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Battle Chess

GerdIsenberg — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 15:53:38 GMT

Home * Engines * Battle Chess

		Battle Chess, a chess program, famous for its animated move and specially capture sequences in 3D mode, released for various home and personal computer platforms as well as video game consoles, beside others for Apple II, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, IBM PC, Apple Macintosh, Acorn Archimedes, 3DO and Nintendo Entertainment System. The game was developed by a team around Brian Fargo and Michael Quarles, including Jay Patel, Bruce Schlickbernd, and Todd Camasta ^[1], released in 1988 by Fargo's company Interplay ^[2] soon after ending the relationship with Electronic Arts ^[3].
Cover art of Battle Chess ^[4]

Games

Battle Chess 4000 for MS-DOS played the Harvard Cup 1993, and surprised by winning from Michael Rohde and a drawing from Boris Gulko ^[5] ^[6]:

[Event "4th Harvard Cup G/25"]
[Site "Boston, MA USA"]
[Date "1993.11.06"]
[Round "03"]
[White "Michael Rohde"]
[Black "BattleChess 4000 SVGA"]
[Result "0-1"]
 
1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Qa4+ Nc6 6.Nxd5 Qxd5 7.e4 Qe6
8.Bb5 Bd7 9.O-O Bg7 10.d3 Qd6 11.Be3 Bxb2 12.Rab1 Bg7 13.d4 a6
14.e5 Qe6 15.d5 Qxd5 16.Rfd1 Qe6 17.Bc4 Nxe5 18.Bxe6 Nxf3+ 19.gxf3 Bxa4
20.Bb3 Bc6 21.Bd5 Bxd5 22.Rxd5 e6 23.Rd2 b6 24.Rc2 Be5 25.f4 Bd6 26.Kg2 O-O
27.Rc6 Rfd8 28.Kf3 Kf8 29.Ke2 Ke7 30.h3 Kf6 31.Rd1 Rab8 32.Kf3 Kf5
33.Rg1 h6 34.h4 Rd7 35.Rcc1 Be7 36.Rh1 h5 37.Rc6 Rb7 38.Rh2 Rd3 39.Rh1 Bd6
40.Rg1 Bxf4 0-1
 
 
[Event "4th Harvard Cup G/25"]
[Site "Boston, MA USA"]
[Date "1993.11.06"]
[Round "05"]
[White "Boris Gulko"]
[Black "BattleChess 4000 SVGA"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
 
1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 d5 3.e3 Bf5 4.c4 Nc6 5.Nc3 e6 6.Nf3 Bb4 7.a3 Bxc3+
8.bxc3 O-O 9.Bg5 Qe7 10.Bd3 Bxd3 11.Qxd3 dxc4 12.Qxc4 h6 13.Bh4 Qd8
14.O-O Qd5 15.Qd3 Ne4 16.Rab1 Nd6 17.Nd2 Ne5 18.Qe2 Ng6 19.Bg3 Qc6
20.c4 Nf5 21.Rb4 Nxg3 22.hxg3 b6 23.Qh5 Rad8 24.Rc1 Rd6 25.Qb5 e5
26.Qxc6 Rxc6 27.d5 Rd6 28.e4 Re8 29.c5 Rd7 30.Ra4 Ra8 31.cxb6 cxb6
32.Rc6 Re8 33.Rac4 f6 34.a4 Ra8 35.Kf1 Kf7 36.Nf3 Ne7 37.Rc7 Ke8 38.Rc2
Kd8 39.R7c3 Rc8 40.Rxc8+ Nxc8 41.Ke2 Nd6 42.Kd3 f5 43.Nxe5 fxe4+ 44.Kd4
Rc7 45.Nc6+ Ke8 46.g4 Kd7 47.Re2 Kc8 48.Ke5 Kd7 49.Rc2 Rc8 50.Kd4 Rc7
51.Rc3 Ke8 52.Ke5 Kd7 53.Kd4 Ke8 54.Re3 Kf7 55.f3 exf3 56.gxf3 h5
57.Re6 Rxc6 58.dxc6 Kxe6 59.gxh5 Ne8 60.Kc4 Kd6 61.Kd4 Nf6 62.c7 Kxc7
63.Ke5 Nxh5 64.Kf5 Ng3+ 65.Kg6 Ne2 66.Kxg7 Nd4 67.f4 Ne6+ 68.Kf6 Nxf4
69.Ke5 Ne2 70.Kd5 Nc3+ 71.Kc4 Nxa4 72.Kb5 Nc5 73.Kb4 Kd6 74.Kb5 Kd5
75.Kb4 a6 76.Kc3 a5 77.Kb2 b5 78.Kc3 b4+ 79.Kb2 Kc4 80.Kc2 Nd3
81.Kd2 b3 82.Ke3 b2 83.Ke4 a4 84.Kf5 a3 85.Ke6 Nb4 1/2-1/2

Forum Posts

Battle Chess 4000 + NT4 = Yuk by Mark Taylor, rgcc, April 9, 1999
Deep Thought, Kasparov, Fidelity, Ferret, CM4000,Junior, Battle Chess by K. Burcham, CCC, March 23, 2002
Chess Programming Questions by Randall Jouett, rgcc, May 21, 2002
Battle Chess needs help by Julien Marcel, CCC, May 17, 2012

External Links

Battle Chess from Wikipedia
Commodore 64/128 Old Computer Chess Game Collection - Battle Chess from The Spacious Mind » Commodore 64, Commodore 128
Warring Battle Chess reactions | Apple II Bits » Apple II
Battle Chess series - MobyGames
Battle Chess (1993) 3DO cover art - MobyGames
Battle Chess for 3DO (1993) - MobyGames
Battle Chess 4000 Screenshots for DOS - MobyGames
Battle Chess Special Edition - GOG.com
Interplay - Battle Chess
Interplay wins injunction against Topware's Battle vs Chess game by John Callaham, December 25, 2010
Interplay Wins over TopWare in "Battle vs. Chess" Affair by Theo Valich, February 12, 2012
Battle Chess - Subdued Software LLC
Amazon.com: Battle Chess Bundle (Jewel Case): Video Games
Battle Chess for Windows from Home of the Underdogs » Windows
Starring the Computer - The Rachel Papers (1989) » Amiga
Battle Chess for Acorn Archimedes - GameFAQs » Acorn Archimedes
The Computer Chronicles - Amiga 2500 (1989), YouTube Video
Battle Chess starting around 8:30 ^[7]

References

^ Commodore 64/128 Old Computer Chess Game Collection - Battle Chess from The Spacious Mind
^ Interplay - Battle Chess
^ Battle Chess from Wikipedia
^ Battle Chess from Wikipedia
^ Larry Kaufman (1993). The 4th Harvard Cup. Computer Chess Reports, Vol. 4, No. 2
^ Downloads | Man-Computer | Games, CSVN site
^ Re: Kathlen Spracklen's TV interview about Sargon (1985) by Julien Marcel, CCC, January 12, 2014 » Kathe Spracklen - Lady Sargon

What links here?

Page	Date Edited
Acorn Archimedes	Dec 17, 2016
Amiga	Mar 24, 2016
Apple II	Dec 22, 2017
Battle Chess	Dec 12, 2016
Death Chess 5000	Apr 5, 2013
Engines	Mar 10, 2018
Grandmaster Chess	Dec 7, 2016
Harvard Cup 1993	Nov 8, 2016
Heuristic Software	May 4, 2013
Virtual Chess	Mar 25, 2017

Up one level

Chess (David Thompson)

GerdIsenberg — Sun, 11 Dec 2016 23:00:51 GMT

Home * Engines * Chess (David Thompson)

		Chess, (CC) a series of commercial chess programs written by David Thompson in 6502 assembly for Acorn home computers, Commodore 64 and Oric computers. Chess 1.12 was published in 1981 for the Acorn Atom, released by Acornsoft (?). In 1983, Chess was released through Computer Concepts targeting the BBC Micro ^[1], while the Acornsoft Chess brand for the BBC Micro was continued with a program by Arthur Norman and Nick Pelling ^[2]. Chess was further adapted for the Commodore 64 and released in 1984 by Superior Software ^[3], and by IJK Software for the Oric-1 and Oric Atmos ^[4].
Chess for Acorn Atom ^[5]

Screenshot

Computer Concepts Chess for the BBC Micro ^[6]

Publications

John Vaux (1983). Micro takes on Chess Machine. Acorn User, No. 8, pdf

External Links

References

What links here?

Page	Date Edited
Acorn Atom	Dec 11, 2016
Acornsoft Chess	Dec 11, 2016
BBC Micro	Dec 16, 2016
Chess (David Thompson)	Dec 11, 2016
Engines	Mar 10, 2018

Up one Level

Chess 7.0

GerdIsenberg — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 05:33:22 GMT

Home * Engines * Chess 7.0

		Chess 7.0, (Odesta Chess) a chess program in 6502 Assembly by Larry Atkin for Apple II, Atari 800, and Commodore 64 home computers, published by Odesta in 1982/1983. The program was based on the Capablanca module programs for the Great Game Machine and the Chafitz modular game system which interfaced directly to an 8-character 16- segment display, and a 12-key keypad. Later it became "How About a Nice Game of Chess" ^[1] for the Apple IIe ^[2] ^[3].
Chess 7.0 ^[4]

Publications

Frank Sommers (1983). Chess 7.0. (evaluation). Creative Computing, Vol. 9, No. 9, pp. 176
Michael Ciraolo (1985). Computer CHESS Programming. Antic Vol. 4, No. 3 » Turbostar

Forum Posts

Odesta by Bert Seifriz, CCC, June 28, 1998
chess 7.0 by Will Singleton, CCC, October 16, 2008

External Links

References

What links here?

Page	Date Edited
Atari 8-bit	Aug 3, 2016
Berthold Seifriz	Jun 9, 2016
Carey Bloodworth	Jul 19, 2016
Chess	Jan 21, 2018
Chess (Program)	Dec 22, 2017
Chess 0.5	Nov 20, 2016
Chess 2013	Nov 6, 2013
Chess 7.0	Jul 13, 2015
Creative Computing	Dec 19, 2013
Engines	Mar 10, 2018
Larry Atkin	Jan 7, 2016
Morphy	Dec 25, 2017
Steinitz	Nov 10, 2014
Turbostar	Jan 8, 2016
Will Singleton	Mar 6, 2015

Up one Level

Chessmaster

GerdIsenberg — Sun, 21 Jan 2018 13:19:48 GMT

Home * Engines * Chessmaster

		Chessmaster, a series of chess programs developed and released by Ubisoft. It is the best-selling chess franchise in history, with more than five million units sold as of 2002 ^[1] . Due to its sophisticated GUI, graphics and animations, adjustable playing strength and countless features, Chessmaster is dedicated to the mass market, and due to the strong engine with configurable "personalities", integrated database support, annotated games, and chess lessons and tutorials, also interesting for advanced users. Chessmaster XI, released in 2007, is the most recent version ^[2]. Dedicated for chess beginners and casual chess fans, Chessmaster Challenge differs from Chessmaster 10th Edition in its simplified interface, and scaled-down tutorials. It’s a non-retail product available for trial and purchase through download only ^[3] ^[4].
Face and hands of the Chessmaster ^[5]

Screenshots

CM 2100 & CM 4000

^[6]


Chessmaster 2100		Chessmaster 4000

Chessmaster 10th

Chessmaster 10th Edition Demo ^[7]

Chessmaster Challenge

Chessmaster Challenge 2D Graphics Board ^[8]

Chessmaster XI

Chessmaster XI - House of Staunton chess sets, 3D Graphics Board ^[9]

Chess Engines

MyChess II

Chessmaster was first released as Chessmaster 2000 in 1986 by Software Toolworks, Inc., a software and computer game publisher located in Los Angeles ^[10], co-developed by its founder Walt Bilofsky ^[11] and Michael E. Duffy ^[12], with a chess engine by David Kittinger, loosely based on MyChess II published by the same vendor since 1984 ^[13] . CM 2000 was released for various 8- and 16-bit home computer platforms based on 6502, Z80, 68000 and 8086 processors, such as Amiga, Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Macintosh, and DOS PCs. The PC version was a rewrite in C based on the 6502 assembly version ^[14], which also went into Novag's dedicated Constellation some years before, as mentioned by Larry Kaufman in the USOCCC 1986 tournament report ^[15]:

Novag's programmer Dave Kittinger also was the programmer of the three PC software entries under the name "Chessmaster". As they employ a version of the rather dated "Constellation" program they were not expected to be competitive with the dedicated units, except for "Chessmaster 2000 Apple" which employed extensive technology to run at high speed.

Sargon 3

After a deal with Fidelity Electronics in 1988, Software Toolworks continued the Chessmaster series for Apple computers with a Sargon III based program by Kathe and Dan Spracklen, market as Fidelity Chessmaster 2100 ^[16]. PC versions of CM 2100 were based on a Kittinger program ^[17].

Chessmaster 3000

The Chessmaster 3000 was released in 1991 for MS-DOS and Windows 3.x PCs, as well for Apple Macintosh, based on a Kittinger program as confirmed by John Merlino ^[18] ^[19] ^[20], and mentioned in CCR 5.1 ^[21]:

Kittinger's first program for personal computers was incorporated into the popular program Chessmaster 2000 developed by Software Toolworks. Kittinger's program was then modified and used in some of the versions of Chessmaster 2100 and Chessmaster 3000.

Fernando Villegas recalled Michael E. Duffy and Andrew Iverson working on the engine ^[22], which does not necessarily imply they had an own one developed from scratch, but interfacing the Kittinger engine to the GUI.

The King

With the release of Chessmaster 4000 Turbo in 1993, The King by Johan de Koning became the CM engine until the present, with annual, biennial and triennial releases for major Windows versions until Chessmaster XI in 2007, incorporating the The King 3.50 with a parallel search able to support multiple processors. The King Version 3.12 has become a WinBoard engine within the ChessMaster 8000 and newer versions ^[23] . Some versions were also made available for Mac OS computers, and the Xbox Live Arcade ^[24].

Releases

^[25]

1986: Chessmaster 2000 - based on MyChess II by David Kittinger
1989: Fidelity Chessmaster 2100 - based on Sargon III by Kathe and Dan Spracklen
1991: Chessmaster 3000 - Kittinger program
1993: Chessmaster 4000 Turbo - The King by Johan de Koning
1995: Chessmaster 4000 - The King 2.0
1996: Chessmaster 5000 - The King 2.x
1997: Chessmaster 5500 - The King 2.55
1998: Chessmaster 6000 - The King 2.6D or 2.61
1999: Chessmaster 7000 - The King 3.x
2000: Chessmaster 8000 - The King 3.12a, 3.12c, 3.12d
2002: Chessmaster 9000 - The King 3.23
2004: Chessmaster 10th - The King 3.33
2007: Chessmaster XI - The King 3.50

Endgame Tablebases

Chessmaster 9000 and later versions support their own compact 3-5-man Endgame Tablebases designed by Johan de Koning, which can be generated with the Final Endgame Generator (FEG) via the Windows Command Prompt ^[26]. Tablebase researcher Marc Bourzutschky further created some theoretically important six piece EGTBs in 2003 ^[27].

Companies

Software Toolworks was founded in 1980 by Walt Bilofsky, who was one of three programmers who designed and created the Chessmaster in the mid 80s ^[28]. In 1994, Software Toolworks, Inc. was merged to Mindscape ^[29] ^[30] in conjunction with the acquirement by Pearson PLC ^[31] with Michael E. Duffy ^[32] and David Grenewetzki ^[33] involved, in 1998 sold to The Learning Company, in the same year bought by Mattel and renamed to Mattel Interactive. In 2000, The Gores Group carves out the re-renamed Learning Company from Mattel, and the Game Studios of The Learning Company was sold to Ubi Soft - all employees were given the opportunity to become employees of their most well-known studio, Red Storm Entertainment ^[34] .

Associated People

Programmers

Engine

Database

Tablebase

Marc Bourzutschky

Chess Tutorials

Project Lead & Misc Programming

Selected Games

Aegon 1995, round 5, David Bronstein - Chessmaster 4000 ^[37]

[Event "Aegon 1995"]
[Site "The Hague NED"]
[Date "1995.05.02"]
[Round "5"]
[White "David Bronstein"]
[Black "Chessmaster 4000"]
[Result "1-0"]
 
1.e4 c5 2.b4 cxb4 3.a3 d5 4.exd5 Qxd5 5.Nf3 e5 6.axb4 Bxb4 7.c3 Bd6 8.Na3 Nc6
9.Bc4 Qe4+ 10.Be2 Qg6 11.Nc4 Bc7 12.d4 exd4 13.cxd4 Be6 14.Ne3 Nge7 15.O-O Rd8
16.Ba3 Bb6 17.Qa4 O-O 18.Ne5 Qf6 19.Nxc6 bxc6 20.Bc5 Bxc5 21.dxc5 Rd2 22.Bf3
Rfd8 23.Qxa7 Nf5 24.Nxf5 Bxf5 25.Qc7 Qd4 26.Ra7 Rf8 27.Qxc6 Bd3 28.Rfa1 Qxf2+
29.Kh1 Bf5 30.Qc7 Bg4 31.Qg3 Bxf3 32.Qxf2 Rxf2 33.gxf3 Rxf3 34.c6 Rc3 35.c7 h5
36.Rd1 Rc2 37.Rd8 g5 38.Rxf8+ Kxf8 39.Ra8+ Ke7 40.c8=Q 1-0

Publications

Tim Carter (1992). Knight Stalker - Software Toolworks' Chessmaster 3000. Computer Gaming World, 08/1992, pdf
Nick Schoonmaker (1996). Chess Master 4000 - Windows 95 Review. Computer Chess Reports, Vol. 5, Nos. 3+4, p. 49
Al Cargill (1996). CM 4000 Personalities. Computer Chess Reports, Vol. 5, Nos. 3+4, p. 72

Forum Posts

1994

Chessmaster 4000T Performance Benchmark by Harold Jack Meadows, rgc, October 22, 1994
ChessMaster 3000 by Donald B. Moran, rgc, December 05, 1994
Software Toolworks (Mindscape) is there, and *yes* they do care! by Joe Stella, rgc, December 24, 1994
CM5000 We welcome input! by Carlos Justiniano, rgc, December 29, 1994

1995 ...

Re: CM5000 is it out yet? by Eric Schiller, rgc, March 27, 1995
Net Contact List of Chessmaster by Carlos Justiniano, rgc, April 06, 1995
CM5000 Ideas, Part 1 of 2 by dtre...@gss.efn.org, rgc, April 06, 1995
CM5000 Ideas, Part 2 of 2 by dtre...@gss.efn.org, rgc, April 06, 1995
ChessMaster 4000 by ArturoA433, rgc, April 09, 1995
Which Version of "The King" Powers "The Chessmaster 4000 Turbo"? by Ernst A. Heinz, CCC, May 08, 1998
Re: Versions of Chessmaster by Fernando Villegas, CCC, May 09, 1998
Chess Master 3000 is Underated by Komputer Korner, rgcc, June 17, 1998
Re: Good news for ChessMaster 6000 users by Detlef Pordzik, CCC, November 01, 1998
Chessmaster and SSDF by Micheal Cummings, CCC, November 09, 1998
Chessmaster 6000 1.0.2 Patch now available by John Merlino, CCC, December 22, 1998
Chessmaster 6000 1.0.3 Patch now available by John Merlino, CCC, February 04, 1999
How really strong is ChessMaster 6000? by Leonid, CCC, July 03, 1999
Chessmaster 7000 "FAQ" by John Merlino, CCC, September 23, 1999
Chessmaster 7000 Patch v1.0.6 by John Merlino, CCC, December 17, 1999

2000 ...

Potential STRONG Chessmaster personality by John Merlino, CCC, January 07, 2000
Re: Chessmaster on winboard? by John Merlino, CCC, February 28, 2000 » WinBoard
An open call to all USCF rated players from the Chessmaster developers by John Merlino, CCC, May 24, 2000
Chessmaster 8000 FAQ by John Merlino, CCC, July 19, 2000
Chessmaster 8000 Updated FAQ by John Merlino, CCC, September 06, 2000

2001

Further news in the Chessmaster saga (some parts are OT) by John Merlino, CCC, March 05, 2001
Software Toolworks to Ubi Soft (OT) by John Merlino, CCC, March 20, 2001
A questionarre for all Chessmaster users by John Merlino, CCC, October 22, 2001

2002

Chessmaster 9000 Beta Report by John Merlino, CCC, May 07, 2002
Frank Poole v HAL 9000 -- or is it CM9000? by John Merlino, CCC, July 10, 2002 » HAL
is chessmaster a french program? by Rajen Gupta, CCC, July 28, 2002
Chessmaster 9000's EGDBs by John Merlino, CCC, August 12, 2002
The Life and Times of Chessmaster by John Merlino, CCC, August 16, 2002
Re: Please Explain Depth in Chessmaster 9000 by John Merlino, CCC, September 03, 2002 » Depth
CM9000 default selective search by Javier Ros Padilla, CCC, September 18, 2002

2003

Need help with CM 9000 and WB2UCI by Ralph Patriquin, CCC, January 02, 2003 » Wb2UCI
Chessmaster 2000 for Amiga, Release: 1986 by Omid David, CCC, January 16, 2003
Re: Just Curious - Does anyone know Johan de Koning of Chessmaster fame? by John Merlino, CCC, February 28, 2003
Usage of general.ctg book+CB learner by ChessMaster in SSDF testing by Gian-Carlo Pascutto, CCC, October 30, 2003

2004

Chessmaster X release forecast by Johan de Koning, CCC, February 29, 2004
Why dont engines support the egtb format that Chessmaster uses? by Jason Kent, CCC, April 01, 2004
Re: Chessmaster and DGT by Odd Gunnar Malin, CCC, April 24, 2004 » DGT Board
Chessmaster 10th Edition Announced by John Merlino, CCC, May 14, 2004
Chessmaster 9000 and SSDF summary by Johan de Koning, CCC, May 15, 2004
Chessmaster Fidelity 2100 by Alain Zanchetta, CCC, June 10, 2004
Chessmaster 10th Edition Demo by John Merlino, CCC, June 22, 2004
Re: Chessmaster 10th Edition demo (technalities) by Johan de Koning, CCC, July 20, 2004
Chessmaster 9000 for Macintosh has been released by Richard A. Fowell, CCC, December 30, 2004

2005 ...

A question to the ChessMaster tuners by Peter Berger, CCC, February 20, 2005
Historical Chessmaster ? by Mike Byrne, CCC, April 23, 2005
What is "randomness" for a CM9k personality? by Wilma, rgcc, June 12, 2005
Chessmaster 11 - 19/10/07 by Wardy, Hiarcs Forum, August 07, 2007
Chessmaster 11 - first thoughts... by Steve Maughan, CCC, November 05, 2007
Chessmaster 11 by Fernando Villegas, Hiarcs Forum, January 08, 2008
Chessmaster 11 settings testing - Default 4CPU added by Graham Banks, CCC, March 12, 2008
Chessmaster Grandmaster version by Dann Corbit, May 17, 2008
Be aware - very aware - Chessmaster for Nintendo DS by Monsieur Plastique, Hiarcs Forum, November 15, 2008
Chessmaster 11 from Ubisoft works as WinBoard-engine? by Norbert Raimund Leisner, CCC, May 25, 2009 » WinBoard
Chessmaster 4, 5, 5.5, 6 & 7 under Windows XP by Nick M., CCC, December 25, 2009

2010 ...

Chessmaster Personality Development by Mark Loftus, CCC, October 17, 2011
David K: did you write CM3000 code? Great discussion here... by Fernando Villegas, CCC, April 24, 2012
Blincoe Knows the Truth about CM3000 by Fernando Villegas, CCC, April 24, 2012
Chessmaster (+engine) version history by Vincent Lejeune, CCC, August 28, 2013
Which is the best personality CM XI ? (in elo strength) by Gustavo Mallada, CCC, January 07, 2014

CM11 Settings and Testing

^[38]

CM11 settings and testing by Graham Banks, CCRL Discussion Board, January 26, 2008
CM11 Championship (completed) by Graham Banks, CCRL Discussion Board, January 19, 2009
CM11 Teams Challenge II (completed) by Graham Banks, CCRL Discussion Board, February 22, 2009
CM11 Teams Challenge III (completed) by Graham Banks, CCRL Discussion Board, April 15, 2009
CM11 Slugfest (completed) by Graham Banks, CCRL Discussion Board, June 19, 2009
CM11 Knockout 2010 (completed) by Graham Banks, CCRL Discussion Board, May 12, 2010
CM11 Slugfest II (completed) by Graham Banks, CCRL Discussion Board, May 30, 2010
CM11 Champions 2011 (completed) by Graham Banks, CCRL Discussion Board, July 18, 2011

External Links

Ubisoft - Chessmaster XI
Chessmaster from Wikipedia
Walt's Home Page - Software Publisher
The chess games of Chessmaster from chessgames.com
Chessmaster 11 | Forums
Jason Kent's Chess Notes
Chessmaster series - MobyGames
VC&G | The Chessmaster Died in 1997 by Benj Edwards, August 27, 2012
The Life, and Death, of PC Gaming's Most Famous Cover Star
Chessmaster in CCRL 40/4
Chessmaster in CCRL 40/40

CM 2000

CM 2100

CM 3000

CM 4000

CM 5000

CM 5500

CM 6000

CM 7000

CM 8000

Chessmaster 8000 - MobyGames
Chessmaster 8000 Review - GameSpot
Chessmaster 8000 Credit Information - GameFAQs
The Chessmaster 8000 - PC - GameSpy
Chessmaster 8000 (Video Game 2000) - IMDb
What can Winboard do? by Aaron Tay, March 01, 2002, hosted by Ron Murawski » WinBoard

CM 9000

CM 10th Edition

CM Challenge

CM XI

References

^ Chessmaster from Wikipedia
^ Ubisoft - Chessmaster XI
^ Ubisoft - Chessmaster Challenge
^ Chessmaster Challenge Game - Download and Play Free Version!
^ Will Hare (1919 – 1997), VC&G | The Chessmaster Died in 1997 by Benj Edwards, August 27, 2012
^ Septober - Computerschach by Herbert Marquardt
^ Chessmaster 10th Edition Demo : Ubi Soft Entertainment Software : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive
^ Chessmaster Challenge Game - Download and Play Free Version!
^ PC-Screenshots | Chessmaster XI: The Art of Learning | Ubisoft
^ The Software Toolworks Home Page
^ Walt's Home Page - Software Publisher
^ The Chessmaster 2000 - MobyGames
^ MYCHESS for DOS (1984) - MobyGames
^ Re: Hello all by Dave Kittinger, CCC, April 25, 2012
^ Larry Kaufman (1986). 2nd U.S. Open Computer Chess Championship. Computer Chess Reports 1986, Fall/Winter Edition
^ Reply by Mark Manyen in Fidelity Chessmaster 2100 from The Spacious Mind
^ Re: Hello all by Dave Kittinger, CCC, April 25, 2012
^ Re: Historical Chessmaster ? by John Merlino, CCC, April 24, 2005
^ Re: Historical Chessmaster ? by John Merlino, CCC, April 24, 2005
^ Re: Hello all by Dave Kittinger, CCC, April 25, 2012
^ The Editor (1994). David Kittinger, Professional Biography. Computer Chess Reports, Vol. 5, No. 1, p. 21
^ Re: David K: did you write CM3000 code? Great discussion here by Fernando Villegas, CCC, April 25, 2012
^ What can Winboard do? by Aaron Tay, March 01, 2002, hosted by Ron Murawski
^ Chessmaster LIVE for Xbox 360 (2008) - MobyGames
^ Chessmaster (+engine) version history by Vincent Lejeune, CCC, August 28, 2013
^ An Introduction to FEG and Endgame Databases
^ De Koenig's endgame databases by Emil Vlasák
^ Walt's Home Page - Software Publisher
^ Software Toolworks (Mindscape) is there, and *yes* they do care! by Joe Stella, rgc, December 24, 1994
^ Net Contact List of Chessmaster by Carlos Justiniano, rgc, April 06, 1995
^ Mindscape from Wikipedia mentions: Mindscape sold to Pearson PLC for $503 million in 1994
^ Michael E. Duffy mentions sale of The Software Toolworks to Pearson PLC for $462 million, April 1994, Michael E. Duffy & Associates
^ David Grenewetzki mentions $462 million sale of The Software Toolworks to Pearson PLC, Mai 1993, David Grenewetzki - LinkedIn
^ Software Toolworks to Ubi Soft (OT) by John Merlino, CCC, March 20, 2001
^ The Art of Learning Project
^ CM5000 We welcome input! by Carlos Justiniano, rgc, December 29, 1994
^ David Bronstein vs Chessmaster from chessgames.com
^ Re: Which is the best personality CM XI ? (in elo strength) by Graham Banks, CCC, January 07, 2014

What links here?

Page	Date Edited
3D Graphics Board	Sep 23, 2017
Aegon 1994	Mar 26, 2017
Aegon 1995	Apr 6, 2017
Aegon 1997	Apr 7, 2017
Alain Zanchetta	Feb 20, 2018
Almond	Feb 14, 2012
Andrew Iverson	Apr 21, 2014
Atari 8-bit	Aug 3, 2016
Atari ST	Dec 7, 2016
Bryan Whitby	Jan 2, 2017
Carlos Justiniano	Jun 25, 2017
Chess-Master	Sep 7, 2017
Chessmaster	Jan 21, 2018
Constellation	Oct 2, 2016
David Bringhurst	May 15, 2014
David Grenewetzki	Apr 19, 2014
David Kittinger	Dec 27, 2017
Depth	Feb 25, 2018
Disney's Aladdin Chess Adventures	May 15, 2014
Donald W. Laabs	May 15, 2014
Eigenmann Endgame Test	Jun 1, 2017
Engines	Mar 10, 2018
Eric Schiller	Dec 5, 2016
Fidelity Electronics	Dec 1, 2017
Grandmaster Chess	Dec 7, 2016
HAL	Jun 14, 2016
Hans Kuijf	Jul 16, 2017
Harvard Cup 1992	Mar 26, 2017
Harvard Cup 1994	Apr 21, 2014
Harvard Cup 1995	Nov 9, 2012
Henrik Markarian	Apr 21, 2014
Heuristic Software	May 4, 2013
Javier Ros Padilla	Sep 2, 2015
Jessica Harmsen	Jul 29, 2012
Johan de Koning	Jul 3, 2017
John Merlino	Feb 26, 2015
Leonid Liberman	May 23, 2015
Majestic Chess	Jan 20, 2018
Marc Bourzutschky	Dec 16, 2013
Mark Manyen	Apr 21, 2014
Mephisto Vancouver	Sep 2, 2017
Michael Byrne	Jun 23, 2017
Michael E. Duffy	Apr 19, 2014
MyChess	Dec 25, 2017
Rex	Jan 7, 2016
Santos Gerardo Lazzeri	Mar 19, 2016
Sargon	Dec 25, 2017
Search with Random Leaf Values	Apr 23, 2018
Shawn Benn	Jan 2, 2015
TASC SmartBoard	Feb 25, 2018
Terry Everett	Dec 1, 2017
The King	Jan 21, 2018
United States Open Computer Chess Championship	Dec 2, 2017
USB Chess Board	Apr 21, 2015
USOCCC 1986	Dec 1, 2017
USOCCC 1987	Nov 30, 2017
USOCCC 1988	Dec 1, 2017
Walt Bilofsky	Apr 18, 2014
Wb2UCI	Feb 1, 2018
ZX Spectrum	Aug 3, 2016

Up one level

Chessnut

GerdIsenberg — Sat, 10 Dec 2016 12:29:43 GMT

Home * Engines * Chessnut

Chessnut,
a microcomputer chess program by Geoffrey Bulmer which participated at the European MCC 1981, the European MCC 1983 running on a modified Acorn Computer with a 6502 processor ^[1], and the WMCCC 1984 running on a Commodore 64, where it won the title of Amateur World Microcomputer Chess Champion by default ^[2]. An improved version of Chessnut was also commercially released in 1981 by Acornsoft as Atom Chess for the Acorn Atom ^[3].

Quotes

by Tony Harrington ^[4]:

There was the solitary amateur entry, Geoff Bulmer's 'Chessnut', a plucky little program running on a Commodore 64 and guaranteed of the best amateur trophy even of it didn't won a game (it didn't).

Selected Games

WMCCC 1984, round 5: Intelligent Chess Software - Chessnut 3 ^[5]

[Event "WMCCC 1984"]
[Site "Glasgow, United Kingdom"]
[Date "1984.09.13"]
[Round "5"]
[White "Intelligent Chess Software"]
[Black "Chessnut 3"]
[Result "1-0"]
 
1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nc6 3. Nc3 dxc4 4. d5 Ne5 5. Nf3 f6 6. Nxe5 fxe5 7. e4 Nf6 
8. Bxc4 Bg4 9. f3 Bh5 10. Qb3 b6 11. Qa4+ Qd7 12. Bb5 O-O-O 13. Qxa7 Qxb5 
14. Nxb5 Nxd5 15. Qa8+ Kd7 16. Qxd5+ Kc8 17. Qc6 Rd1+ 18. Kxd1 Kd8 
19. Nxc7 Bf7 20. Kc2 Kc8 21. Na6+ Kd8 22. Rd1+ Bd5 23. Rxd5# 1-0

WMCCC 1984, round 6: Chessnut 3 - Sargon 3 / Compaq ^[6]

[Event "WMCCC 1984"]
[Site "Glasgow, United Kingdom"]
[Date "1984.09.14"]
[Round "6"]
[White "Chessnut 3"]
[Black "Sargon 3"]
[Result "0-1"]
 
1. c4 c5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Qxd4 Nc6 5. Qd3 e5 6. Nfd2 Bc5 7. Na3 O-O 
8. e4 Ng4 9. Qf3 Bxf2+ 10. Qxf2 Nxf2 11. Kxf2 Qb6+ 12. Kf3 Nd4+ 13. Kg3 Qf6 
14. Nb5 Qf4+ 15. Kh3 d6+ 16. g4 Qxg4# 0-1

External Links

Chess Program

Chessnut's ICGA Tournaments

Misc

Acorn (oak nut) from Wikipedia

References

^ Tony Harrington (1983). Chess Tournament - 4th European Microcomputer Chess Championship. Personal Computer World, December 1983
^ 4th World Microcomputer Chess Championship - Glasgow 1984 (ICGA Tournaments)
^ Atom Chess by Acornsoft for the Acorn Atom - Everygamegoing.com, see Front Cover
^ Tony Harrington (1984). Look back in dismay - Report of WMCCC 1984. Personal Computer World, December 1984
^ Glasgow 1984 - Chess - Round 5 - Game 1 (ICGA Tournaments)
^ Glasgow 1984 - Chess - Round 6 - Game 1 (ICGA Tournaments)

What links here?

Page	Date Edited
Acorn Atom	Dec 11, 2016
Atom Chess	Dec 11, 2016
Chessnut	Dec 10, 2016
Engines	Mar 10, 2018
European MCC 1981	May 22, 2016
European MCC 1983	May 22, 2016
Geoffrey Bulmer	Dec 10, 2016
WMCCC 1984	Dec 31, 2017

Up one Level

Colossus Chess

GerdIsenberg — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 18:41:16 GMT

Home * Engines * Colossus Chess

		Colossus Chess, the series of chess programs by Martin Bryant developed from 1983 on an Apple II in 6502 Assembly, based on Bryant's former program White Knight. Colossus Chess 2.0 was the first commercial release in 1884 for the Commodore 64 and this and subsequent versions for other 6502, Z80, 68000 and 8086 based home and personal computers, such as Atari 8-bit, BBC Micro, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Atari ST, Amiga, and finally for the IBM PC. Colossus Chess pioneered a sophisticated GUI with an optional 3D chessboard, and lot of new features for that time, and has become one of the best selling chess programs of all time ^[1]. Colossus Chess played the European MCC 1983 in London and the WMCCC 1984 in Glasgow.
Colossus Chess 4.0 3D board on C64 ^[2]

Colossus Chess UCI

While the work on the commercial Colossus Chess series finished in 1991, Martin Bryant started a completely new and freely available Windows UCI version in 2004, first written in C# then converted to C ^[3], released in 2006 ^[4] through 2008 ^[5].

Publications

Martin Bryant (1984). Chess software for home computers. Computer & Video Games, January 1984, pdf hosted by Mike Watters
Tony Harrington (1984). Of might and men. Personal Computer News, November 1984, pdf hosted by Mike Watters

Forum Posts

Interview with Martin Bryant, the Man behind Colossus by Fernando Villegas, CCC, May 18, 2002
isn't there a new version of colossus ? by Thorsten Czub, CCC, April 29, 2004
Colossus Chess - Still life in the old horse by Bryan Whitby, CCC, October 21, 2005
Colossus 2007d Available by Martin Bryant, CCC, September 22, 2007
Colossus 2008a available by Martin Bryant, CCC, September 07, 2008
Colossus 2008b available by Martin Bryant, CCC, September 23, 2008
Re: Colossus 2008b by Graham Banks, CCRL Discussion Board, January 12, 2011 (Download)
Colossus 2008b by Bryan Whitby, CCC, December 10, 2017

External Links

Colossus Chess (dead)
Colossus' (Chess) ICGA Tournaments
Colossus Chess from Wikipedia
Free Chess Downloads by Ed Schröder
Chess Computers - The UK Story by Mike Watters
Classic Computer Chess - ... The programs of yesteryear by Carey, hosted by the Internet Archive ^[6]

Colossus 2.0

Colossus 3.0

Atari 400 800 XL XE - Colossus Chess 3.0 from The World's Finest Atari Database

Colossus 4.0

Colossus X

Misc

References

^ Chess Computers - The UK Story by Mike Watters
^ Colossus Chess from Wikipedia
^ Colossus Chess from Wikipedia
^ Free Chess Downloads by Ed Schröder
^ Colossus 2008b available by Martin Bryant, CCC, September 23, 2008
^ Re: Old programs CHAOS and USC by Dann Corbit, CCC, July 11, 2015
^ Lorenz cipher from Wikipedia

What links here?

Page	Date Edited
3D Graphics Board	Sep 23, 2017
Atari 8-bit	Aug 3, 2016
Atari ST	Dec 7, 2016
BBC Micro	Dec 16, 2016
Bryan Whitby	Jan 2, 2017
Colossus Chess	Dec 10, 2017
Eigenmann Endgame Test	Jun 1, 2017
Engines	Mar 10, 2018
European MCC 1983	May 22, 2016
Fernando Villegas	Aug 15, 2016
Martin Bryant	Dec 11, 2016
Querg	Dec 11, 2013
Rainer Neuhäusler	Apr 16, 2013
Terry Everett	Dec 1, 2017
Tony Harrington	Sep 26, 2014
USOCCC 1988	Dec 1, 2017
White Knight	Dec 12, 2016
WMCCC 1984	Dec 31, 2017

Up one Level

Cyrus

GerdIsenberg — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 15:26:14 GMT

Home * Engines * Cyrus

		Cyrus, Richard Lang's first chess program, written in Assembly for a Z80 CPU. Starting programming in January 1981, his tournament debut at the 2nd European Microcomputer Chess Championship at the PCW Show 1981 in London was already a breakthrough. Cyrus was the clear winner with 5 out of 5 in a field of 12 Micros. Cyrus ran on a Nascom microcomputer using a 4 MHz Z80 CPU, and Lang immediately was offered two contracts by David Levy and Kevin O’Connell, one for Cyrus, and one to work as programmer for Intelligent Software. Lang accepted, and Cyrus IS-Chess for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum was his first commercial entry, followed by programs for various dedicated chess computers merchandised by Intelligent Software, as well a further improved version of Cyrus, Cyrus II. In an 2003 interview, Richard Lang stated that there is still much of Cyrus in current versions of Chess Genius. For example, he had never used quiescence searches and relied instead on a static swap off routine ^[1].
Cyrus IS-Chess ^[2]

ACM 1981 Blitz

An improved version of Cyrus appeared at the ACM Speed Chess Tournament 1981, running on an Osborne Z80 microcomputer and matched against mainframe programs, beating Cray Blitz and Chess 4.5, and only losing to Belle ^[3].

[Event "ACM 1981 Speed Tournament"]
[Site "Los Angeles"]
[Date " 1981.11.10"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Cyrus"]
[Black "Cray Blitz"]
[Result "1-0"]
 
1. e4 d6 2. d4 g6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bb5 Nbd7 5. Nf3 c6 6. Be2 Bg7 
7. 0-0 0-0 8. Qd3 e5 9. Bg5 h6 10. Bxf6 Qxf6 11. Rfd1 Rd8 
12. a4 a5 13. Ra3 Qf4 14. g3 Qf6 15. Rb3 Ra7 16. Qc4 Ra6 
17. dxe5 dxe5 18. Rd2 b6 19. Qd3 Bb7 20. Qd6 Qxd6 21. Rxd6 Raa8 
22. Rd2 Ba6 23. Bxa6 Rxa6 24. Ne2 c5 25. Rbd3 Ra7 26. Nc3 Rb7 
27. b3 Kh8 28. Nb5 Kg8 29. Nd6 Rc7 30. Nb5 Rb7 31. Rd5 f6 
32. Nd6 Rc7 33. Nb5 Rb7 34. c4 Bf8 35. Nc3 g5 36. Ne1 Bg7 
37. Nc2 Kh8 38. Ne3 Kg8 39. Nf5 Bf8 40. Ne3 Bg7 41. R5d3 Kh8 
42. Nf5 Ra7 43. Nb5 Ra6 44. Nc7 Ra7 45. Ne6 Re8 46. Nexg7 1-0

Intelligent Software

Following programs and dedicated chess computers with programs based on Cyrus were released during Lang's period working for Intelligent Software ^[4]:

Cyrus for Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Z80 assembly language, 1981
Chess 2001, Z80 assembly language, 1982 ^[5]
Intelligent Chess Software, Z80 assembly language
L'Empereur, Z80 assembly language ^[6]
La Regence, Z80 assembly language ^[7] ^[8]
Dragon Chess, 6809 assembly language, for Dragon Data Home computers ^[9]

Cyrus II

		Working for Intelligent Software, Richard Lang continued the Cyrus development including a 6502 port to cover the growing market of Apple II and Commodore 64 home computers. At the 3rd European Microcomputer Chess Championship, September 1982, La Regence became strong runner up behind Advance 2.4, while Cyrus II itself didn't quite come up to its expectations. Lang: 'It was written in such a hurry and the tournament came in the middle of its development period rather than at the end'. There were quite a few new ideas in the program, and he didn't have much time to test them before the tournament. The new ideas were a combination of running faster and implementing new chess knowledge, by getting it to recognize isolated and doubled pawns and the like ^[10]. Various programs derivate from Cyrus competed at the 4th European Microcomputer Chess Championship, September 1983. Cyrus 2.5 finished best (4th) of the home computer programs tied with White Knight 11 by Martin Bryant, behind Advance 3.0 and Chess 2001.
Cyrus II 3D screen ^[11]

Cyrus 68K

see main article Cyrus 68K

In about 1983 Richard Lang started to write his new program Psion for 68000 family of processors, and was about to abandon the work for Intelligent Software, who continued their own work by owning the Cyrus brand by primary programmer Mark Taylor, yielding in Cyrus 68K. Its predecessor, competing under the name 65 Cyrus X at the WMCCC 1983 in Budapest is assigned to Intelligent Software with the authors David Levy, Mark Taylor and Kevin O’Connell at the ICGA tournament page ^[12].

External Links

Chess Computers - The UK Story from Chess Computer UK by Mike Watters
Cyrus IS Chess - World of Spectrum
Cyrus II - World of Spectrum
Cyrus download @ Game Downloads
Cyrus Is Chess by Sinclair from Retrogames
Cyrus II Chess for CPC - GameSpot
Cyrus for DOS (1985) from MobyGames
Chess and Computers
Cyrus I from Wikipedia, King of Anshan
Cyrus the Great from Wikipedia, grandson of Cyrus I and the founder of the Achaemenid Empire

References

^ Richard Lang - Question & Answer Interview given to a German magazine in 2003, pdf hosted by Mike Watters, Chess Computer UK
^ Cyrus IS Chess - World of Spectrum
^ Tony Harrington (1983). Winner Takes All. Personal Computer World, September 83, pdf hosted by Mike Watters, Chess Computer UK
^ Richard Lang - Question & Answer Interview given to a German magazine in 2003, pdf hosted by Mike Watters, Chess Computer UK
^ CXG Chess 2001 from Schachcomputer.info - Wiki
^ SciSys and Novag : The Early Years from Chess Computer UK by Mike Watters
^ Chafitz TSB 4 La Regence from Schachcomputer.info - Wiki
^ Gilbert Obermair (1983). Schach-Computer Report ’84, S. 62-63, Applied Concepts - La Regence TSB IV, pdf hosted by Hein Veldhuis (German)
^ Computing History - DragonChess
^ Tony Harrington (1983). Winner Takes All. Personal Computer World, September 83, pdf hosted by Mike Watters
^ Cyrus II - World of Spectrum
^ Cyrus' ICGA Tournaments

What links here?

Page	Date Edited
3D Graphics Board	Sep 23, 2017
Advance	Jan 7, 2016
Applied Concepts	Dec 25, 2017
Chess 2001	Jan 8, 2016
Cyrus	Jul 22, 2014
Cyrus 68K	Jan 7, 2016
Engines	Mar 10, 2018
European MCC 1981	May 22, 2016
European MCC 1982	May 22, 2016
European MCC 1983	May 22, 2016
European Microcomputer Chess Championship	May 22, 2016
Intelligent Chess Software	Jan 8, 2016
Intelligent Software	Dec 11, 2012
L'Empereur	Jan 8, 2016
La Regence	Jul 23, 2015
PCW Microcomputer Chess Championship	May 22, 2016
Personal Computer World	Apr 12, 2013
Psion	Mar 20, 2017
Querg	Dec 11, 2013
Richard Lang	Jan 7, 2016
Stockholm MCCT 1981	Oct 12, 2013
Tony Harrington	Sep 26, 2014
ZX Spectrum	Aug 3, 2016

Up one level

Grand Master

GerdIsenberg — Thu, 17 Sep 2015 10:23:06 GMT

Home * Engines * Grand Master

		Grand Master, (Grandmaster, Grandmaster Chess, Schaken, Ajedrez II) a chess program initially developed by Fritz Schäfer ^[1] for the Commodore VIC-20, later ported for the Commodore 64 and Commodore 16, and released in 1982 through Schäfer's former Homecomputer Software company Kingsoft ^[2], and Audiogenic in the UK. The Spacious Mind considers Grand Master as one of the strongest chess programs available on Home Computers at that time ^[3].
Grand Master Screen ^[4]

Forum Posts

Re: Legacy hardware emulator chess championship? by Stan Arts, CCC, November 22, 2014

External Links

C64 Chess Program

Misc

Grandmaster (chess) from Wikipedia

References

What links here?

Page	Date Edited
Engines	Mar 10, 2018
Grand Master	Sep 17, 2015
Grandmaster Chess	Dec 7, 2016
PocketGrandmaster	Sep 17, 2015

Up one Level

Happy-Chess

GerdIsenberg — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 11:44:37 GMT

External Links

References

What links here?

Home * Engines * Happy-Chess

Happy-Chess (Masterchess v1.2),
a chess program for the Commodore 64 written by Thomas Starke in 6502 assembly ^[1], published by the German Happy Computer magazine in 1988 as part of the C64 game collection Vol. 4 ^[2]. Happy-Chess has an graphical user interface and is only able to play with the black pieces.

External Links

References

What links here?

Page	Date Edited
Engines	Mar 10, 2018
Happy-Chess	Dec 1, 2012
Thomas Starke	Dec 1, 2012

Up one level

Hypra-Chess

GerdIsenberg — Sat, 28 Oct 2017 19:39:13 GMT

Home * Engines * Hypra-Chess

Hypra-Chess,
a chess program for the Commodore 64 by Thomas Gaksch, written in 6510 assembly. Hypra-Chess was published in 1987 by the German 64'er magazine as part of the C64 game collection Vol. 1 ^[1]. The program had a rudimentary user interface and did not display a the chess position ^[2].

Forum Posts

Thanks again for this (useless) Discussion by Thomas Gaksch, CCC, December 23, 2005

External Links

References

What links here?

Page	Date Edited
Engines	Mar 10, 2018
Hypra-Chess	Oct 28, 2017
Thomas Gaksch	Jan 8, 2016

Up one level

Kempelen

GerdIsenberg — Thu, 24 Mar 2016 16:21:08 GMT

Home * Engines * Kempelen

		Kempelen, a chess program written by Attila Kovács for 6502 and later 68000 based home computers, like Commodore 64, Commodore 128 and Atari ST. The commercial Commodore version by Andromeda Software Inc. ^[1], market in 1986 by Sierra On-Line was co-authored by Grandmaster István Bilek and Tamás Révkirá ^[2]. Kempelen played four World Microcomputer Chess Championships in the 80s, the WMCCC 1985, WMCCC 1986, WMCCC 1988 and WMCCC 1989. The program's name was in remembrance of the Hungarian inventor Wolfgang von Kempelen ^[3], in the late 18th century the constructor of The Turk, the chess-playing automaton later revealed to be a hoax.
Kempelen Intro Screen ^[4]

Selected Games

WMCCC 1985 (Amateurs), round 4, PK83 - Kempelen I ^[5]

[Event "WMCCC 1985 (Amateurs)"]
[Site "Amsterdam, NL"]
[Date "1985.09.11"]
[Round "4"]
[White "PK83"]
[Black "Kempelen I"]
[Result "0-1"]
 
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 d6 5.c3 Bd7 6.d4 Nf6 7.d5 Na7 8.Bg5 Be7 
9.Bxf6 Bxf6 10.Nbd2 b5 11.Bc2 O-O 12.O-O Qe7 13.Qe2 c5 14.a4 Rfe8 15.axb5 
axb5 16.Ra5 Bg4 17.b4 cxb4 18.cxb4 Rac8 19.Bd3 Rc3 20.Bxb5 Nxb5 21.Rxb5 
Rec8 22.h3 Bd7 23.Rb7 Qe8 24.g4 g6 25.g5 Bxh3 26.gxf6 Bxf1 27.Kxf1 h5 
28.Ra7 Rc1+ 29.Kg2 R1c3 30.Ng5 R8c7 31.Rxc7 Rxc7 32.Qd3 Qd8 33.Qb5 Rc3 
34.Nb1 Rc1 35.Na3 Qxf6 36.Nf3 Rc3 37.Qe8+ Kg7 38.Nxe5 dxe5 39.Nb5 Qf3+ 
0-1

Photos

WMCCC 1985, Kempelen running on a Commodore 128, operated by Gyula Horváth ^[6]

External Links

Chess Program

Misc

Wolfgang von Kempelen - Wikipedia
The Turk from Wikipedia
Billy Cobham - George Duke Band - Red Baron, YouTube Video
feat. John Scofield and Alphonso Johnson, Montreux Jazz Festival, July 6, 1976

References

^ The Two Guys from Andromeda Story
^ Kempelen from GB64.COM
^ Baron von Kempelens Schach-„Automat“ (German)
^ Kempelen from GB64.COM
^ Amsterdam 1985 - Chess (Amateur) - Round 4 - Game 1 (ICGA Tournaments)
^ Screen Capture from Amsterdam 1985 Video, 0:37

What links here?

Page	Date Edited
Algebraic Chess Notation	Sep 25, 2017
Attila Kovács	Jan 7, 2016
Commodore 128	Mar 24, 2016
Engines	Mar 10, 2018
Kempelen	Mar 24, 2016
Mr. Turk	Feb 21, 2015
Quickstep	Jan 8, 2016
Raspberry Turk	Sep 7, 2017
Sierra	May 3, 2013
The Baron	Jan 8, 2018
The Turk	Apr 1, 2017
The Turk (TR)	Apr 1, 2017
WCCC 1986	Jul 27, 2017
WMCCC 1985	Feb 6, 2018
WMCCC 1986	Jan 7, 2016
WMCCC 1987	Jan 7, 2016
WMCCC 1989	Oct 27, 2016

Up one level

Master Chess

GerdIsenberg — Wed, 03 Aug 2016 16:27:26 GMT

Home * Engines * Master Chess

		Master Chess, (Masterchess) a chess program for Amstrad CPC by Amsoft / Mikro-Gen, released in 1984, written in Z80 machine code apparently based on ZX Spectrum Chess written by Anthony Adam. A program with the same name was further published in 1987 by Mastertronic for Amstrad CPC and various Z80 as well as 6502 based home computers, such as Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, MSX and ZX Spectrum ^[1].
Master Chess ^[2]

External Links

Master Chess - CPCWiki
masterchess © amsoft (1984) | CPC Power
Master Chess for Amstrad CPC (1987) - MobyGames
Master Chess - World of Spectrum
Master Chess (Game) - Giant Bomb
Master Chess for the Amstrad CPC, YouTube Video

References

What links here?

Page	Date Edited
Anthony Adam	Aug 3, 2016
Atari 8-bit	Aug 3, 2016
Engines	Mar 10, 2018
Master Chess	Aug 3, 2016
ZX Spectrum Chess	Aug 3, 2016

Up one level

MicroChess

GerdIsenberg — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 07:37:08 GMT

Home * Engines * MicroChess

		MicroChess, the first commercially successful chess program for 6502 ^[1] and 8080/Z80 ^[2] based microcomputers, such as KIM-1 and TRS-80 ^[3] , developed by Peter Jennings in 1976 ^[4] . MicroChess 1.5 was base for the programs for the dedicated Commodore ChessMate (1978) and the Novag Chess Champion MK II (1979) ^[5] .
llustration from Microchess, 1977 ca. ^[6]

Images

KIM-1

MicroChess on the KIM-1 ^[7]

TRS-80

Microchess 1.5 on TRS-80 ^[8]

Development

Peter Jennings in his Oral History about the development of MicroChess on the KIM-1 ^[9] :

And if people were using the KIM-1 they weren't going to have it, the majority of people who had a KIM-1 that’s what they had, was just the KIM-1. So I mean I never thought about it in terms of could I put it on some bigger computer, I really at that point was saying “Okay this is what I'm going to do,” and so I treated the problem that way and looked at okay, how do you store the positions, how do you store the moves, how do you do it with the minimum amount of memory, how do you store the tree of what you’ve created, and ...

Well I know I didn't store the whole board, because it was simpler to just store the number of pieces, there are fewer pieces than there are squares on the board, and then what I would do is I would make a move, so I would only store the tree of moves and moves would always be done in a certain order, so you always knew that you could sort of start with this move, then go to that move, then go to that move, go through a sequence of potential types of moves. So the order of how moves would be generated was always the same. So you could then go through one move at a time and I would store the first move and then I would reverse the board and then just give it to the computer, give it to the program in the same way that it had looked at the first position, so all I had to store at that point was the position and one move. So the amount of storage was kept pretty small and you were basically giving it back to the computer and saying “Okay, reverse the board,” see what that does until you’ve lost something or you’ve gained something and analyze that against the algorithm and give it a score.

You start with exactly the same thing, one point for pawns and two points for knights , three points for bishops, five for rooks, that’s exactly where it started.

Point Values

The point values for 16 pieces, king (11), queen (10), rooks (6), bishops (4), knights (4), and pawns (2) were defined as preinitialized array of 16 bytes, apparently in half pawn units, which overestimates pawns by todays standards ^[10] :

POINTS     db  $0B, $0A, $06, $06, $04, $04, $04, $04
           db  $02, $02, $02, $02, $02, $02, $02, $02

Programming Topics

Namesake

The namesake Microchess 3, released in 1983 by Norgayer Software for the Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 ^[11] ^[12] , is an alias of the 1981 program PetChess, developed by Philidor Software ^[13] ^[14] ^[15] , which was, according to Mike Watters, written by Mark Taylor ^[16] .

Publications

Peter Jennings (1976). MicroChess, a Chess playing program for the 6502 Microcomputer. pdf, Courtesy of Peter Jennings, The Computer History Museum
Peter Jennings (1977). MicroChess, a Chess playing program for the 8080 Microcomputer. pdf, Courtesy of Peter Jennings, The Computer History Museum
Microchess Load Instructions, pdf from The Computer History Museum
Microchess Order Form, 1976 ca, pdf from The Computer History Museum
Microchess source code, pdf from The Computer History Museum
Peter Jennings (1978). Microchess 1.5 Versus Dark Horse. BYTE, Vol. 3, No. 3 » Dark Horse
What's New? Computer chess; Microchess 1.5; Boris, BYTE, Vol. 3, No. 10, pp. 193, pdf from The Computer History Museum » Boris
John F. White (1981). Survey-Chess Games. Your Computer, August/September 1981

External Links

References

^ Peter Jennings (1976). MicroChess, a Chess playing program for the 6502 Microcomputer. pdf, Courtesy of Peter Jennings, The Computer History Museum
^ Peter Jennings (1977). MicroChess, a Chess playing program for the 8080 Microcomputer. pdf, Courtesy of Peter Jennings, The Computer History Museum
^ Microchess running on Radio Shack TRS-80 microcomputer, 1976, Courtesy of Peter Jennings and Digibarn, The Computer History Museum
^ Sellam Ismail (2005). Oral History of Peter Jennings. pdf and Video from The Computer History Museum
^ Scisys and Novag : The Early Years from Chess Computer UK by Mike Watters
^ Illustration from Microchess: A Chess Playing Program for the 8080 Microcomputer, 1977, from The Computer History Museum
^ DigiBarn Games: MicroChess 1.5 on the TRS-80 Model 1
^ Microchess running on Radio Shack TRS-80 microcomputer, 1976, Courtesy of Peter Jennings and Digibarn, The Computer History Museum
^ Sellam Ismail (2005). Oral History of Peter Jennings. pdf and Video from The Computer History Museum, pp. 15, 16
^ 6502 source code
^ Microchess – C64-Wiki (German)
^ Commodore 64 Emulator - Computer Chess Game Collection - Microchess 3, The Spacious Mind
^ Game music base - database of Games, Games music and soundtracks | Pet Chess 4000 aka Microchess 3.0
^ Commodore 64 Emulator - Computer Chess Game Collection - Petchess 4000, The Spacious Mind
^ John F. White (1982). Review-Chess Computers. Your Computer, March 1982
^ Chess Computers - The UK Story by Mike Watters
^ Re: Old programs CHAOS and USC by Dann Corbit, CCC, July 11, 2015

What links here?

Page	Date Edited
8080	Sep 3, 2017
Apple II	Dec 22, 2017
Arduino	Feb 21, 2018
Boris	Dec 25, 2017
Byte Magazine	Nov 20, 2016
Chess Champion MK II	Jul 30, 2015
Color Flipping	May 17, 2017
Commodore ChessMate	Jan 26, 2016
Dark Horse	Jul 19, 2016
Engines	Mar 10, 2018
Graphics Programming	Dec 22, 2017
KIM-1	Oct 9, 2014
MicroChess	Jul 14, 2015
MicroMurks	Jan 8, 2016
Novag Micro Chess	Jan 16, 2013
PCW-MCC 1978	Dec 9, 2012
PetChess	Dec 1, 2012
Peter Jennings	Mar 18, 2016
PICcolino	Oct 2, 2017
Piece-Lists	Feb 13, 2017
Point Value	Mar 31, 2018
Sargon	Dec 25, 2017
The Penrod Memorial Microchess Tournament	Dec 22, 2017
TRS-80	May 20, 2015

Up one Level

MyChess

GerdIsenberg — Mon, 25 Dec 2017 16:47:57 GMT

Home * Engines * MyChess

		MyChess, David Kittinger's first chess program, developed in 1979 initially for the 8-Bit Z80 CPU written in assembly language to run under CP/M. It had its quite successful debut at the ACM 1979 and the PCW-MCC 1979 some days later, and further played the MCC 1980 and the WCCC 1980 supported by book-author John Urwin, and the ACM 1980 and ACM 1981. In 1981 Kittinger was hired by Peter Auge, and MyChess was ported to Novag's dedicated chess computers ^[1], a tiny Fairchild F8 based program for Novag Micro Chess, a smaller 6502 based program for the Super Sensor IV, and the Z80 program for Savant and the Robot Adversary.
MyChess II ^[2]

Description

Anatomy

from History and Anatomy of MYCHESS by David Kittinger ^[3]:

MYCHESS uses an iterative Type A search, with alpha-beta pruning as well as the killer and capture heuristics. It will predict its opponents best move, and start, analyzing replies while the opponent is still thinking. One extra ply is examined before backing up from a best variation if the side to move can have anything captured.

The desirability of a possible position is "scored " on the basis of material strength, using a "swap off" evaluator to resolve situations where something is under attack. If a decision can not be made using this score, then a secondary positional score is generated, which takes into account such features as pawn structure, piece placement, and mobility. When a possible position is found which is better than the current best variation, it is saved in the ply table ; otherwise it is discarded.

Move Generation

MyChess focused on speed and had completely independent move generation for white and black. As mentioned by its author, one of the funny things about MyChess is that it originally had two 16 byte arrays as piece-list, but fixed by the index, so that it could only promote a pawn to a captured piece ^[4]. Continuation from History and Anatomy of MYCHESS:

Moves are generated serially and only as necessary, to save time. The possible moves from a position are examined in the following order:

Best variation from previous iteration
Winning or even captures
Castle moves
En passant captures
Killer moves
Two best regular moves from ply one
Losing capture moves (sacrifices)
Other moves

Pawn promotions are handled by the capture routines or regular pawn move routine, depending on whether the capture is made while promoting. Regular moves are generated piece by piece, starting with the king's rook pawn and ending with the king.

Further Developments

MyChess was further ported to the 6502 and compatible CPUs to run on a Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 and market as MyChess II by Beyond Software^[5] , and also to the 16-Bit 8086, released by Software Toolworks in 1984 for the IBM PC and MS-DOS operating system ^[6], forerunner of Chessmaster 2000. The 6502 version was apparently also the base for Novag's Constellation and Super Constellation.

Publications

John Urwin (1979). Two New Programs Are Tested. Personal Computing, Vol. 3, No. 12, pp. 71 » Video Chess
Editor (1980). MyChess goes to college. Personal Computing, Vol. 4, No. 6, pp. 91
Editor (1980). MyChess Shines. Personal Computing, Vol. 4, No. 11, pp. 85
Harry Shershow (1981). The MyChess-CSC Confrontation at San Jose. Personal Computing, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 79 » MCC 1980
John F. White (1982). Review-Chess Computers. Your Computer, March 1982
Dave Kittinger (1984). MyChess - Chess Playing Program. The Software Toolworks, pdf hosted by garlanger.com

Forum Posts

Best way to run Mychess at the original speed (emulation) by Jonathan P., CCC, May 25, 2007
Hello all by Dave Kittinger, CCC, April 25, 2012

External Links

References

^ Scisys and Novag : The Early Years from Chess Computer UK by Mike Watters
^ Commodore 64/128 Old Computer Chess Game Collection - Mychess II from The Spacious Mind
^ Dave Kittinger (1984). MyChess - Chess Playing Program. The Software Toolworks, pdf hosted by garlanger.com
^ David Kittinger - Interview by Bryan Whitby
^ Commodore 64/128 Old Computer Chess Game Collection - Mychess II from The Spacious Mind
^ MYCHESS for DOS (1984) from MobyGames
^ Re: Old programs CHAOS and USC by Dann Corbit, CCC, July 11, 2015

What links here?

Page	Date Edited
ACM 1979	Apr 3, 2017
ACM 1980	Dec 25, 2017
ACM 1981	Jan 19, 2018
Chessmaster	Jan 21, 2018
Constellation	Oct 2, 2016
David Kittinger	Dec 27, 2017
Engines	Mar 10, 2018
John Urwin	Dec 23, 2017
MCC 1980	Dec 27, 2017
MyChess	Dec 25, 2017
Novag	Aug 19, 2015
Novag Micro Chess	Jan 16, 2013
Parwell	Sep 9, 2017
PCW-MCC 1979	Dec 23, 2017
Personal Computing	Dec 27, 2017
Robot Adversary	Mar 14, 2015
Savant	Feb 4, 2017
Stockholm MCCT 1980	Sep 5, 2017
USOCCC 1985	Sep 1, 2017
Video Chess	Dec 23, 2017
WCCC 1980	Dec 25, 2017
Xenarbor	Sep 6, 2014

Up one level

PetChess

GerdIsenberg — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 11:54:21 GMT

Home * Engines * PetChess

		PetChess, (PetChess 4000, Pet Chess 8000) a chess program for the Commodore PET ^[1], released in 1981 by Philidor Software. According to Mike Watters, PetChess was written by Mark Taylor ^[2]. A similar program was released in 1983 by Norgayer Software for the Commodore 64 and 128 under the name Microchess 3, which associates Peter Jennings, author of the 1976 MicroChess was involved ^[3] ^[4]. However it seems, Microchess 3 was an alias name of PetChess, with Mark Taylor as author as well ^[5].
Petchess 4000 C64 Emulation ^[6]

Description

excerpt from John F. White's 1982 review ^[7]

There is a substantial book-opening library of 3,700 moves, although whether a computer should play the dubious von Hennig-Schara gambit is open to doubt. Moves may be taken back to the beginning and an action replay is available to repeat moves.

The program uses iterative deepening for its moves and the best move yet found is constantly displayed, as is the move under consideration, and the player can halt the machine’s thinking at any time. Moves are not randomly selected – except in the opening – instead the player can select the next best move and play on from there. Draws under the 50-move rule, stalemate or three-fold repetition are also recognised.

The entire program and its style of play is reminiscent of Philidor’s Intelligent Chess, although there is a greater emphasis on pawn moves. The evaluation function is evidently very sophisticated, but it takes a long time to search at the lowest levels. It seems that subsequent levels are only sketchily evaluated, and the program rarely changes its mind about a move found at the lowest level. As a result, PetChess falls into simple traps at these levels – up to one minute, which covers half of the available levels – because of its inability to see far ahead.

At higher levels, it avoids the traps, but tends to exchange everything it can. Like so many programs, it likes to exchange its bishops for knights early in the game, and it also prefers to double its pawns rather than move its queen before castling – I detect Levy’s hand.

PetChess shows some evidence of strategic thinking in moving pawn majorities against minorities or in moving major pieces into attack positions against the enemy king. This, again, shows the thought that has been put into the evaluation function. The end-game play is, however, rather weak, and the king seems to be a little passive.

Publications

John F. White (1982). Review-Chess Computers. Your Computer, March 1982

External Links

References

What links here?

Page	Date Edited
Engines	Mar 10, 2018
Mark Taylor	Jan 7, 2016
MicroChess	Jul 14, 2015
PetChess	Dec 1, 2012
Philidor Software	Sep 18, 2014

Up one Level

Princhess

GerdIsenberg — Sun, 03 Sep 2017 13:42:23 GMT

Home * Engines * Princhess

		Princhess, a chess program by Ulf Rathsman written in 6502 Assembly for the Commodore 64. Princhess played four World Microcomputer Chess Championships, the WMCCC 1980 in London, the WMCCC 1981 in Travemünde, becoming runner up, the WMCCC 1984 in Glasgow, where Princhess became tied champion, and the WMCCC 1985 in Amsterdam with a fourth place behind three Mephistos. After the success of Princhess in Travemünde, Rathsman became professional chess programmer and Princhess was incorporated into the dedicated Conchess computers ^[1] ^[2] .
Ruggiero Rescuing Angelica ^[3]

Selected Games

WMCCC 1981, round 6, Princhess - SciSys X ^[4]

[Event "WMCCC 1981"]
[Site "Travemünde, Germany"]
[Date "1981.09.26"]
[Round "6"]
[White "Princhess 2.9"]
[Black "Scisys X"]
[Result "1-0"]
 
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 Nf6 4.d5 Ne7 5.Nxe5 d6 6.Bb5+ c6 7.dxc6 Qa5+ 8.Nc3 bxc6 
9.Nxc6 Qc7 10.Nxa7+ Bd7 11.Bxd7+ Qxd7 12.Be3 Rxa7 13.Bxa7 Qxa7 14.Qxd6 Qa8 
15.Qe5 Nd7 16.Qb5 Nc6 17.Qg5 Nb4 18.Qd2 Bc5 19.O-O Nf6 20.Qg5 Bd4 21.Qb5+ Nc6 
22.Ne2 O-O 23.c3 Bxf2+ 24.Rxf2 Nxe4 25.Rf3 Nd2 26.Rd3 Rb8 27.Qd5 Qa7+ 28.Kh1 
Nb3 29.Rad1 Nbd4 30.Nxd4 Ne7 31.Qd6 Re8 32.Re1 Kf8 33.Nc6 Qc7 34.Qxc7 g6 35.Nxe7 
Kg7 36.Qe5+ f6 37.Nf5+ gxf5 38.Rg3+ Kh6 39.Qxf6+ Kh5 40.Qg5# 1-0

External Links

Chess Program

Princhess' ICGA Tournaments

Misc

References

^ Conchess – Schachcomputer.info Wiki (German)
^ Karsten Bauermeister (1998). Die Geschichte der Conchess-Schachcomputer. Computerschach und Spiele, Heft 4, August-September 1998
^ Ruggiero Rescuing Angelica, an illustration for Orlando Furioso by Gustave Doré, Princess and dragon from Wikipedia
^ Travemünde 1981 - Chess - Round 6 - Game 2 (ICGA Tournaments)

What links here?

Page	Date Edited
Conchess	Sep 4, 2017
Engines	Mar 10, 2018
Johan Enroth	Sep 11, 2017
Lars Hjörth	Sep 5, 2017
Plymate	Jan 7, 2016
Princhess	Sep 3, 2017
Stockholm MCCT 1980	Sep 5, 2017
Stockholm MCCT 1981	Oct 12, 2013
Ulf Rathsman	Jan 7, 2016
WMCCC 1980	Dec 25, 2017
WMCCC 1981	Apr 3, 2017
WMCCC 1984	Dec 31, 2017
WMCCC 1985	Feb 6, 2018

Up one Level

Sargon

GerdIsenberg — Mon, 25 Dec 2017 17:34:17 GMT

Home * Engines * Sargon

		Sargon, a family of chess programs by Dan and Kathe Spracklen. They started chess programming in 1977 on a Z-80 based Wavemate Jupiter III ^[1] in assembly language. The first Sargon version had a 10x12 board board representation and a two ply alpha-beta search without quiescence but a SOMA like exchange evaluation ^[2] ^[3]. After first tournament successes in 1978, at The Second West Coast Computer Faire, winning with a 100% score ^[4], and the shared third place at ACM 1978 already with Sargon II, the Spracklens became professional computer chess programmers. They first started selling their well commented Sargon I Z-80 assembly listing as paper copy for $15 by their own ^[5], and then made a contract with Hayden Books to publish a book about Sargon with explanations and listing ^[6]. Hayden Software ^[7] remained primary distributor of all further Sargon software versions, even when the Spracklens worked full time for Fidelity Electronics during the 80s.
Sargon I for the Apple II ^[8]

Pages with Spracklen Quotes

MOS Technology

Sargon I was already ported to the Apple II by Kathe Spracklen's brother, Gary Shannon ^[9]. Despite its lower frequency, they found the 6502 the much better processor for their program than the Z80, and soon the MOS Technology processor became the major target platform.

Sargon II

Sargon II was written for various Z-80 and 6502 based home computers, and was base for their first dedicated unit, the Chafitz ARB Sargon 2.5 ^[10]. After civil proceedings between manufacturer Applied Concepts ^[11] and their sales company Chafitz, the Spracklens began their long term collaboration with Sidney Samole and Fidelity Electronics in the 80s. Sargon II already played the ACM 1978 still with the Jupiter III, and the WMCCC 1980, where it had to compete with its dedicated relatives, winner Chess Challenger, runner up Boris Experimental, Sargon 2.5 Modular GS and Sargon 2.5 Auto RB, and became tied third with 3/5, last game losing from Challenger.

Sargon III

Sargon III was a complete rewrite, using quiescence search, and a transposition table with BCH hashing. Sargon III was ported to the 68000, to be the first third-party executable software for the Macintosh ^[12]. The 8086 Sargon III port for PC was done by Kevin Leavelle in 1984 ^[13], so that three Sargon 3 software versions played the WMCCC 1984, where the Fidelity Electronics Elite by the same authors tied for first place, the Apple II became 10th with 4/7, the Macintosh 12th with 3½/7 and the 8088 Compaq PC 17th with 2½/7. In cooperation agreement between Fidelity Electronics and Software Toolworks in 1988, an enhanced and improved Sargon III was market as Fidelity Chessmaster 2100 ^[14].

Photos & Games

Mike

Kathe Spracklen and Mike Johnson, Mike vs. Sargon 2, ACM 1978 ^[15] ^[16]

[Event "ACM 1978"]
[Site "Washington USA"]
[Date "1978.12.04"]
[Round "3"]
[White "Mike"]
[Black "Sargon 2"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
 
1.e4 e5 2.d4 Nc6 3.d5 Nb4 4.c3 Na6 5.f4 Nc5 6.fxe5 Qh4+ 7.Kd2 Nxe4+ 8.Kc2 Nf2
9.Qe1 Bc5 10.Nf3 Qh5 11.Rg1 Ne7 12.Be3 Qg6+ 13.Kc1 Bxe3+ 14.Qxe3 Ng4 15.Qd2 d6
16.Bd3 Qh5 17.Bb5+ Bd7 18.Bxd7+ Kxd7 19.exd6 cxd6 20.h3 Nf6 21.Qg5 Qxg5+
22.Nxg5 Rhf8 23.c4 Rac8 24.Nd2 Nexd5 25.Kb1 Ne3 26.Nge4 Nxe4 27.Nxe4 Rxc4
28.Nc3 f5 29.a4 d5 30.g3 Rf6 31.Re1 d4 32.Nb5 a6 33.Nxd4 f4 34.gxf4 Rxd4
35.Rxe3 Rfxf4 36.a5 Rd1+ 37.Ka2 Ra4+ 38.Ra3 Rxa3+ 39.bxa3 Rd2+ 40.Kb3 Rd3+
41.Kc4 Rxh3 42.Rd1+ Kc6 43.a4 Rh5 44.Kb4 Rh4+ 45.Kb3 Rh3+ 46.Kc4 Rh5
47.Kb4 Rh4+ 48.Kb3 Rh3+ 49.Kc4 Rh5 50.Kb4 Rh4+ 1/2-1/2

Awit

Dan and Kathe Spracklen from their oral history on the Sargon 2 vs Awit game, round 4, ACM 1978 ^[17] ^[18]:

I think the most exciting part for us was the last round of the tournament, when we played Tony Marsland’s program Awit. It was a 6 million dollar Amdahl computer. And we won the game. And we were just amazed. I remember, at the time, we won it. And there was a huge audience there. There was like a hundred people sitting out there, watching it, and they just all started cheering and clapping. And then we woke up the following morning to a big article in the Washington Post that says, Microcomputer Beats 6 Million Dollar Machine, or something like that.

[Event "ACM 1978"]
[Site "Washington USA"]
[Date "1978.12.05"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Sargon 2"]
[Black "Awit"]
[Result "1-0"]
 
1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.Qxd4 Nc6 4.Qe3 Nf6 5.Nf3 e6 6.Nc3 Bb4 7.Bb5 a6 8.Bxc6 dxc6 
9.Bd2 Ng4 10.Qf4 Nf6 11.O-O O-O 12.Rad1 b5 13.Be3 Qa5 14.Bd4 Bxc3 15.Bxc3 Qxa2 
16.Bxf6 gxf6 17.Qxf6 Qc4 18.Qg5+ Kh8 19.Qf6+ Kg8 20.Qg5+ Kh8 21.Rd8 Rxd8 22.Qf6+ 
Kg8 23.Qg5+ Kf8 24.Qxd8+ Kg7 25.Qg5+ Kf8 26.Qd8+ Kg7 27.Qd4+ Qxd4 28.Nxd4 Bb7
29.Re1 Kg6 30.Re3 Rd8 31.Rd3 c5 32.Nxe6 Rxd3 33.Nf4+ Kg5 34.Nxd3 Bxe4 35.Nxc5 
Bxc2 36.Nxa6 Bb3 37.Nc5 Bd5 38.g3 Bf3 39.Nb3 b4 40.Nd4 Be4 41.f3 Bb7 42.Kf2 h6 
43.Ke3 Bd5 44.Nc2 b3 45.Nd4 Kg6 46.Kd3 Kh7 47.f4 Kg8 48.Kc3 Kg7 49.Nxb3 Bxb3 
50.Kxb3 Kf6 51.Kc4 Ke7 52.b4 Kd7 53.Kd5 h5 54.b5 Kc7 55.Kc5 Kb7 56.b6 Kb8 57.Kc6
Kc8 58.b7+ Kb8 59.Kb6 h4 60.gxh4 f6 61.h5 f5 62.Kc6 Ka7 63.Kc7 Ka6 64.b8=Q Ka5 
65.Qb3 Ka6 66.Qa4# 1-0

Pages with Spracklen Quotes

Publications

1978 ...

Dan Spracklen, Kathe Spracklen (1978). SARGON: A Computer Chess Program. Hayden Bk.Co.
Chris Morgan (1978). The Second West Coast Computer Faire. BYTE, Vol. 3, No. 7 » MCCT 1978
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
Harry Shershow (1979). A Little Bit is a Little Better. Personal Computing, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 61 » Sargon - Awit
Harry Shershow (1979). Chafitz' Big Move in Computer Chess. Personal Computing, Vol. 3, No. 9, pp. 59 » Boris, Chafitz
Charles Sullivan Jr. (1979). A Chess Program for the Apple. Personal Computing, Vol. 3, No. 9, pp. 60 » Apple II

1980 ...

Lynn L. Beavers (1980). Sargon II: A Human View. Personal Computing, Vol. 4, No. 9, pp. 79
Editor (1980). The battle of Boris 2.5 vs Sargon 2.5 Personal Computing, Vol. 4, No. 10, pp. 83 » Boris 2.5, Applied Concepts, Chafitz
William Fink (1981). Sfinks riddles Sargon II. Personal Computing, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 104 » Sfinks
John F. White (1981). Survey-Chess Games. Your Computer, August/September 1981
John F. White (1982). Review-Chess Computers. Your Computer, March 1982

2000 ...

Rob van Son (2003). Sargon fought until the very end!. Selective Search 106, pdf hosted by Hein Veldhuis (2016)
Gardner Hendrie (2005). Oral History of Kathe and Dan Spracklen. pdf and Video from The Computer History Museum
Rob van Son (2011). De Assyrische krijgsman die vaak won! (Dutch) pdf hosted by Hein Veldhuis

Forum Posts

1989

Sargon IV by Paul H. Nelson, rgc, August 08, 1989

1990 ...

Sargon V rating ("they claim") by John M. Nason, rgc, September 18, 1992
Is Sargon IV System 7 compatible? by Bertrand Limoges, rgc, October 27, 1992
Strength of Sargon III on Commodore 64 by Daniel Marsalone, rgc, January 08, 1993
Sargon 4 by Michael M Gorman Jr, rgc, May 27, 1993
Sargon by Randal Dean, rgcc, March 27, 1997
Sargon V by parrot-head, rgcc, September 15, 1999
Sargon V: from 486-33Mhz to Pentium 266 Mhz by Fernando Villegas, CCC, December 26, 1999
Sargon Coming down in Flames... by Fernando Villegas, CCC, December 27, 1999

2000 ...

OLD Sargon II and Sargon III chess programs by Osorio Meirelles, CCC, April 18, 2000
Is Sargon V code written by Dan and Kathy Spracklen ? by Osorio Meirelles, CCC, June 23, 2000
Help with old software - Sargon III by José Carlos, CCC, November 29, 2001
Re: Amusing errors to Sargon 4 by Fernando Villegas, CCC, August 04, 2002
Sargon III for the PC by Jeff White, CCC, January 18, 2003
Sargon V by Bryan Whitby, CCC, May 12, 2003
Old Sargon source articles by Jan Willem de Kort, CCC, June 04, 2003

2010 ...

Re: La Máquina Preservadora. Programas de Ajedrez by Luis a, Meca Foro, May 30, 2013 (Spanish) » Macintosh
SARGON by Vegan, Rybka Forum, April 08, 2015
Kevin. E. leavelle by Fernando, Hiarcs Forum, February 18, 2017

External Links

Sargon (chess) from Wikipedia
Sargon's ICGA Tournaments
The chess games of Sargon from chessgames.com
Classic Computer Chess - ... The programs of yesteryear by Carey, hosted by the Internet Archive ^[19]
How Far We've Come: 20 Years of Personal Computing by Blake Linton Wilfong, November 05, 2000 » ACM 1981, Cray Blitz, Crafty
Sargon – a chess program from the past from ChessBase News, June 27, 2003
Chess For Everyone - Micros Become Masters from The Computer History Museum
Computer Schach by Andre Adrian (German)
Sargon Z80 assembly listing by Dan and Kathe Spracklen, hosted by Andre Adrian
Sargon series - MobyGames

Sargon II

Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Commodore VIC-20, Commodore 64, TRS-80

Sargon III

Apple II, Amiga, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Macintosh, PC

Sargon 4

Macintosh, PC

The Personal Computer Museum, Brantford, Ontario, Canada - Sargon 4
Sargon 4 for DOS (1989) - MobyGames
Sargon IV and Printer Interface III by David Plotkin, STart Vol. 3 No. 9, April 1989

Sargon 5

Macintosh, PC, Philips CD-i

Misc

References

^ Jupiter II-1975
^ Dan Spracklen and Kathe Spracklen (1978). First Steps in Computer Chess Programming Byte Publications Inc., as pdf reprint from The Computer History Museum
^ Sargon Z80 assembly listing by Dan and Kathe Spracklen, hosted by Andre Adrian
^ Chris Morgan (1978). The Second West Coast Computer Faire. BYTE, Vol. 3, No. 7, hosted by Modern Mechanix, Photo 4: Ira Baxter’s chess playing system display, which competed in the Microcomputer Chess Tournament at the Faire. The level of play was impressive, and the winning program, called SARGON, was a 16 K byte Z-80 assembler program written by a husband and wife team, Kathe and Dan Spracklen.
^ page 25 in Gardner Hendrie (2005). Oral History of Kathe and Dan Spracklen. pdf from The Computer History Museum
^ Dan Spracklen and Kathe Spracklen (1978). SARGON: A Computer Chess Program. Hayden Bk.Co. ISBN: 978-0810451551, amazon.com
^ Hayden Software Co. - MobyGames
^ Sargon (chess) from Wikipedia
^ page 30 in Gardner Hendrie (2005). Oral History of Kathe and Dan Spracklen. pdf from The Computer History Museum
^ Chafitz ARB Sargon 2.5 from Schachcomputer.info Wiki
^ Great Game Machine
^ Gardner Hendrie (2005). Oral History of Kathe and Dan Spracklen. pdf from The Computer History Museum
^ Kevin Leavelle Video Game Credits and Biography - MobyGames
^ Reply by Mark Manyen in Fidelity Chessmaster 2100 from The Spacious Mind
^ Chess Computers - The UK Story from Chess Computer UK by Mike Watters
^ PGN Download NACCC from Computerschaak/Downloads/Games hosted by CSVN
^ page 35-36 in Gardner Hendrie (2005). Oral History of Kathe and Dan Spracklen. pdf from The Computer History Museum
^ see also Harry Shershow (1979). A Little Bit is a Little Better. Personal Computing, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 61
^ Re: Old programs CHAOS and USC by Dann Corbit, CCC, July 11, 2015

What links here?

Page	Date Edited
10x12 Board	Feb 19, 2018
6502	Dec 25, 2017
ACM 1978	Dec 23, 2017
Albatross	May 5, 2017
AMDAHL 470	Jul 19, 2016
Amiga	Mar 24, 2016
Andre Adrian	Jan 16, 2012
Apple II	Dec 22, 2017
Applied Concepts	Dec 25, 2017
Assembly	Sep 3, 2017
Atari 8-bit	Aug 3, 2016
Atari ST	Dec 7, 2016
Awit	Dec 22, 2017
Bebe	Dec 23, 2017
Boris	Dec 25, 2017
Boris Baczynskyj	Oct 1, 2016
Byte Magazine	Nov 20, 2016
Canadian Computer Chess Invitational Championship 1984	Mar 2, 2013
Chafitz	Dec 25, 2017
Chafitz ARB Sargon 2.5	Sep 9, 2017
Chafitz Modular Game System	Dec 25, 2017
Chess Challenger	Dec 27, 2017
Chessmaster	Jan 21, 2018
Chessnut	Dec 10, 2016
Commodore ChessMate	Jan 26, 2016
Crafty	Jan 28, 2018
Cray Blitz	Dec 25, 2017
Dan Spracklen	Jan 17, 2017
David Broughton	Jan 7, 2016
Elegance	Jan 8, 2016
Elite	Oct 1, 2016
Elmar Henne	Sep 9, 2017
Engines	Mar 10, 2018
Excel	Dec 5, 2016
Excellence	Mar 23, 2014
Fernando Villegas	Aug 15, 2016
Fidelity	Jan 7, 2016
Gambiet	Jan 8, 2016
Gedeon	Jan 8, 2016
Great Game Machine	Dec 20, 2017
Harry Shershow	Dec 27, 2017
Ira Baxter	Dec 22, 2017
John Aker	Dec 26, 2017
Kathe Spracklen	Dec 25, 2017
Kevin Leavelle	Feb 19, 2017
L'Empereur	Jan 8, 2016
MCCT 1978	Dec 22, 2017
MicroChess	Jul 14, 2015
Microtrend	Dec 3, 2012
Mike	Jan 8, 2016
Mike Johnson	Jan 7, 2016
Morphy	Dec 25, 2017
Par Excellence	Mar 23, 2014
PCW Microcomputer Chess Championship	May 22, 2016
PCW-MCC 1979	Dec 23, 2017
Personal Computing	Dec 27, 2017
Prédateur	Nov 11, 2016
Private Line	Jan 8, 2016
Querg	Dec 11, 2013
Rex Kent	Jan 8, 2016
Richard Lang	Jan 7, 2016
Rob van Son	Dec 27, 2017
Ron Nelson	Feb 4, 2016
Sargon	Dec 25, 2017
SD Chess	Dec 22, 2017
Sfinks	Dec 25, 2017
Shawn Benn	Jan 2, 2015
SOMA	Mar 25, 2015
Stockholm MCCT 1979	Oct 12, 2013
Terry Fredrick	Nov 21, 2012
The Penrod Memorial Microchess Tournament	Dec 22, 2017
TRS-80	May 20, 2015
Vega	Jan 8, 2016
William Fink	Dec 25, 2017
Wim Rens	Jul 21, 2016
WMCCC 1980	Dec 25, 2017
WMCCC 1984	Dec 31, 2017
Z80	Dec 25, 2017

Up one Level

The Final Chesscard

GerdIsenberg — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:40:01 GMT

Home * Engines * The Final Chesscard

		The Final Chesscard, a chess playing entity by TASC, developed by Marc Derksen, and forerunner of the famous ChessMachine. As independent chess computer it ran at 5 MHz on a 65C02 processor with 64 Kib ROM and RAM each, inside an expansion-cartridge of a host home- or personal computer, as already realized in 1986 with the The Final Cartridge III by Riska B.V. with Wil Sparreboom and Marc Derksen involved ^[1] ^[2]. The Final Chesscard, first released in 1989 for Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 home computers, was also available as pluggable ISA card for the IBM PC. Rather than a dedicated board, it used a for that time sophisticated GUI with 2D Graphics Board of its host.
The Final Chesscard GUI ^[3]

Circuit Board

The Final Chesscard Circuit Board ^[4]

External Links

References

What links here?

Page	Date Edited
Aegon 1989	Jan 22, 2017
ChessMachine	Feb 26, 2018
Commodore 128	Mar 24, 2016
Engines	Mar 10, 2018
Marc Derksen	Jul 27, 2015
Tasc	Sep 7, 2017
The Final Chesscard	Apr 7, 2013
Wil Sparreboom	Apr 7, 2013

Up one level

Ziggy

GerdIsenberg — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 20:10:23 GMT

Home * Engines * Ziggy

Ziggy,
a chess program for the Commodore 64 by Henk Kuyer and Auke Punter, written in Pascal and 6502 assembly ^[1]. Ziggy played the DOCCC 1985, DOCCC 1986 and DOCCC 1987, as well as three early Aegon Tournaments.

Games

DOCCC 1987, round 7, Kallisto - Ziggy

[Event "DOCCC 1987"]
[Site "Leiden, NED"]
[Date "1987.10.??"]
[Round "7"]
[White "Kallisto"]
[Black "Ziggy"]
[Result "0-1"]
 
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 d5 6.Bd3 Be7 7.O-O Nc6
8.Re1 Bf5 9.Nbd2 Nxd2 10.Bxd2 Bxd3 11.cxd3 O-O 12.Qb3 Rb8 13.Re2 Qd6
14.Rae1 a6 15.Bc3 Rfe8 16.Kh1 h6 17.a4 Red8 18.Ne5 Bf6 19.Kg1 Ne7
20.Bb4 Qb6 21.a5 Qb5 22.Nxf7 Kxf7 23.Rxe7+ Bxe7 24.Rxe7+ Kg8 25.Rxc7 b6
26.Qc3 bxa5 27.Bxa5 Qa4 28.Re7 Re8 29.Rxe8+ Rxe8 30.f4 Qd1+ 31.Kf2 Re2+
32.Kg3 Rc2 33.Qb4 Qg1 34.Qb8+ Kh7 35.Kg4 Qxg2+ 36.Kh4 g5+ 37.fxg5 Qxg5+
38.Kh3 Qh5+ 0-1

Namesake

Ziggy, a Java engine by Hrafn Eiríksson

External Links

Ziggy from Wikipedia
Ziggy (comic strip) from Wikipedia
Ziggy Stardust from Wikipedia
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars from Wikipedia
David Bowie & The Story Of Ziggy Stardust, BBC Documentary, June 22, 2012, YouTube Video

References

^ Jaap van Oosterwijk Bruyn (1985). The Dutch Computer-Chess Championship 1985 - Nona Prima Donna. ICCA Journal, Vol. 8, No. 4

What links here?

Page	Date Edited
Aegon 1986	Jan 22, 2017
Aegon 1987	Jan 22, 2017
Aegon 1988	Jan 22, 2017
DOCCC 1985	Dec 9, 2016
DOCCC 1986	Dec 9, 2016
DOCCC 1987	Dec 9, 2016
Engines	Mar 10, 2018
Henk Kuyer	Sep 6, 2015
Ziggy	Jan 12, 2016
Ziggy IS	Sep 6, 2015

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