Difference between revisions of "Blitz"

From Chessprogramming wiki
Jump to: navigation, search
 
(8 intermediate revisions by 2 users not shown)
Line 4: Line 4:
 
    
 
    
 
'''Blitz''',<br/>
 
'''Blitz''',<br/>
the first chess program by primary author [[Robert Hyatt]] and chess advisor [[Albert Gower]] from [[University of Southern Mississippi]]. Blitz was a [[Type B Strategy|Shannon Type B]] program written in [[Fortran]]. It played the [[ACM 1976]], [[ACM 1977]], the [[WCCC 1977]], [[ACM 1978]], the [[ACM 1979]] (ran on [[UNIVAC 1100|UNIVAC 1100/80]]), until at the [[ACM 1980]] successor [[Cray Blitz]] appeared.  
+
the first chess program by primary author [[Robert Hyatt]] and chess advisor [[Albert Gower]] from [[University of Southern Mississippi]]. Blitz was a [[Type B Strategy|Shannon Type B]] program written in [[Fortran]]. It played the [[ACM 1976]], [[ACM 1977]], the [[WCCC 1977]].  At this point it was rewritten as a [[Type A Strategy|Shannon Type A]] search due to the success of [[David Slate|Slate]]/[[Larry Atkin|Atkin]] and [[Chess (Program)#Chess 4.0 - 4.9|Chess 4.x]]. This version competed in the [[ACM 1978]], the [[ACM 1979]] (ran on [[UNIVAC 1100|UNIVAC 1100/80]]), until at the [[ACM 1980]] successor [[Cray Blitz]] appeared.  
  
 
=Description=
 
=Description=
Line 21: Line 21:
 
What do you mean by "not even a real [[Quiescence Search|quiescence search]]"?
 
What do you mean by "not even a real [[Quiescence Search|quiescence search]]"?
 
  I searched 5 plies and *quit*.  I did use a [[Static Exchange Evaluation|static exchange evaluator]] to determine if the tip moves were safe.  This was searching under 100 [[Nodes per Second|nodes per second]] on a machine that was rated at .7 MIPS.  This program finished in a 3-way tie for 2nd at the [[ACM 1976|1976 ACM]] computer chess tournament, but the following year I was "exhaustive"... :)  
 
  I searched 5 plies and *quit*.  I did use a [[Static Exchange Evaluation|static exchange evaluator]] to determine if the tip moves were safe.  This was searching under 100 [[Nodes per Second|nodes per second]] on a machine that was rated at .7 MIPS.  This program finished in a 3-way tie for 2nd at the [[ACM 1976|1976 ACM]] computer chess tournament, but the following year I was "exhaustive"... :)  
 +
 +
=Source Code=
 +
In November 2019, [[Robert Hyatt]] published the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_character_recognition OCRed] [[Fortran]] source code of version 6.9, dated 1977 <ref>[[File:Blitz69.zip]], courtesy of [[Robert Hyatt]] contains 66 [[Fortran]] files, likely with [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_character_recognition OCR] errors</ref> <ref>[http://www.talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=72255 oldie but goody] by [[Robert Hyatt]], [[CCC]], November 05, 2019</ref>
  
 
=See also=
 
=See also=
Line 29: Line 32:
 
* Editor ('''1979'''). ''Will Blitz be next year's champ?'' [[Personal Computing]], Vol. 3, No. 7, pp. 80, July 1979 » [[ACM 1978]], [[Belle#Blitz|Blitz 6.5 - Belle]], Round 4
 
* Editor ('''1979'''). ''Will Blitz be next year's champ?'' [[Personal Computing]], Vol. 3, No. 7, pp. 80, July 1979 » [[ACM 1978]], [[Belle#Blitz|Blitz 6.5 - Belle]], Round 4
 
* [[Robert Hyatt]] ('''1980'''). ''A Southern Blitz''. [[Personal Computing#4_6|Personal Computing, Vol. 4, No. 6]], pp. 93
 
* [[Robert Hyatt]] ('''1980'''). ''A Southern Blitz''. [[Personal Computing#4_6|Personal Computing, Vol. 4, No. 6]], pp. 93
 +
* [[Robert Hyatt]] ('''2020'''). ''The history of BLITZ/CRAY-BLITZ/CRAFTY''. [[ICGA Journal#42_23|ICGA Journal, Vol. 42, Nos. 2-3]]
 +
 +
=Forum Post=
 +
* [https://www.stmintz.com/ccc/index.php?id=14009 Re: Square-of-the-pawn] by [[Robert Hyatt]], [[CCC]], January 13, 1998 » [[Rule of the Square]]
 +
** [https://www.stmintz.com/ccc/index.php?id=14031 Re: Square-of-the-pawn] by [[Robert Hyatt]], [[CCC]], January 13, 1998
 +
* [http://www.talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=72255 oldie but goody] by [[Robert Hyatt]], [[CCC]], November 05, 2019 » [[#Source Code|Source Code]]
  
 
=External Links=  
 
=External Links=  
Line 40: Line 49:
 
=References=  
 
=References=  
 
<references />
 
<references />
 
 
'''[[Engines|Up one Level]]'''
 
'''[[Engines|Up one Level]]'''
 +
[[Category:Mainframe]]
 +
[[Category:Open Source]]
 +
[[Category:Fortran]]
 +
[[Category:Hyatt Quotes]]
 
[[Category:Meteorology]]
 
[[Category:Meteorology]]
 +
[[Category:Animation]]
 
[[Category:The Sweet]]
 
[[Category:The Sweet]]

Latest revision as of 15:14, 16 November 2020

Home * Engines * Blitz

Blitz [1]

Blitz,
the first chess program by primary author Robert Hyatt and chess advisor Albert Gower from University of Southern Mississippi. Blitz was a Shannon Type B program written in Fortran. It played the ACM 1976, ACM 1977, the WCCC 1977. At this point it was rewritten as a Shannon Type A search due to the success of Slate/Atkin and Chess 4.x. This version competed in the ACM 1978, the ACM 1979 (ran on UNIVAC 1100/80), until at the ACM 1980 successor Cray Blitz appeared.

Description

Bob Hyatt's reply to Christophe Théron on Blitz [2]:

Bob, what kind of selection did you use in this early "Blitz"?

It was a forward pruning search.  Basically searched roughly 6 moves at each ply, to a depth of 5 ply.  There was no capture search after it, just a complex (for the time) static evaluation that also used a Static Exchange Evaluator to make sure the last move was safe. 
The most interesting parts were the following:
1. It had about 30,000 lines of code dedicated to analyzing the set of legal moves at any ply and pick out the moves that appeared to be tactically or positionally promising.
2. It had a "causality analysis" procedure that was invoked at any point in the search where the score dropped. Since I found it hard to recognize I was in trouble and to select moves that would defend against threats that were hard to see from the "other side" I let my tactical analysis find good moves, and if it was successful, at the next ply, after searching a couple of moves and finding that the score was too low, this "causality" facility could look at the PV and figure out what was going wrong and then select moves that had a chance of "fixing" things.
Worked very well, was tactically very dangerous...  but made the typical positional mistakes that forward pruning programs do.  Entire program was over 80,000 lines of code, however. *very* big, when considering that Crafty is under 40,000 lines with a huge number of comments... 

What do you mean by "not even a real quiescence search"?

I searched 5 plies and *quit*.  I did use a static exchange evaluator to determine if the tip moves were safe.  This was searching under 100 nodes per second on a machine that was rated at .7 MIPS.  This program finished in a 3-way tie for 2nd at the 1976 ACM computer chess tournament, but the following year I was "exhaustive"... :) 

Source Code

In November 2019, Robert Hyatt published the OCRed Fortran source code of version 6.9, dated 1977 [3] [4]

See also

Publications

Forum Post

External Links

Chess Program

Misc

References

  1. Intercloud lightnings over Toulouse (France), August 12, 2006, original data by Sebastien D'Arco, Animation by Koba-chan, CC BY-SA 2.5, Wikimedia Commons, Blitz wikipedia.de (German)
  2. Re: Square-of-the-pawn by Robert Hyatt, CCC, January 13, 1998
  3. File:Blitz69.zip, courtesy of Robert Hyatt contains 66 Fortran files, likely with OCR errors
  4. oldie but goody by Robert Hyatt, CCC, November 05, 2019

Up one Level