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Minimax,
a didactic open source chess program written in QuickBASIC by Dieter Steinwender and Chrilly Donninger, which appeared 1995 in Steinwender's and Friedel's German book Schach am PC ^[1]. The program is apparently based on Donninger's 1994 C program with the same name ^[2], and a program published by Steinwender in Computerschach und Spiele 1984 ^[3]. Minimax features a Mailbox board representation with offset move generation, aspiration alpha-beta search within an iterative deepening framework. Minimax has been converted to a WinBoard chess engine by Thomas McBurney in 2003 ^[4]. Martin Bauer ported Minimax to Delphi and further applied enhancements for the UCI compliant DelphiMax.

Mailbox

Initial Position in Basic

CONST BrettDim% = 119  ' Dimension des erweiterten Schachbrettes
 
DIM SHARED Grundstellung(BrettDim%) AS INTEGER
 
FOR i% = 0 TO BrettDim%
   READ Grundstellung(i%)
NEXT i%
 
DATA 100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100
DATA 100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100
DATA 100, 2 , 4 , 3 , 5 , 6 , 3 , 4 , 2 ,100
DATA 100, 1 , 1 , 1 , 1 , 1 , 1 , 1 , 1 ,100
DATA 100, 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 ,100
DATA 100, 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 ,100
DATA 100, 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 ,100
DATA 100, 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 ,100
DATA 100,-1 ,-1 ,-1 ,-1 ,-1 ,-1 ,-1 ,-1 ,100
DATA 100,-2 ,-4 ,-3 ,-5 ,-6 ,-3 ,-4 ,-2 ,100
DATA 100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100
DATA 100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100,100

and the same Mailbox in C ^[5]:

#define BRETT_DIM    120  /* Dimension des erweiterten Schachbrettes  */
 
/**
*** Figuren. Schema: _
**/
#define S_K   -6          /* Kennung fuer Schwarze Figuren */
#define S_D   -5
#define S_S   -4
#define S_L   -3
#define S_T   -2
#define S_B   -1
#define LEER   0          /* Leeres Feld */
#define W_B    1          /* Kennung fuer weisse Figuren */
#define W_T    2
#define W_L    3
#define W_S    4
#define W_D    5
#define W_K    6
#define RAND 100          /* Umrandung des Schachprogrammes */
 
/**
*** Grundstellung auf 10x12 Brett
**/
const int GrundStellung[BRETT_DIM] =  {
RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,
RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,
RAND,W_T, W_S ,W_L ,W_D ,W_K ,W_L ,W_S ,W_T, RAND,
RAND,W_B, W_B ,W_B ,W_B ,W_B ,W_B ,W_B ,W_B, RAND,
RAND,LEER,LEER,LEER,LEER,LEER,LEER,LEER,LEER,RAND,
RAND,LEER,LEER,LEER,LEER,LEER,LEER,LEER,LEER,RAND,
RAND,LEER,LEER,LEER,LEER,LEER,LEER,LEER,LEER,RAND,
RAND,LEER,LEER,LEER,LEER,LEER,LEER,LEER,LEER,RAND,
RAND,S_B ,S_B ,S_B ,S_B ,S_B ,S_B ,S_B ,S_B, RAND,
RAND,S_T, S_S ,S_L ,S_D ,S_K ,S_L ,S_S ,S_T, RAND,
RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,
RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND,RAND};

See also

• Betsabe
• DelphiMax
• Kanguruh
• Minimax
• Nimzo

Forum Posts

• WBEC-Ridderkerk new results by Leo Dijksman, Winboard Forum, August 14, 2003
• MiniMAX und seine Derivate by lovo, Schachfeld.de, June 24, 2009 (German)

External Links

• minimax - basic-source by Dieter Steinwender and Chrilly Donninger, hosted by Roger Thormann
• minimax - c-source by Chrilly Donninger, hosted by Roger Thormann
• minimax - c-source - header file by Chrilly Donninger, hosted by Roger Thormann
• Minimax in BASIC converted to WinBoard by Thomas McBurney
• Minimax from WBEC Ridderkerk
• SEPTOBER - Informationen zu Computerschach by Herbert Marquardt has Minimax Screenshot
• Bauer & Schweitzer - Webdesign, Software, Shareware, Freeware, EDV - MiniMAX and DelphiMax by Martin Bauer (German)

References

1. ^ Dieter Steinwender, Frederic Friedel (1995). Schach am PC Bits und Bytes im königlichen Spiel, Markt und Technik Buch 1995, ISBN: 978-3-87791-522-6 (German)
2. ^ minimax - c-source hosted by Roger Thormann
3. ^ qBASIC Chess program - from 1984 by Dieter Steinwender by Mike Byrne, CCC, February 23, 2003
4. ^ Minimax in BASIC converted to WinBoard by Thomas McBurney
5. ^ minimax - c-source hosted by Roger Thormann

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