How did you get into chess programming? What was your first program like?
In my case, the year was 1972. I was a graduate student at Georgia Tech. I had gotten into chess a few years before, inspired, like many of that era, by the ascent of Bobby Fisher. I figured it would be neat to write a chess program.
To run a program back then you typed each line of code on a punch card and carried your deck to ICS (Information and Computer Science). Your program then got a sliver of time on Tech's Burroughs B5500 mainframe. After a few minutes or hours depending on how busy they were, you got back your deck and output.
At least that's how it was for the unwashed masses. I had special privileges. I was on a research assistanceship doing work for the FAA. We were studying characteristics of flat cable. (Flat cable was sheets of conductors used in communications facilities which, today, would be a single fiber-optic cable.) Part of my work involved inverting large complex arrays. Complex as in R + jX, there was nothing complicated about it at all. I simply provided input to a canned program.
Now, the matrix inversion took time. Because of that I had a user number that allowed me long run times during the night hours. I also had access to teletype terminals in the EE department . The terminals had BASIC available and you could save your program on paper tape. None of this card deck misery for me!
With these advanced computing facilities available I set to work on my chess program. I had no idea what I was doing. I started with something like:
Code: Select all
10 DIM B(8,8)
I was quite pleased with myself. While far from competition for anyone other that a rank beginner, my program would capture anything left hanging and even found some simple combinations such as forks. Then one day the EE department secretary called me and told me I needed to schedule an appointment with Dr. Paris, the department head. That could not be good news. I was friendly with the secretary so I asked what it was about. She didn't know. That was even more ominous.
I arrived at Dr. Paris' office at the appointed time. After a few pleasantries he showed me a printout of the department's computing time costs - much of it attributable to me. Exorbitant I think was the term he used. I was completely taken aback. Naive as I was it had never dawned on me that computing time cost money. I considered lying and saying I'd been inverting lots of flat cable arrays but I came clean and told him about my chess program. He was actually quite nice about it. He said while my innovation was commendable the department simply couldn't afford it and my chess programming had to end.
Over the years I lost my last printout of my program. I would be interested in going back now to see what I did.
Best
Dan H.