Subject:
      Site review - Historia Ajedrez (column)
Date:
      1999/10/24
Author:
      Mark Weeks <100046.2106@compuserve.com>

The next review, following the Chess History bookmarks, is for Historia
Ajedrez (Chess History), a Spanish language column by Ricardo Calvo. The
address that I used when I started to prepare this review now defaults to
http://www.terra.es/deportes/, which is the sports section for the
site. I discovered that the new chess history address is
http://www.terra.es/deportes/ajedrez/historia/portada.htm & updated the
corresponding bookmark for this discussion group.

I don't speak or understand Spanish, so I used the 'Go' translation services at
http://translator.go.com/ to read these pages. This is my
preferred service, because it doesn't stop the translation after an arbitrary
number of characters or words like the AltaVista service
(http://babelfish.altavista.com/) does. It also sets up most links on
the translated page to invoke the next translation automatically, which makes
it much easier to browse a site.

I have no particular problem with these translation services. In addition to
helping me understand something which would otherwise be
incomprehensible, the translations are a source of amusement. Not everyone
agrees with me. I use the Go service on my own site & know from the email I
receive that some people are irritated by the many mistakes in the
translations. There is certainly room for improvement.

As I was finishing this article, the translator.go address started giving me a
'Connection timed out' message. It was a Sunday morning (GMT+2) & I have
often noticed that Web services disappear temporarily at this time, probably
for maintenance reasons. I didn't wait to verify this for the Go service & trust
that it is also temporary.

In addition to his work as a chess historian, Calvo is a good player and earned
an International Master title in 1973. He also played a formative role in chess
history when he was declared 'persona non grata' by FIDE in 1987. The reason
given by FIDE was an article he wrote for 'New in Chess' magazine which was
critical of FIDE administration. The real reason may have been his support for
the candidacy of Lincoln Lucena against the incumbent FIDE President
Florencio Campomanes.

The text of Calvo's 'One Bridge Too Far' article (New in Chess Magazine,
1986, No. 8) may be found at http://www.samsloan.com/one-brid.htm. He
discusses the resulting FIDE action in 'On the Nature of FIDE
Legitimacy' at http://www.shamema.com/fide-leg.htm.

When I first looked at the 'Historia Ajedrez' page in June, there were four
articles. Now there are seven, as well as a selection list with twelve articles.
Six articles linked from the main page are also included in the selection list --
only the most recent is not included. This makes a total of 13 articles
available from the page.

Unfortunately, the selection list still uses the older
http://deportes.ole.es/ addresses. Until this is fixed, the older
articles are only available by entering the URL directly, for example:- (OLD)
http://deportes.ole.es/espdep/articulo/articulo.cfm?ID=DEP1078
(NEW) http://www.terra.es/espdep/articulo/html/dep1078.htm

Seven of the articles cover the history of computer chess:-
- Leonardo Torres Quevedo & his machine to play K+R vs. K endgames - Alan
Turing & the Enigma project
- Claude Shannon & his classic 1949 paper
- Software developments from the 1950s through the development of Belle in
the 1970-80s
- The rise of the microcomputers
- Deep Blue
- The importance of chess to research in artificial intelligence

The other six articles cover topics from medieval chess history:- - Codex of
Alfonso X
- Edward I of England
- Edward I of England & Leonor of Castile
- Origins of chess
- The lost book of Vicent
- Don Miguel de Unamuno

The last article ('Unamuno') was authored by Luis Alvarez Fernandez rather
than by Calvo. The articles are published irregularly, the last one dated
1999-09-08.

Calvo also has a personal page at http://www.chesstv.com/ricalvo/, which
is a small site marked 'EN CONSTRUCCIÓN'. The pages have an outline of
Calvo's activities & links to a few more articles repeating material from Terra
Deportes.

--
Respectfully,
Mark Weeks