Norman Schmidt

Home * People * Norman Schmidt

Norman Schmidt, an American professional software engineer and avocational chess programmer, who resides in Belgium. He studied mathematics, computer science, systems engineering and network engineering at University of Massachusetts, and music at Boston Conservatory and Berklee College of Music. Concerning computer chess, he is proponent of not reinventing the wheel, and has cooperated with the Ippolit and RobboLito comrades and Decembrists, and led the effort to debug, stabilize, and improve Ippolit source code releases, translated RobboLito from Italo-Albanian dialect to English, and put RobboLito versions and his own derivate Fire under the GNU GPL. Beside IvanHoe, he hosts his own Fruit and Toga derivative Cyclone, and works with Dmitri Gusev and Matthew R. Brades on Firenzina.

=Derivatives= In 2008, Norman Schmidt tried to distribute his Fruit and Toga derivative xyclOps commercially until it was suspected as clone by Matthias Gemuh and others. After Norman Schmidt freely volunteered to refund his customers, he announced Cyclone based on Fruit and Toga as open source engine. Further derivative programs by Norman Schmidt were TogaToy, Cyclops , Alderon, Demon, and Crimson, based on Viper , and more recently Jinx based on Fridolin , Tomcat based on Bobcat, and Seagull based on Gull.

=ChessLogik= Norman Schmidt operated and maintained the ChessLogik.com' site since 2007, to distribute his projects and other open-source chess engines to hobbyists. Claiming fair-mindedness and many programs and the chess community have taken benefit from his contributions and improvements, he substantiates the suspicion that Houdini 1.0 by Robert Houdart is based on his and Sentinel's GNU public licensed RobboLito 0.085g3. Due to that accusation of misuse, and the Espin case with the SquarknII clone their Robbolito versions 0.085 and 0.09 are no longer available for download from the ChessLogik sites.

=Forum Posts=

2008

 * Re: Strelka Reverse Engineered from Rybka: Details Examined by Norman Schmidt, CCC, May 31, 2008
 * xyclOps 1.2 is available by Norman Schmidt, CCC, July 05, 2008
 * Re: xyclOps, a clone ? by Norman Schmidt, CCC, July 11, 2008
 * open apology to the chess engine community by Norman Schmidt, CCC, July 12, 2008
 * Cyclone 1.0 beta by Norman Schmidt, CCC, July 26, 2008
 * Cylone 1.0 beta now available by Norman Schmidt, CCC, July 27, 2008
 * Cyclone 1.0 and Cyclops 1.0 available by Norman Schmidt, CCC, August 04, 2008
 * Derivatives are real programs too by Norman Schmidt, CCC, August 04, 2008
 * Here's something to start with by Norman Schmidt, CCC, August 26, 2008 » Rybka, Rybka Controversy
 * GPL guideline by Norman Schmidt, CCC, August 29, 2008

2009

 * TogaToy 1.0 by Norman Schmidt, CCC, July 04, 2009
 * Crimson 1.1 available by Norman Schmidt, CCC, July 05, 2009

2010 ...

 * Re: Deep Saros 2.3c5 Free UCI Engine is out by Norman Schmidt, CCC, Apr 14, 2011 » Roberto Munter, Deep Saros
 * Houdini, Fire, IvanHoe, (and Rybka?) are 'clones'...? by Norman Schmidt, CCC, April 30, 2011
 * Re: Houdini with 1:1 Robbolito-code? by Norman Schmidt, CCC, October 12, 2011
 * I don't get it... by Norman Schmidt, CCC, October 18, 2011 » Ippolit, Strelka
 * In support of the IvanHoe authors by Norman Schmidt, CCC, August 16, 2013 » IvanHoe

2015 ...

 * Live engine tournament by Norman Schmidt, CCC, March 26, 2015
 * Open-source improvements released by Norman Schmidt, CCC, June 26, 2017 » Fridolin, Bobcat, Gull
 * Chess.com Computer Chess Championship by Norman Schmidt, CCC, September 13, 2017
 * Reactions about AlphaZero from top GMs... by Norman Schmidt, CCC, December 08, 2017 » AlphaZero
 * Photo of Google Cloud TPU cluster by Norman Schmidt, CCC, December 09, 2017 » AlphaZero
 * Fire 7 by Norman Schmidt, CCC, May 21, 2018
 * Ethereal 10.88 NUMA by Norman Schmidt, CCC, August 24, 2018 » Ethereal, NUMA

=External Links=
 * www.chesslogik.com
 * Fire – the chess engine releases a new version, Chessdom, October 02, 2017 » TCEC Season 10
 * FireFather · GitHub by Norman Schmidt

=References= Up one level