From: Larry Kaufman <lkaufman <at> WIZARD <dot> NET>
Date: 14 sep 2000
Subject: Re: Computer's rating

At 04:08 PM 9/14/00 +0100, you wrote:

>> 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.

     Speed is not the only issue; the limitations of DOS and the size of
memory in the pc back then may also be critical factors for shogi, though
again only a shogi programmer can tell us.

>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.

     All ranks (in chess or shogi) assume some reasonable time limit.  In
tournaments clocks are used.  In club play without clocks players are still
expected to move at roughly a minute per move on average or faster; if a
player took much more than this either the director would say something, or
else soon no one would agree to play him.  To ignore the time element in
giving a ranking is not valid.  If I could take a thousand times as long as
an average pro per move (and 1000 is roughly the speed factor we are
discussing) I believe I would have fairly equal (or even superior) chances
in an (otherwise) even game (I actually once beat a pro in an even game
with only a 2-1 time handicap).  If so, can I claim to be a slow moving
pro?  I think not.

>(I dread to think how long an 'IBM xt 4 dan' would take to move... ;-]  )
>
     Well, a thousand minutes is about 17 hours.  But due to tiny memory,
even with that much time I suspect it would be far below 4 Dan.

>Anyway, over to the experts...
>
>Nick
>
     Larry