Kathe+Spracklen

an American mathematician, computer scientist and [|microcomputer] chess pioneer. With husband Dan, Kathe started chess programming in 1977 on a Z-80 based //Wavemate Jupiter III// in assembly language. Their first program, Sargon had a one or two ply search without quiescence but exchange evaluation.
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 * [[image:KatheSpracklen1983.jpg width="202" height="294"]] ||~  || **Kathleen (Kathe) Spracklen**,

After the success at The Second West Coast Computer Faire MCCT in March 1978, and the shared third place at ACM 1978, the Spracklens became professional computer chess programmers. Sargon II was ported to various early home computers, for instance TRS-80 and 6502 based Apple II, as well as dedicated units as Chafitz ARB Sargon 2.5. || toc =Photos=
 * Kathe Spracklen, WMCCC 1983 ||~  ||^   ||
 * [[image:Sargon_2-5_ACM1979.jpg width="580" height="549" link="http://www.computerhistory.org/chess/full_record.php?iid=stl-430b9bbd5cbb8"]] ||
 * Kathe Spracklen and Dan Spracklen (far right) at ACM 1979 ||
 * [[image:SpracklensNY1983.JPG width="580" height="377"]] ||
 * Kathe Spracklen and Dan Spracklen, WCCC 1983 ||
 * Kathe Spracklen and Dan Spracklen, WCCC 1983 ||

=Fidelity= After civil proceedings between manufacturer Applied Concepts and their sales company Chafitz, who first marketed their Sargon 2.5 program, the Spracklens began their long term collaboration with Sidney Samole and Fidelity Electronics in the 80s. Beside other successes, their computers won the first four World Microcomputer Chess Championships, Chess Challenger the WMCCC 1980, Fidelity X the WMCCC 1981, Elite Auto Sensory the WMCCC 1983 and Fidelity Elite X the WMCCC 1984 (shared).

=Saitek= In 1989 or 1990, soon after Samole sold Fidelity to Hegener & Glaser, Kathe and Dan Spracklen started to work for Eric Winkler and Saitek, and developed a program for Sparc processors. The loss of Kasparov Sparc against Ed Schröder's ChessMachine in Madrid 1992, almost ended their involvement in computer chess when they didn't win that world title.

=Donald Michie= Kathleen Spracklen on Donald Michie, excerpt from //Oral History// :

=Pages with Quotes= > include component="pageList" hideInternal="true" tag="quotespracklens" limit="30"

=See also=
 * Spracklens debugging with Apple II ICE

=Selected Publications=

1978 ...

 * Dan Spracklen, Kathe Spracklen (**1978**). //SARGON: A Computer Chess Program//. [|Hayden Books], [|amazon.com]
 * Dan Spracklen, Kathe Spracklen (**1978**). //First Steps in Computer Chess Programming//. BYTE, Vol. 3, No. 10, [|pdf] from The Computer History Museum
 * Dan Spracklen, Kathe Spracklen (**1978**). //An Exchange Evaluator for Computer Chess//. BYTE, Vol. 3, No. 11
 * Kathe Spracklen (**1978**). //The Making of Sargon//. Personal Computing, Vol. 2, No. 12, pp. 62
 * Kathe Spracklen (**1979**). //The Playing of Sargon//. Personal Computing, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 70 » MCCT 1978,
 * Kathe Spracklen (**1979**). //Micro Graphics and X-Y Plotter//. Personal Computing, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 75
 * Kathe Spracklen (**1979**). //Z-80 and 8080 assembly language programming//. [|Hayden Books], [|amazon.com], [|Internet Archive]
 * Kathe Spracklen (**1979**). //Second Annual European Microcomputer Chess Championship - Results and Authors//. ICCA Newsletter, Vol. 2, No. 2 » PCW-MCC 1979

1980 ...

 * Kathe Spracklen (**1981**). //The Past, Present, and Future//. Personal Computing, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 67
 * Ben Mittman, Tony Marsland, Monroe Newborn, Kathe Spracklen, Ken Thompson (**1981**). //[|Computer chess: Master level play in 1981?]// ACM 81: Proceedings of the ACM '81 conference
 * Kathe Spracklen (**1983**). //Tutorial: Representation of an Opening Tree//. ICCA Newsletter, Vol. 6, No. 1
 * Kathe Spracklen (**1983**). //The Past and Future of Microcomputer Chess.// Computer Chess Digest Annual 1983
 * Göran Grottling (**1989**). //Eine Lebende Legende - Ein Interview mit Kathe Spracklen//. Modul 1/89, pp. 41-45 (German),[|pdf] hosted by Hein Veldhuis

2005

 * [|Gardner Hendrie] (**2005**). //Oral History of Kathe and Dan Spracklen//. [|pdf] and [|Video] from The Computer History Museum

=External Links= > [|Oral History of Kathleen and Danny Spracklen], March 2, 2005 by [|Gardner Hendrie], The Computer History Museum > media type="custom" key="24619530"
 * [|Kathe Spracklen's ICGA Tournaments]
 * [|Dan and Kathe Spracklen] from [|ChessComputers.org]
 * [|Dan and Kathe Spracklen] from [|The Othello Wiki Book Project]
 * [|Search the Mastering the Game exhibition and on-line collection] from The Computer History Museum
 * [|Historic Pictures] by Ed Schröder
 * [|Computer Chess] by Dan and Kathe Spracklen from [|AtariArchives.org - archiving vintage computer books, information, and software]
 * [|Dan and Kathe Spracklen - The Othello Wiki Book Project]
 * [|Computer Chronicles]: [|Computer Games (1985)] from the [|Internet Archive], "Lady Sargon" at 4:10

=References= =What links here?= include page="Kathe Spracklen" component="backlinks" limit="160"
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