Antique chess programs

[Carey]

I still feel like there was more what I'm posting. Stuff that wasn't ready to release or stuff that the author shared but didn't want me to post. (Oh expletive... I better check that for that ASAP! My memory is so bad that if I didn't make note of it, there's no way I'll remember now!)

Thank you, Carey. I particulary like the Beal draft papers/alg1986review.txt from 2006 of the recently discussed nullmove-quiescence.

You are welcome.

Nearly all, if not all, of the authors I did manage to get hold of were friendly and quite willing to help with whatever they had left.

It was just so hard for me to find people back then. Not as many search engines for people etc. as now, I guess. Perhaps now days, a subscription to a couple "find people" sites would find most of them in minutes...

If the computer chess community was to continue the project before it's too late, there's not much telling what other info, programs, stories, notes, etc. that might be recovered. They can even start expanding into the 80's micro programs. (Admittedly the Computer History Museum has lots of stuff, but their focus isn't computer chess.)

Even if it isn't technically useful, it can still be historically important, like the scans of a few of the original punch cards for KAISSA. Obviously not a lot of use, but it is a link to the program.

[bob]

I still feel like there was more what I'm posting. Stuff that wasn't ready to release or stuff that the author shared but didn't want me to post. (Oh expletive... I better check that for that ASAP! My memory is so bad that if I didn't make note of it, there's no way I'll remember now!)

Thank you, Carey. I particulary like the Beal draft papers/alg1986review.txt from 2006 of the recently discussed nullmove-quiescence.

Are you talking about "Selective search without tears?" I think I have the advances in computer chess book where that was first published...

[jwes]

Have you looked at the Internet Archive (https://archive.org/index.php)? It has a couple hundred chess programs already.

[Gerd Isenberg]

I still feel like there was more what I'm posting. Stuff that wasn't ready to release or stuff that the author shared but didn't want me to post. (Oh expletive... I better check that for that ASAP! My memory is so bad that if I didn't make note of it, there's no way I'll remember now!)

Thank you, Carey. I particulary like the Beal draft papers/alg1986review.txt from 2006 of the recently discussed nullmove-quiescence.

Are you talking about "Selective search without tears?" I think I have the advances in computer chess book where that was first published...

I mean the textfile papers/alg1986review.txt from 2006 in Carey's first dropbox
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/108 ... essWiki.7z

DRAFT

Review of a nullmove-quiescence search mechanism from 1986

This article describes, in modern pseudocode, how the 1986 chess
program ("BCP") produced the results published in the AI Journal
in a paper called "a generalised quiescence search" and an earlier
version in "Advances in Computer Chess 5" called "Experiments
with the null move".

It is now twenty years since these results were first publicised.
During that time, there have been major changes in computer hardware
that have had a substantial effect on the relative performance of some
key algorithms, and there have been many new algorithms published
during that time. The information in this article is intended to
be helpful to anyone interested in seeing more detail on how the
1986 results were obtained, and as an insight into the evolution
of algorithms for computer chess.

The 1986 program was written in assembler for a z8000 and is no
longer runnable. What I provide here is C-style pseudocode that
explains how a modern program could obtain the same or similar results.
...

[Carey]

Have you looked at the Internet Archive (https://archive.org/index.php)? It has a couple hundred chess programs already.

Nope, because I haven't worked on the project since 2009 or so when Mr. Marsland recovered the source to his AWIT chess program.

The programs I was focusing on back then were the ancient ones that were about to be lost, if they hadn't already.

The 60's and 70's were my primary focus.

If somebody wants to take over the project and gather up all the programs they can find, and get permission from the authors / publishers to distribute them, then great. And hunt down more of the antiques.

But I'm burned out on my hobbies. I haven't had the energy or desire to do many of the things I used to do. It even took me months to work up to even gathering the chess programs and posting what I had.

[jwes]

Have you looked at the Internet Archive (https://archive.org/index.php)? It has a couple hundred chess programs already.

Nope, because I haven't worked on the project since 2009 or so when Mr. Marsland recovered the source to his AWIT chess program.

The programs I was focusing on back then were the ancient ones that were about to be lost, if they hadn't already.

The 60's and 70's were my primary focus.

If somebody wants to take over the project and gather up all the programs they can find, and get permission from the authors / publishers to distribute them, then great. And hunt down more of the antiques.

But I'm burned out on my hobbies. I haven't had the energy or desire to do many of the things I used to do. It even took me months to work up to even gathering the chess programs and posting what I had.

I thought of it as another place you could upload your collection.

[larsbrinkhoff]

I suppose the source to any version of MacHack VI is a lost cause.

It is not. In fact, many source code versions have been perserved. I believe this is the last version from August 1980:
https://github.com/PDP-10/its/blob/mast ... og/ocm.470

The earliest preserved version may be this undated file from a Greenblatt DECtape:
https://github.com/PDP-10/its-vault/raw ... c197.d%3D1

[OliverBr]

Have a look at http://brausch.org/home/chess/index.html

OlIPow 2.2 is from year 1997. OlIThink 3 and 4 are from the early 2000s.

One feature of OlIThink 4 is rotated 64-bitboard. They say some famous programs were inspired by it.

Each version still can play big tournaments. Recently, I have stabilized them by removing some minor bugs.