Behind Deep Blue
Building The Computer That Defeated the World Chess Champion
by Feng-Hsiung HsuAccording to this book, four to five billion impressions were generated by the Deep Blue v. Garry Kasparov chess matches, where an impression is when something registers with the watcher. So chances are, you've heard about Deep Blue. But most of us don't know the story of how Deep Blue evolved. I wasn't born when Feng-Hsiung Hsu began working on a ChipTest, his first chess computer. And although most of you were alive at the time, it's a safe bet that you weren't aware that ChipTest existed while it existed (unless of course you found this site by running a search on the book). And so the story of Deep Blue, Deep Thoughts I and II, and ChipTest, ought to present you with a new and interesting story. Because it
is an interesting story, written for those with no chess or computer knowledge, and for those with one or both.
In 1982, Feng-Hsiung Hsu came to the United States in order to attend the graduate school in Computer Sciences at Carnegie Mellon. In May 1985, Hans Berliner, a professor at Carnegie Mellon, asked Hsu to do some work on the design of Hitech, a chess machine with a 64-chip design. After studying the design for a while, Hsu told Berliner that the 64-chip design was not a good idea. Berliner was insulted, and as Hsu's position as a graduate student who had pulled too many pranks was tenuous, his advisor suggested that he write up his idea of a better design for the faculty. Working on that design, Hsu saw that he had a chance at the Holy Grail of computer science, and decided to go for it. Towards this goal, Hsu recruited numerous other people to work on his project. ChipTest, built entirely by students on a student budget, was a success on the computer chess level, but it was not nearly strong enough to defeat Garry Kasparov, the intended opponent. Deep Thought followed, and along its development, the men working on it left Carnegie Mellon to work at IBM, and Deep Thought became an IBM project. The IBM team did build Deep Blue, which did beat Garry Kasparov.
Usually after my summary I tell you why you should read the book, but I already did that in the first paragraph, so instead, here are some impressions of the book. One, I love that Deep Thought was named after the computer in
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Two, there are almost no women in this book. In the first hundred pages of this book, there are four references from which you know that women exist, none of which are actual characters. There are two female characters in this book though; Xie Jun, who won the Women's World Chess Championship, tied Deep Thought II in a match, and appears in this book for a little over one page, and Garry Kasparov's mother. Third impression- the computer program was written in a way that involves chess more than I thought. Fourth- strangely enough, I feel that there is character development in this book. If you pay attention, you will notice that Hsu acts more maturely towards the end of the book.
This site crashed during Deep Blue's first game against Kasparov. At the time, it got the most simultaneous hits of any site ever:
Chess.IBM.Com
Educational reading.
