Nekonomicon - SGI trivia

Oskar45
From Vienna, Austria
Who joined Dec. 5, 2005, 2:35 a.m.

Wrote the following at March 17, 2016, 6:10 a.m...

Only 10(!) years ago it was shown that Checkers is a first-player draw: starting from the standard opening position on an 8x8 board, either player can force at least a draw with best play.

But back in 1992, Marion Tinsley - the undisputed #1 (human) checkers player of all time - played against Jonathan Schaeffer's program *Chinook*, with the final result of 4 wins and 2 losses for Tinsley, and 33 draws.

Said match was sponsored by SGI ('Silicon Graphics World Checkers Championship'). Anyone knows on which box Chinook was running then?

371- 528 - 818 - ?

dexter1
Moderator
From Zoetermeer, The Netherlands
Who joined Feb. 20, 2003, 6:57 a.m.

Wrote the following at March 17, 2016, 6:24 a.m...

I don't have details to the 1992 match, but i have found an article which deals with the 1994 rematch on
http://web.archive.org/web/200608290857 ... inook.html

From that article i extracted:

The supercomputer itself stands unobtrusively off to the left of the stage. It belongs to a high-performance line of Silicon Graphics machines prophetically named the "Challenge." It weighs 1200 pounds, and is about the size of a large refrigerator. The box's black exterior offers few clues as to what it contains (16 processors and the cooling apparatus required to keep them from overheating); the only hints are the words " Silicon Graphics Challenge XL " on the front of the unit and, beneath those words, a small liquid-crystal display panel. The Chinook program that the machine is running (or might it be more helpful to think of the program as running the machine?) consists of roughly 50,000 lines of code in the C programming language, together with an enormous data-base of codified checkers-knowledge that has been years in the making.

Note: From the article (it's rather big) i inferred that the Challenge was a new machine for the 1994 match. So by reasoning they must have had a pre-challenge system in 1992, but the only quote i could find was:

Schaeffer also arranged to run Chinook on a new Silicon Graphics multi-processor computer.

So which SGI MP machine was new in 1992? The only multiprocessor systems in SGI at the time were Powerseries, so either a Diehard 4D/440 or a Predator 4D/380 or 480 comes to mind...

Edit: found it, it was a 4D/480. There is a thesis about the chinook program here: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/do ... 1&type=pdf

jan-jaap
Donor
From Wijchen, The Netherlands
Who joined June 17, 2004, 11:35 a.m.

Wrote the following at March 17, 2016, 6:54 a.m...

dexter1 wrote: Edit: found it, it was a 4D/480. There is a thesis about the chinook program here: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/do ... 1&type=pdf

I want it, so I can put my 4D/380 to work :mrgreen:

To accentuate the special identity of the IRIS 4D/70, Silicon Graphics' designers selected a new color palette. The machine's coating blends dark grey, raspberry and beige colors into a pleasing harmony. ( IRIS 4D/70 Superworkstation Technical Report )

ivelegacy
From Italy
Who joined Jan. 4, 2015, 5:12 a.m.

Wrote the following at March 17, 2016, 7 a.m...

say the " Parallella " might be a valid modern alternative

I wish I could enter into the vegetable garden of William Gibson , on the right of a director, to decide how a film is ultimately released for public viewing, but I am not a nor Cyberpunk writer neither a dude in Hollywood , and my * flawless English * still looks like an old rusty trailer which needs a fix-up, so my personal wonderland begins with a pill ... tumbling down the rabbit hole , where the sky above the router port is the color of television, tuned to a dead channel and some gears still need a debugger there.

vishnu
Donor
From Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
Who joined March 18, 2007, 3:25 p.m.

Wrote the following at March 17, 2016, 7:12 a.m...

Chinook homepage here, doesn't seem to contain the source code but as I'm at work I did not look exhaustively:

https://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~chinook/

Project:
Temporarily lost at sea...
Plan:
World domination! Or something...
:Tezro:

ivelegacy
From Italy
Who joined Jan. 4, 2015, 5:12 a.m.

Wrote the following at March 17, 2016, 7:38 a.m...

guys, I am developing an " A*/+ " modified algorithm, it might be good for path planning , it's written in " schoolmarm C "
interested

?

I wish I could enter into the vegetable garden of William Gibson , on the right of a director, to decide how a film is ultimately released for public viewing, but I am not a nor Cyberpunk writer neither a dude in Hollywood , and my * flawless English * still looks like an old rusty trailer which needs a fix-up, so my personal wonderland begins with a pill ... tumbling down the rabbit hole , where the sky above the router port is the color of television, tuned to a dead channel and some gears still need a debugger there.

Oskar45
From Vienna, Austria
Who joined Dec. 5, 2005, 2:35 a.m.

Wrote the following at March 17, 2016, 11:53 a.m...

ivelegacy wrote: guys, I am developing an " A*/+ " modified algorithm, it might be good for path planning , it's written in " schoolmarm C "
interested ?

That's quite OT. Start a new thread to get answers.

dexter1 wrote: Edit: found it, it was a 4D/480.

That's what I was after. I thank you for your help.

PS: in the 1994 match, after 6 games against Chinook - all draws - Tinsley resigned; 7 months later he died of cancer at the age of 68.

371- 528 - 818 - ?

uunix
Donor
From Stourbridge / England / UK
Who joined March 27, 2011, 12:48 p.m.

Wrote the following at March 17, 2016, 12:11 p.m...

Oskar45 wrote:

dexter1 wrote: Edit: found it, it was a 4D/480.

That's what I was after. I thank you for your help.

PS: in the 1994 match, after 6 games against Chinook - all draws - Tinsley resigned; 7 months later he died of cancer at the age of 68.

Just like War Games... And he didn't die!! :shock:

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SGI trivia