From: Nick Bardsley <nbardsley <at> KEYNOTE <dot> CO <dot> UK>
Date: 14 sep 2000
Subject: Re: Computer's rating

[resources have not been devoted to Shogi programming to the extent they
have to Chess]

>      Of course this is part of the reason, but I believe that the main
> reason is that shogi requires more powerful hardware than chess (for a
> given level of performance), which was not available 15 years ago.

I'm unsure we should mix questions of software with questions of hardware
(though, in reality they are intimately bound up with one another).
I'm not at all convinced that Shogi _requires_ more powerful hardware.
Perhaps, however, it does. Expert views would be most welcome.

> [...] I believe that if equal effort
> had been made from the beginning, computer shogi would still be at least a
> decade behind computer chess.

>  In 1985, the best chess program running on an original IBM
> pc ("xt" model) (8088 processor) already played well enough
> to beat the majority of tournament chess players.  In shogi terms it was
> perhaps about 1 Dan or so.
> So the question is: if one of today's best shogi programs were
> modified as necessary to run on an old IBM xt machine, how
> well would it play?  My own guess would be 10 kyu or even worse, but I've
> only worked on chess software, not shogi software so I'm not fully
qualified to say.
> Shogi programmers reading this, please give us your opinions
> on this question.

I claim no expertise but this is a hardware question which seems to me to be
a concern about speed rather than the 'thought' processes of the program
itself.
The top Shogi program, if as Larry says suitably modified to work on an IBM
xt,
need not suffer a diminution of 'skill' - it would just take far, far longer
to 'think'
about its moves (unacceptably long, I would have thought).

This means it could well be a very slow moving 4 dan.
(I dread to think how long an 'IBM xt 4 dan' would take to move... ;-]  )

Anyway, over to the experts...

Nick