Thursday, April 24, 2014

Chessbase on a Mac

Here is a useful post by GM David Smerdon on how to install and run Chessbase on your Mac. But, of course, the steps he describes will probably apply to most other Windows based software that you want to run on the Mac OS as well.

If I have any additional tips, it is that if you're planning on switching to a Mac and then running Windows simultaneously, consider upsizing the specs on memory. Say, from 500Gb HD to 1Tb; and from 4Gb SDRAM to 8Gb. The cost of doing so is really quite minimal and very worth it.

By the way, I found this comment by GM Smerdon interesting: "ChessBase as a program is objectively really terrible: it’s buggy, barely developed between versions, and gives the user neither decent control nor innovation. However, there’s simply no alternative out there for the serious player."

Since I don't personally use Chessbase all that much, I haven't really noticed these shortcomings that David talks about. But one thing is obvious. Chessbase is clearly the undisputed name in chess database. Given all their apparent deficiencies, it seems to me that they are just ripe for a bit of disruption! How hard can it be to design and build a better chess database?

No comments: