Colossus X in D-fend and in PC

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Fernando
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Colossus X in D-fend and in PC

Post by Fernando »

Probably this info has been published here once and again, but I have not an archiove about this, so let me ask how much strong is Colossus X running in D-fend and a fast PC.
It is a nice program as every one by his programmer.

Fern
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Tibono2
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Post by Tibono2 »

Hi Fernando,
circa 1950 TMHO
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Fernando
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Post by Fernando »

Tibono2 wrote:Hi Fernando,
circa 1950 TMHO
WHY TMHO?
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Tibono2
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Post by Tibono2 »

because my opinion is based on a small set of games (24).

Since 2 years I stopped using DosBox (D-Fend engine) at full power except for "recent" programs (years 2000+).
I now throttle the emulator according to CPU common expected performance, consistent with the year the chess program went on the market.

Colossus X birth year being 1990, I now play it emulating a 80386@16Mhz.
This way it's "elo" strength drops to circca 1670.
cheers,
Tibono
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spacious_mind
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Post by spacious_mind »

Tibono2 wrote:because my opinion is based on a small set of games (24).

Since 2 years I stopped using DosBox (D-Fend engine) at full power except for "recent" programs (years 2000+).
I now throttle the emulator according to CPU common expected performance, consistent with the year the chess program went on the market.

Colossus X birth year being 1990, I now play it emulating a 80386@16Mhz.
This way it's "elo" strength drops to circca 1670.
cheers,
Tibono
Good way of doing your tests. That's what I like about DOSBox you can control your speeds to match hardware.

I do the same but my tests are more around old ELO lists. I can see the reasons for it because of the amount of testing that would be required but I had always found the old lists unsatisfactory in the way some old programs or program versions were dropped at a specific hardware and not rated with newer hardware.

For example some programs stopped at 486-33, some at 486-66 etc etc.

So it is nice to be able to create your own tests to fill gaps in historical information.

Best regards
Nick
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Post by IvenGO »

I do prefer to set the same hardware emulation speed in D-FEND for all chess programs for a clear software comparison...
Martin Hertz
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Post by Martin Hertz »

Hi Fernando,

here is the result of a tournament under real DOS at full speed (two 2.0 GHz notebooks) and 30 sec/move average:

Code: Select all

                         MC5   Gid   CG3   WCh   Soc   MC1   CST   Fr2   Rex   Psi   Col   CPl   Tur

 1. M-Chess Pro 5.0       *    2.0   2.5   2.5   4.0   3.0   3.0   3.5   2.5   4.0   3.5   3.5   4.0     38.0/48   2530

 2. Gideon Pro 1.0       2.0    *    2.0   2.5   2.0   2.5   2.5   3.0   3.5   4.0   4.0   4.0   4.0     36.0/48   2490

 3. Chess Genius 3.0     1.5   2.0    *    2.0   3.0   3.0   3.0   3.0   4.0   3.0   3.0   4.0   4.0     35.5/48   2480

 4. WChess 1.05          1.5   1.5   2.0    *    3.5   2.0   1.5   2.5   3.0   3.0   3.0   4.0   4.0     31.5/48   2410

 5. Socrates 3.0         0.0   2.0   1.0   0.5    *    2.5   2.5   3.5   4.0   3.0   3.0   3.5   4.0     29.5/48   2380

 6. M-Chess 1.70         1.0   1.5   1.0   2.0   1.5    *    3.0   1.5   2.0   4.0   4.0   3.0   4.0     28.5/48   2370

 7. Chess System Tal     1.0   1.5   1.0   2.5   1.5   1.0    *    2.5   2.0   4.0   4.0   3.5   3.5     28.0/48   2360

 8. Fritz 2.51           0.5   1.0   1.0   1.5   0.5   2.5   1.5    *    3.0   3.0   3.5   3.5   4.0     25.5/48   2320

 9. RexChess 2.30        1.5   0.5   0.0   1.0   0.0   2.0   2.0   1.0    *    4.0   3.0   4.0   3.0     22.0/48   2270

10. Psion 2.13           0.0   0.0   1.0   1.0   1.0   0.0   0.0   1.0   0.0    *    3.0   3.5   4.0     14.5/48   2150

11. Colossus X           0.5   0.0   1.0   1.0   1.0   0.0   0.0   0.5   1.0   1.0    *    2.0   3.5     11.5/48   2100

12. Chess Player 2150    0.5   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.5   1.0   0.5   0.5   0.0   0.5   2.0    *    3.0      8.5/48   2030

13. Turbo Chess          0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.5   0.0   1.0   0.0   0.5   1.0    *       3.0/48   1830
As you can see, Colossus X is not that strong, but surely an unpleasant opponent at that speed.
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BenRedic
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Re: Colossus X in D-fend and in PC

Post by BenRedic »

Fernando wrote:Probably this info has been published here once and again, but I have not an archiove about this, so let me ask how much strong is Colossus X running in D-fend and a fast PC.
It is a nice program as every one by his programmer.

Fern
If you want to see the real strength of Colossus on a modern PC you should try the Colossus 2008b UCI engine: https://web.archive.org/web/20160313072 ... essuci.htm. 2642 in CCRL 40/40 :-) Easy to install in Fritz or Arena.

Another side note: Chesstroid, who primarily tests engines for Android, has actually tested Colossus for C64 on normal speed, as well as Colossus for C64 with a 100x speedup: http://chesstroid.blogspot.no/2017/09/r ... 17-ft.html
Thank you for an interesting game.
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mclane
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Post by mclane »

Yes. Martin Bryant Made an UCI Version of His famous old program. A pity he is not continuing it. I remember he was one of the first who had a self learning opening book.
What seems like a fairy tale today may be reality tomorrow.
Here we have a fairy tale of the day after tomorrow....
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Bryan Whitby
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Post by Bryan Whitby »

Funny this because I asked on the TalkChess forum for a copy of Colossus 2008b earlier this month.

I play against Colossus with the Tarrasch GUI on my Windows 10 tablet and am really impressed with its attacking play.

Bryan
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