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Gideon

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[.jpg) Gideon and His Three Hundred [1] Gideon,

a Rebel based series of chess programs developed by Ed Schröder and marketed by TASC and Hegener & Glaser in conjunction with plug-in cards as well as dedicated chess computer modules based on ARM2 RISC processors. The native PC program Mephisto Gideon was developed in cooperation with Hegener & Glaser, and later marketed by Ossi Weiner and various other companies and dealer.

The World Microcomputer Champion and World Champion titles from 1991 and 1992 look a bit ambiguous, since they are not only dedicated to Gideon or the 1992 entry ChessMachine (with a Gideon program), advertised by TASC for the ChessMachine and Hegener & Glaser for the Mephisto RISC modules, but from Ed’s perspective also to Rebel itself [2] .

RISC

Gideon was the name of the first ARM2 RISC version of Rebel, running on a TASC ISA card for an IBM PC. It became third at the WMCCC 1990 in Lyon, and World Microcomputer Champion at the WMCCC 1991 in Vancouver [3] . The further improved Gideon 3.1/32 MHz ChessMachine became World Champion at the WCCC 1992 in Madrid. RISC Gideon was further marketed as PC plug-in ChessMachine by TASC in bundle with The King program by Johan de Koning [4] , and as dedicated chess computer of the Mephisto RISC series by Hegener & Glaser [5] [6] .

Description

from Don Beal’s WMCCC 1991 report [7]:

Written by Ed Schröder (programmer) and [Jan Louwman](Jan_Louwman "Jan Louwman") (a strong chess-player and designer of the [opening book](Opening_Book "Opening Book")), both previously known over many years for their [Rebel](Rebel "Rebel") program that run on [6502](6502 "6502") pocessors, Gideon is a new program for the ARM-2 RISC CPU and has taken 1.5 years (4000 man-hours) to develop. The evaluation function is complex, incorporating much chess knowledge, and positional scores can range up 1.5 times a Pawn. Gideon includes specialized knowledge for many types of endgame (defined to be when material < 26) such as rook-and-pawn endings. The search techniques include [iterative deepening](Iterative_Deepening "Iterative Deepening"), [check extensions](Check_Extensions "Check Extensions") and [singular extensions](Singular_Extensions "Singular Extensions"). [Moves](Moves "Moves") are [generated](Move_Generation "Move Generation") one-at-a-time, rather than all-and-sort.

Mephisto Gideon

The PC program Mephisto Gideon was developed in cooperation with Hegener & Glaser and was Ed’s first program running under the MS-DOS operating system, also bundled as Mephisto Advantage with the Saitek PC Auto Chessboard. It was entirely written in C and marketed by Ossi Weiner and other dealer in large quantities [8], while independently Schröder BV kept their own brand name Rebel selling it via their own distribution channels in smaller quantities [9]. In 2012, Ed Schröder resurrected Mephisto Gideon Professional as WinBoard and UCI compatible donationware [10] [11].

See also

Forum Posts

Chess Program

Misc

References

  1. ↑ Gideon and His Three Hundred; as in Judges 7:9-23; illustration from a Bible card published by the Providence Lithograph Company, Gideon (Bijbel) from Wikipedia.nl (Dutch)
  2. ↑ World Champion (1991-1995)
  3. ↑ REBEL (chess) from Wikipedia
  4. ↑ TASC ChessMachine from Schachcomputer.info Wiki
  5. ↑ Mephisto Risc 1MB from Schachcomputer.info Wiki
  6. ↑ Mephisto Risc 2 from Schachcomputer.info Wiki
  7. ↑ Don Beal (1991). Report on the 11th World Microcomputer Chess Championship. ICCA Journal, Vol. 14, No. 2
  8. ↑ Ed Schröder - Mephisto Gideon from Schachversand Niggemann
  9. ↑ REBEL on the PC (1993-2001)
  10. ↑ Mephisto Gideon Professional (1993) for Winboard and UCI by Ed Schröder, CCC, August 17, 2012
  11. ↑ Donationware by Ed Schröder
  12. ↑ Vancouver 1991 - Chess - Round 2 - Game 1 (ICGA Tournaments)

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