Are these engines dead?

[Gábor Szots]

Hi all,

Just a list of engines the development of which seems to have stopped.

Abrok
Bestia
Betsy
Bringer (announced)
Comet
Esc
EXChess
Fortress
Francesca
Gaviota
Genesis
Gromit
Hagrid (Replaced by Snitch.)
InmiChess
LambChop (Replaced by Warp, private.)
Leila
Madeleine
Nejmet
Patzer
Pepito
Phalanx
RESP
Ruffian
Scidlet
Sunsetter
Terra (To be replaced by a new engine by Peter.)

I hope there is still life in at least some of them.

[Roger Brown]

Hello Gabor,

ExChess has been dormant for an age.

Uli is working on Comet but I suspect that his engine has reached a plateau. It will take an inspired bit of code to revitalise it. Uli is certainly able and knowledgeable. I do hope that he is willing. Comet is favourite of mine.

The authors of Gromit seem to be pursuing commercial interests so further free releases may be far and few between.

Ruffian has gone commercial. The problem with that engine is that it really was so strong when it burst on the scene that I believe that its author really cannot top that effort easily. The later engines were not markedly better than the free engines. Again inspiration is needed and again the author is capable and knowledgeable. Willing?

Scidlet's author seems to have retired from programming - well at least for public consumption - as the Scid project is being developed by others. I do not know how that will work out.

Like you I hope that life persists



Later.

[Peter Fendrich]

Regarding Terra my aim was to release Terra 3.3 as the final Terra release. My problem is that I lost my beta 11 code and it will take some time to find back. I'm not sure if I ever will give it the time needed. Maybe during Christmas until New Year. Otherwise probably no 3.3 release at all. Sorry.

/Peter

[Richard Pijl]

Gromit is now Anaconda (due to legal issues) and is still being developed.
Richard.

[Peter Berger]

[quote="G?bor Szots"]Hi all,

Just a list of engines the development of which seems to have stopped.

Comet

I hope there is still life in at least some of them.[/quote]


I am afraid that the development of Comet is at least on hold. I read Uli recently, who wrote he hasn't worked on it for more than a year and is currently not interested in computerchess.

Peter

[Dann Corbit]

Hello Gabor,

ExChess has been dormant for an age.
(snip)

But Dan Homan is working on a new version.

[Alessandro Damiani]

I am working on a new release of Fortress. It will be back!

Rgds,
Alessandro

[Gábor Szots]

I am working on a new release of Fortress. It will be back!

Rgds,
Alessandro

That's really good news, Alessandro! Thanks for giving us a sign.

Regards,
G?bor

[Tecumseh]

while sunsetter himself is on hold, his younger brother has already been born. in fact she has already uttered her first few words ...

I hope that after I have finished this book project Ive been working on and get done with bar exams I might have some time to teach her to speak in full sentences.

Cheers,
Georg

[Pallav Nawani]

while sunsetter himself is on hold, his younger brother has already been born. in fact she has already uttered her first few words ...

Cheers,
Georg

Hi,
That is good to know
However, sunsetter's URL you posted is not correct. It should be:

http://sunsetter.sourceforge.net/

Pallav

[Thomas Mayer]

Hi Gabor,

just some notes:

> Abrok

Afaik Roman is still working at his engine... if I remember correctly he stated something like that last summer when I met him at playchess.com.

> Bestia

Well, maybe ask George ?!

> Betsy

I think Landon does not work all the time at his engine, but I am sure there will be once a new version...

> Bringer (announced)

Well, that is known, maybe he will return once, Peter told me once, that he had started with a new engine...

> Comet

Uli seems to take a brake... He will return, I am sure...

> Esc

Haven't heard much from the italian chess community, anyway, afaik Esc still takes part at the italian computer chess championships... -> there are some rumours that 2006 the WCCC will take part in Italy at Torino... I am sure he will be back then.

> EXChess

There was already something said in this thread...

> Fortress

I wait myself for that one, Fortress was one of the first winboard engines which found it's way on my hard drive...

> Genesis

Omid is as far as I know no longer working at Genesis. 2003 and 2004 he named is program Falcon and take part at the WCCCs. At WBEC, his program has the name Maestro and shows quite good performance.

> Gromit

The predecessor is Anaconda... We will see in Paderborn how good it is this year...

> InmiChess

Afaik he has stopped development and is busy with his family...

> Patzer

Well, I will meet Roland at wdnesday... I think currently there is no new public version at the horizon...

> Ruffian

seems to be silent around Ruffian currently... Maybe Frank Quisinsky or Lokasoft can tell more here...

Greets, Thomas

[Gábor Szots]

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for the news.

Hmm... what's the case with Quark? There's been a long time since v2.35...

G?bor

[Thomas Mayer]

Hi G?bor,

Thanks for the news.

Hmm... what's the case with Quark? There's been a long time since v2.35...

well, Quark is in development... Currently I am at v2.53, I think something like 2.55 or .56 will play in Paderborn... When I have something remarkable stronger, I will inform you here.

Anyway, since interest has lowered the last two years, I doubt that I will release a version -> might work this time the other way, when I have something I will announce it here and you can eMail me, if you want the new version... this way maybe only those which really have interest will get the engine, because lately I must say there was very low feedback... I know that Quark has some huge positional weaknesses others of its strength do not have, I still hope some may put my nose on it, because I am myself too weak in chess to extract the motifs where it misses.

Greets, Thomas

[Tom King]

Hi all,

Just a list of engines the development of which seems to have stopped.

[snip]
Francesca
[snip]

I hope there is still life in at least some of them.

Is is bad form to reply to a six month old posting?!

Almost dead.. but not quite. Well, to be honest I haven't looked at the code for Francesca for a year or so. However, a recent email has spurred me into action (fixing a bug), and I have moved my source code over to my new PC, so who knows? I'd like to create a new version compiled with Visual Studio .net, and bigger hash tables, so watch this space.

As I've been out of the scene for so long, what are the major improvements which programmers have been applying in the last 18 months?

Regards,
Tom King

[Gábor Szots]

Hi all,

Just a list of engines the development of which seems to have stopped.

[snip]
Francesca
[snip]

I hope there is still life in at least some of them.

Is is bad form to reply to a six month old posting?!

Almost dead.. but not quite. Well, to be honest I haven't looked at the code for Francesca for a year or so. However, a recent email has spurred me into action (fixing a bug), and I have moved my source code over to my new PC, so who knows? I'd like to create a new version compiled with Visual Studio .net, and bigger hash tables, so watch this space.

As I've been out of the scene for so long, what are the major improvements which programmers have been applying in the last 18 months?

Regards,
Tom King

Hi Tom,

Good to hear from you. A new Francesca would be most welcome. Could you not make the hash table size settable? I for one use 128 MB in my tournaments but others may prefer smaller or bigger.

As for improvements on the scene, perhaps you should visit Leo's site (WBEC Ridderkerk, link below). The field has got extremely strong lately!

Regards,
G?bor

[Volker Pittlik]

...
Is is bad form to reply to a six month old posting?!...

Not at all but it would be nice if you could change your user name in your profile to:

Tom King

Best regards and welcome back

Volker

[Tord Romstad]

As I've been out of the scene for so long, what are the major improvements which programmers have been applying in the last 18 months?

Hi Tom,

As far as I know, there are no recent algorithmic breakthroughs or exciting new ideas. Nevertheless, the general level of strength has improved enormously. I think there are two main reasons for this.

The first reason is that more programmers have realised the immense importance of avoiding bugs. Compared to a couple of years ago, there seems to be less focus on raw speed, and more focus on stability, simplicity and efficient search.

The second reason is that programmers no longer try to copy Crafty as much as before. Until recently, it seemed to be a commonly held belief that a strong chess engine had to resemble Crafty. By now we all know that this is wrong, and people are more willing to do things in their own, independent way.

There are also a few changes I would classify as trends rather than improvements. It seems to me that checks in the qsearch, high null move reduction factors, and late move reductions (my term for history reductions and related techniques) are becoming more popular, while bitboards are becoming less popular.

Tord

[Robert Allgeuer]

... while bitboards are becoming less popular.

Tord

Is this true? What about the strong newcomers such as Spike, Pseudo, Naum, Scorpio etc. No bitboarders amongst them?
If it were so it would be remarkable: Just at the moment when 64 bit computing is becoming commonly available - and bitboards would benefit most (30% in the Crafty SPEC benchmark) - engine programmers would turn away from it ...

Robert

[Uri Blass]

As I've been out of the scene for so long, what are the major improvements which programmers have been applying in the last 18 months?

Hi Tom,

As far as I know, there are no recent algorithmic breakthroughs or exciting new ideas. Nevertheless, the general level of strength has improved enormously. I think there are two main reasons for this.

The first reason is that more programmers have realised the immense importance of avoiding bugs. Compared to a couple of years ago, there seems to be less focus on raw speed, and more focus on stability, simplicity and efficient search.

The second reason is that programmers no longer try to copy Crafty as much as before. Until recently, it seemed to be a commonly held belief that a strong chess engine had to resemble Crafty. By now we all know that this is wrong, and people are more willing to do things in their own, independent way.

There are also a few changes I would classify as trends rather than improvements. It seems to me that checks in the qsearch, high null move reduction factors, and late move reductions (my term for history reductions and related techniques) are becoming more popular, while bitboards are becoming less popular.

Tord

Hi Tord,
I do not agree that there are no exciting new ideas.

I think that there are new ideas and you are one of the people who post them.

history reduction is one example of an idea(originally posted by the programmer of smarthink and used in fruit)

Crafty simply does not use many productive ideas like history pruning and it is the reason that significant number of amateurs got above the level of Crafty.

I think that copying from free source programs is one of the reason for the progress.

My opinion is that in part of the cases it is simply cloning other programs and if the cloner is smart enough I doubt if people will find that program X is a clone but in part of the cases it is not cloning and if people understand some ideas that are used in fruit and find that using the same ideas help in their program then it can improve the level of their programs.

Uri

[Tord Romstad]

... while bitboards are becoming less popular.

Is this true?

I don't really know. Notice that I was careful and began my sentence with "it seems to me that ...".

What about the strong newcomers such as Spike, Pseudo, Naum, Scorpio etc. No bitboarders amongst them?

I am pretty sure Scorpio doesn't use bitboards, but I don't know about the other three. Perhaps the authors could tell us?

If it were so it would be remarkable: Just at the moment when 64 bit computing is becoming commonly available - and bitboards would benefit most (30% in the Crafty SPEC benchmark) - engine programmers would turn away from it ...

I would like to point out that I didn't list the decreasing popularity of bitboards as an improvement in amateur computer chess, but just as a trend. I think the reason for this trend (if my assumption that there is such a trend is correct, of course) is to be found in one of the other statements I made: Crafty is no longer quite as dominant as a source of ideas and inspiration as it used to be a few years back.

Tord