Fritz2 got rank 5 in the World Championships.) In Winter 1993/94 programs with k-best mode became available in the ChessBase software (strength around 2300 on normal PCs). One point is: The absolute strength of the program need not to be better than the strength of the player who uses it for analysis purposes. It is enough that the program is tactically strong. Another point: Once you have a database program with nice functionality, it is only a question of short time until it is supported by playing programs. > I suspect fuseki/joseki software already exists, not necessarily from > the same people selling the best engines. That ist the problem: Missing in the Go scene is a company with overall expertise and the will to push forward (supported by strong players). > On the other hand, commercial engines are probably close to breaking the > 1p barrier soon. At which point they'll become analysis tools even for > the higher echelon of players, if initial resistance to "a new thing" > can be overcome. And for that it would be very helpful to have a few popular top players using it. Ingo. _______________________________________________ Computer-go mailing list [email protected] http://computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go
