On This Day, February 10th 1996: Deep Blue vs Kasparov
It was on February 10th 1996 that IBM's chess playing computer Deep Blue was the first machine to win a game of chess against a reigning world champion, under regular time rules. Grandmaster Garry Kasparov went on to win 3 and draw 2 of the remaining 5 games, thus defeating Deep Blue 4-2.
After some heavy upgrading by IBM, Deep Blue 2 (Deeper Blue) played Kasparov again in May 1997. This time Deeper Blue won the deciding 6th game. Following his defeat at the hands of the computer, Kasparov accused IBM of cheating, using human chess players to intervene during the second game. A claim IBM strongly denied. The developers had permission to modify the programme between games but not interfere during play. Kasparov demanded a rematch but IBM refused, dismantling Deep Blue shortly after.
Created from the work of Feng-hsiung Hsu, Thomas Anantharaman and Murray Campbell, Deep Blue was the culmination of 12 years work on Feng-hsiung Hsu's doctoral work on ChipTest in 1985.
Deeper Blue derived its playing strength from shear computing grunt. It was a massively parallel, RS/6000 SP Thin P2SC-based system with 30 nodes, with each node containing a 120 MHz P2SC microprocessor for a total of 30, enhanced with 480 special purpose VLSI chess chips. Its chess playing programme was written in C and ran under the AIX operating system. The net result is a scalable, highly parallel system capable of calculating 100-200 billions moves within three minutes, which is the time allotted to each player's move in classical chess. It was capable of evaluating 200 million positions per second. This was twice as fast as the 1996 version. The Deep Blue chess computer that defeated Kasparov in 1997 would typically search to a depth of between six and eight moves to a maximum of twenty or even more moves in some situations.
Vikram Jayanti's 2003 documentary Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine is well worth a watch.
So too, is the magnificent realisation of Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). On to another chess match between man and computer, this time fictional. Much to my disappointment the supercomputer HAL who beats the astronaut Frank,is not so called because each letter is one along from IBM. Instead it stands for Heuristically programmed Algorithmic computer. Nevermind. The film still stands as testimony to the mood and perception of what was computing in its nascent stages. David G. Stork's essay Public perception of AI, discussing A Space Odyssey, is compelling reading.
Of course, computer science did not start with Deep Blue's predecessors , ChipTest and Deep Thought. Who are the forerunners to these incredible feats of technology? Where to start? There are so many inventors & scientists whose creations and innovations have opened up so much technological potential that is still being refined and improved long may it continue!
This theme is one we will be revisiting again very soon, but for now, wear our Deep Blue vs Kasparov t-shirt safe in the knowledge that computers have not taken over the world, yet...
