from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
Deep Blue
<computer> A super computer developed by researchers at {IBM}
to explore the use of {parallel processing} to solve complex
computing problems. It is known as the first computer to beat
the current chess World Grand Master.
Deep Blue started it's life as a PhD project at {Carnegie
Mellon University} by PhD students Feng-hsiung Hsu and Murray
Campbell. Chiptest, as it was known then, consisted of a
custom designed chip hosted in a {Sun} 3/160 computer.
The project moved over to IBM in 1989 when Hsu and Campbell
joined IBM. {Deep Thought}, as it was known by then, played
for the first time against Garry Kasparov in the same year.
The game of two matches was easily won by Kasparov.
The next match against Kasparov took place in February 1996.
By then the machine was again renamed, at that time it was
known as Deep Blue. It was also heavily re-engineered: it was
by then running on a 32-node {RS/6000} cluster, each
containing 8 custom designed chips. Alas, Kasparov won again.
The breakthrough finally happened in February 1997: with both
the algorithm and the raw speed significantly improved, Deep
Blue beat Kasparov 3.5:2.5.
HOME (http://chess.ibm.com).
(1997-06-16)