Ziggurat CE by David C. Norris

[Norbert Raimund Leisner]

Hello togwther,

can anybody tell me whether Ziggurat v0.19 was released or not ?
Last search with Wayback-Machine for the year 2012 contains version 0.18 only.

On a Czech website http://www.multiweb.cz/max.rubin/download.htm
(for Windows 3.1x, WinRAR-file)) I found v0.0 with own interface.

Does this "legacy" software belong to the same author or is it just a coincidental "homonymy" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonym
like Spark(Chess) or Capa Chess from different authors?

I contacted David via email, but got no raply from him.

Best wishes.
Norbert

[Ajedrecista]

Hello Norbert:

can anybody tell me whether Ziggurat v0.19 was released or not ?

I contacted David via email, but got no raply from him.

Best wishes.
Norbert

Here is the version history of Ziggurat:

http://mysite.verizon.net/vze16nq0r/id1.html

5/26/13 - V0.20 - I ported Ziggurat to C#, but the program ran so slowly that it became extremely uncompetitive. However, the port did uncover a few bugs. I have reverted back to the C version. This version has some improvements that make it superior to V.18: aspiration window in root search, PVS/ZWS, delta pruning, a bug in 3-fold repetition, and a bug in end game evaluation parameters. This version scored ELO 2210 in the Bratko-Kopec test suite.

9/14/11 - V0.18 - This version has a greatly expanded set of evaluation parameters which are all exposed via UCI setoption commands. The ziggurat.ini file contains the current set of evaluation parameters (though if the file is not present Ziggurat will default to the latest set of tuned parameters). This parameter set has been tuned using Ziggurat's genetic algorithm for about two weeks, though tuning was still showing improvement in successive generations when I stopped it.

8/22/11 - V0.17 - A bug was fixed in move sorting where the principal variation was lost during a pawn promotion. This would cause Ziggurat to find a mating solution, then forget it on the next ply, only to find it again - if it had time to search long enough. The null move heuristic and razoring have been turned on. Some more genetic tuning of the evaluation function.

[...]

It looks like version 0.19 was never released. It could be a development version (just speculating).

Regards from Spain.

Ajedrecista.

[tmokonen]

Does this "legacy" software belong to the same author or is it just a coincidental "homonymy" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonym
like Spark(Chess) or Capa Chess from different authors?

It's no coincidence. The original version of Ziggurat was a 16 bit Windows chess program written by David Norris. It was included as part of Microsoft Windows Entertainment Pack 4. Ziggurat was an improvement on his older program WinChess.

http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Ziggurat

[Sylwy]

On a Czech website http://www.multiweb.cz/max.rubin/download.htm
(for Windows 3.1x, WinRAR-file)) I found v0.0 with own interface.

Does this "legacy" software belong to the same author or is it just a coincidental "homonymy" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonym
like Spark(Chess) or Capa Chess from different authors?

I contacted David via email, but got no raply from him.

Best wishes.
Norbert

Hello Norbert !

From the Saint Bible of 16-bit chess programs (septober web page ): Yes it is Ziggurat 0.0 by Mr.David Norris !

Best to you !
SilvianR