Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

ZOG does not have ply-setting, however, you can set the amount of time that
the program will evaluate the position. This is indirectly reflected in the
number of plies that are processed, although it depends on the CPU, of
course. (Not to stir the pot, but out of sincere and friendly curiosity,
why use a 2.5 MB RAM CPU when computers and memory are relatively cheap
now?)

In fact, the Zillions program actually DOES have a ply depth control.  It
is illusive though and has been mistakenly presumed by many (including
myself) to not exist.

Please read this thread of interest from the Zillions discussion board:

http://zillionsofgames.com/discus/

You must navigate manually the rest of the way since deep-linking is not
supported.

Zillions of Games Discussion Forum: Desired Features for Zillions of
Games: Time keeping

As the thread Derek points to indicates, the strength setting is a ply
setting. Given that this is true, I hypothesized that at lower strength
levels, ZOG would not take forever to make a move with the thinking time
set to forever. So I lowered the strength, set thinking time to forever,
and let ZOG play itself. It made moves very quickly. When I raised the
strength, it made moves less quickly but still fairly rapidly compared to
forever. So experiment corroborates the claim that the strength setting is
a plies setting. So my claim that ZOG has no plies setting may be false.
But it was certainly not a non sequitur.

Tony, to answer your question, I already have two ST computers, so I don't
have to pony up for a PC computer, nor buy a Windows developer's license
(which I understand is $1,500 on top of the purchase price of the
hardware, and it costs even more to get a Mac and a Mac developer's kit,
if that even exists, which I'm not sure about).  And then there's the
learning curve.  I'd have to learn how to program a Mac or Windows, and
that's one daunting task right there.  Also, I prefer computers whose
operating systems are in ROM, and therefore incorruptible.

For the purpose of establishing benchmarks, maybe you and I could someday
test out our programs against each other's?  You could use a modern
computer running at 2.5 gigaherz (or whatever), and I could use my little
computer?  I'm naturally referring to the game of Baroque - or one of its
relatives (but no Rococo, please).  And certainly not Chess, as there are
enough Chess-playing computers already.  Baroque is a more challenging
game, and requires far more calculations than Chess does.  (Markedly more,
if we allowed either side to delay indefinitely the reversals of their
rooks (causing one to become an Immobilizer), or the reversals of the King
and Queen (Withdrawer)), which adds a whole extra element of long-range
strategy to the game.

When it comes to modern computers, there are zillions of programmers that
are better than I am.  I'm no virtuoso.  I just put my nose to the
grindstone, and keep toiling away at the darn thing until it works like
it's supposed to.  That means a near endless examination of the states
that the 'programming engine' outputs, and you would not believe how
poorly implemented the Atari support package is, you end up having to
kludge out your own suite of programming tools, the kind that more or less
work right most of the time.  I've put in about 9 months or more on this
thing so far.

Sure is slow and tedious.

As for computer contests, we /could/ use an ordinary telephone line with
direct connections, no webmail involved.  (Or we could just post the moves
here or at some other mutually agreed-upon place.)  The role of the
user-attendant would be to type the moves in, as they come.

Matthew, that would be an interesting experiment. We could use Game Courier
as the interface with the CPUs doing the thinking! Can you suggest a game?
We'd have to have it available in 3 platforms, your program, GC, and ZOG.

My program isn't ready yet, but I'll keep it in mind.

I think there are a lot of programmers hanging out at this website
(http://www.chessvariants.org) and many of them may have hacked together a
program out of nothingness, using nothing but sweat and insight, and they
should be encouraged to have their programs brought in as well.  (Ditto
goes for the people that are responsible for programming ZOG.)

I think that a 'Game-Ply Rating' system would probably oscillate around
a bit, with every re-calculation introducing a little bit of drag and a
little bit of drift- considering how 0-ply systems would hover around
1000, 1-ply systems around 1100, 2-ply at 1200, and 3-ply at 1300, and so
on.

Using a 'Game-Ply Rating' system, to which computers could contribute
benchmarks, would make the human performances more meaningful.  And if a
human's  USCF or ELO chess rating were imported into the 'Game-Ply
Rating' system, it would probably see a steep climb before stabilizing. 
For instance, if a handful of human beginners at 800 USCF started playing
a few 0-ply computers at 1000 GPR, the human ratings would go up.  I would
oppose lowering a computer's GPR rating, however.  If a computer has a GPR
rating, it should only go down as a result of a loss to another computer. 
This is because humans are inherently smarter than computers.  The
computer GPR ratings ought to be independent benchmarks that only they
themselves contribute to.

If people think they are going to be 'rated' on games that they have
previously been told, don't count, there is going to be a chilling effect
that discourages people from participating on the website here.

For that reason, two separate rating systems should be used, if at all any
ARE used:  one would be for those adventurous souls willing to play games
they've never even heard of (and are therefore attempting to learn), and
another rating system for those souls that insist on playing just one
particular game, something they actually know a thing or two about, and
about which they have developed theories of play that are put into
practice.

I suggest you go play with the filters and see what options already exist.