An interesting book with some insights on Bob's Cray Blitz
Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2011 4:07 am
As I am a compulsive collector, I like to collect everything in the fields that interest me. As a result, I frequently buy things without knowing what it will get me. My latest acquisition actually turned out as a very good surprise : Computer Chess II, by David E. Welsh and Boris Baczynskyj, WCB, 1985. As I yet possessed David E. Welsh's first "computer Chess" book, I bought this one too. And it is actually a very technical book, going with great details through computer chess history and programming. Just as an example, the book even describes alpha-beta pvs alternative algorithms, like the C* one. It even describes parallel algorithms (yes, the book dates back from 1985!). All this with Pascal sources.
More interestingly, the book has a big stock of rare pictures, most of them I never saw in any other book (and I have many!). There are dozens of them, but I'll share some with you, as they involve one of our dear comrade
Here's the gang, about to win the 1983 world computer chess championship with their program Cray Blitz, running on the monster Cray X-MP computer. (Tester told us last month that Apple's new iPad 2 is twice as fast ^^ )
What a picture! Ken Thompson and Mikhail Botvinnik!
Even better: Bob and Botvinnik. Now you know Bob can smile! ^^
@Bob
There's a big chapter dedicated to Cray Blit's history. If you don't have this book, I'd be glad to scan it to you (the chapter, not the 400 pages of the book). Here's its first page, for instance (cropped) :
More interestingly, the book has a big stock of rare pictures, most of them I never saw in any other book (and I have many!). There are dozens of them, but I'll share some with you, as they involve one of our dear comrade
Here's the gang, about to win the 1983 world computer chess championship with their program Cray Blitz, running on the monster Cray X-MP computer. (Tester told us last month that Apple's new iPad 2 is twice as fast ^^ )
What a picture! Ken Thompson and Mikhail Botvinnik!
Even better: Bob and Botvinnik. Now you know Bob can smile! ^^
@Bob
There's a big chapter dedicated to Cray Blit's history. If you don't have this book, I'd be glad to scan it to you (the chapter, not the 400 pages of the book). Here's its first page, for instance (cropped) :