One hundred years ago

[sje]

One hundred years ago (May 1st, 1916), mathematician-engineer Claude Shannon was born In Michigan, USA. Among his many achievements was writing the very first paper describing a computer for playing chess in 1949. Every chess programmer should read it:

http://archive.computerhistory.org/proj ... 303002.pdf

It's all there: position representation, move representation, move generation, positional evaluation, and minimax. All done by just one guy.

How many of us will be remembered a century after our birth?

[bob]

One hundred years ago (May 1st, 1916), mathematician-engineer Claude Shannon was born In Michigan, USA. Among his many achievements was writing the very first paper describing a computer for playing chess in 1949. Every chess programmer should read it:

http://archive.computerhistory.org/proj ... 303002.pdf

It's all there: position representation, move representation, move generation, positional evaluation, and minimax. All done by just one guy.

How many of us will be remembered a century after our birth?

Don't know the answer to your question, but he sent me a copy of his original paper, autographed by him, many years ago (I think he died somewhere around 2000?) Had the opportunity to talk with him multiple times. About the same time he sent the paper he sent an autographed copy of a photo that was taken with him, his relay-based K + R vs K "endgame computer" which also included Edward Lasker. Those were cool old days...

Since I am now officially retired from UAB, I probably should find a place to donate some of this stuff that probably means a lot more to us computer chess nuts than the general population. I have a letter from Fischer filed away. A ceremonial "drinking horn" given to me by Botvirnnik at the 1983 WCCC event. A piece of the cray we used to win the 1983 WCCC (first dual-cpu Cray machine). And probably a lot of other stuff I have not thought about. And of course, I am talking real paper stuff, not electronic files so much...

[sje]

Perhaps the K+R vs K relay machine you've mentioned in the one built back in 1912 by Leonardo Torres y Quevedo. It is reported to still be operational. http://en.chessbase.com/post/torres-y-q ... -automaton

I have seen a detailed description of the Torres machine and yes, it is guaranteed to mate every time -- but not always in the optimal number of moves.

Shannon did build a relay based chess computer said to handle endgames with up to six men total. (The machine was a foot-high cube with a chessboard on top, wheels on the bottom, and packed with circuit boards in between.) I have seen a picture of Shannon demonstrating this machine for Edward Lasker. However, no where have I seen a schematic or a detailed description.

[Gerd Isenberg]

...
Since I am now officially retired from UAB, I probably should find a place to donate some of this stuff that probably means a lot more to us computer chess nuts than the general population. I have a letter from Fischer filed away. A ceremonial "drinking horn" given to me by Botvirnnik at the 1983 WCCC event. A piece of the cray we used to win the 1983 WCCC (first dual-cpu Cray machine). And probably a lot of other stuff I have not thought about. And of course, I am talking real paper stuff, not electronic files so much...

Congrats to your professor emeritus designation now. I think a good place to donate images and papers is The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, where already Ben Mittman, Monty Newborn, Peter Jennings and others have donated. You may further consider to put some lower resolution images of ~100K each to cpw

[Gerd Isenberg]

Perhaps the K+R vs K relay machine you've mentioned in the one built back in 1912 by Leonardo Torres y Quevedo. It is reported to still be operational. http://en.chessbase.com/post/torres-y-q ... -automaton

I have seen a detailed description of the Torres machine and yes, it is guaranteed to mate every time -- but not always in the optimal number of moves.

Shannon did build a relay based chess computer said to handle endgames with up to six men total. (The machine was a foot-high cube with a chessboard on top, wheels on the bottom, and packed with circuit boards in between.) I have seen a picture of Shannon demonstrating this machine for Edward Lasker. However, no where have I seen a schematic or a detailed description.

I don't have this paper, maybe it covers the relay machine
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... g-machine/

Photo of courtesy of Mrs. Shannon and Jos Uiterwijk, ICCA Journal, Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 217. Quote of the text on the back on the photo:

Dr. Claude E. Shannon demonstrating to Chessmaster Edward Lasker his (home-made) electric chess automation, build in 1949. The machine could handle up to six pieces, and was designed to test various programming methods. With one hundred and fifty relay operations required to complete a move, it arrived at the reply to an opponent's play in ten to fifteen seconds. It had built into it a random element, and as a result did not necessarily always make the same move when faced with the same position.

[sje]

A more recent photo of Shannon's chess computer:

[Henk]

In the end everything will be forgotten. Sometimes it takes some generations.

[bob]

Perhaps the K+R vs K relay machine you've mentioned in the one built back in 1912 by Leonardo Torres y Quevedo. It is reported to still be operational. http://en.chessbase.com/post/torres-y-q ... -automaton

I have seen a detailed description of the Torres machine and yes, it is guaranteed to mate every time -- but not always in the optimal number of moves.

Shannon did build a relay based chess computer said to handle endgames with up to six men total. (The machine was a foot-high cube with a chessboard on top, wheels on the bottom, and packed with circuit boards in between.) I have seen a picture of Shannon demonstrating this machine for Edward Lasker. However, no where have I seen a schematic or a detailed description.

I don't have this paper, maybe it covers the relay machine
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... g-machine/

Photo of courtesy of Mrs. Shannon and Jos Uiterwijk, ICCA Journal, Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 217. Quote of the text on the back on the photo:

Dr. Claude E. Shannon demonstrating to Chessmaster Edward Lasker his (home-made) electric chess automation, build in 1949. The machine could handle up to six pieces, and was designed to test various programming methods. With one hundred and fifty relay operations required to complete a move, it arrived at the reply to an opponent's play in ten to fifteen seconds. It had built into it a random element, and as a result did not necessarily always make the same move when faced with the same position.

That is the photo Claude sent me a copy of...

[bob]

Perhaps the K+R vs K relay machine you've mentioned in the one built back in 1912 by Leonardo Torres y Quevedo. It is reported to still be operational. http://en.chessbase.com/post/torres-y-q ... -automaton

I have seen a detailed description of the Torres machine and yes, it is guaranteed to mate every time -- but not always in the optimal number of moves.

Shannon did build a relay based chess computer said to handle endgames with up to six men total. (The machine was a foot-high cube with a chessboard on top, wheels on the bottom, and packed with circuit boards in between.) I have seen a picture of Shannon demonstrating this machine for Edward Lasker. However, no where have I seen a schematic or a detailed description.

To the best of my knowledge, based on comments directly from Shannon, this machine only played KR vs K, and not optimally although it would always force mate...

There is a picture posted by Gerd that is an exact copy of the photo Claude sent to me many years ago. His handwritten note said it played KR vs K well enough to always mate, but not always in the optimal (DTM) distance.

[sje]

The machine goes by the name of Endgame and has been part of the MIT Museum collection since it was donated by Shannon's family after his passing in 2001. I am tempted to pay a visit if it's on display and has some associated documentation, although travel is a challenge for me nowadays.

I'm surprised that the machine hasn't had much attention in the literature, as it is the very first dedicated, personal chess computer and came a quarter century before the first Fidelity Chess Challenger. It might still be around a quarter century after the last commercial chess computer is gone.

----

150 relay operations taking 10 to 15 seconds sounds to me much more than is needed to play KRvK; the machine appears much more complex than the Torres machine which does the job fast and easy.

On the other hand, 10 to 15 seconds of relay steps at circa 10 Hz seems to be far less than what's needed to handle a six man position without huge parallelism.