Ferret 1.00 v258 - program from 1995

[Vinvin]

unfortunately Bruce Moreland cannot be contacted under his former email-address.
This engine from the year 1995 had its own GUI and was made for e.g. win32, but one thing seems to be a mystery:
Is it compatible to WinBoard (CECP)-protocol and -if yes- which command line parameters are required to run under Arena-GUI?
...
Norbert

Sometimes I dream we would get a modern compile and UCI interface for all this famous oldies : Ferret, Chess Genius 3, Chess System Tal, Fritz 3, MChess Pro 3.12, Chessmaster 2100, Gambit Tiger 2, Shredder 5.32, ...
And on the other way, I'd like to see Stockfish 10 tested on a Pentium 200 MMX

[Vinvin]

unfortunately Bruce Moreland cannot be contacted under his former email-address.
This engine from the year 1995 had its own GUI and was made for e.g. win32, but one thing seems to be a mystery:
Is it compatible to WinBoard (CECP)-protocol and -if yes- which command line parameters are required to run under Arena-GUI?
...
Norbert

Sometimes I dream we would get a modern compile and UCI interface for all this famous oldies : Ferret, Chess Genius 3, Chess System Tal, Fritz 3, MChess Pro 3.12, Chessmaster 2100, Gambit Tiger 2, Shredder 5.32, ...
And on the other way, I'd like to see Stockfish 10 tested on a Pentium 200 MMX

Even Ruffian 1.x and Junior 7 deserve their recompile.

[Rebel]

I'm not aware of any version of Ferret ever being released, commercially or otherwise.

As far as I can remember Bruce kept Ferret private.

Steve

Bruce Moreland also wrote a WB-compatible engine, Gerbil :

http://rwbc-chess.de/download.htm

Has anyone tried it?

CL

Looks like a book download only.

I noticed I have the source code of a Gerbil version on my HD, not sure how it landed there.

[mclane]

Gerbil by Bruce Moreland and Tom Kerrigan chess program were easy chess engines made for programming beginners.

[Vinvin]

Gerbil by Bruce Moreland and Tom Kerrigan chess program were easy chess engines made for programming beginners.

Yes, Gerbil was open source but was way weaker than Ferret !

[supersharp77]

unfortunately Bruce Moreland cannot be contacted under his former email-address.
This engine from the year 1995 had its own GUI and was made for e.g. win32, but one thing seems to be a mystery:
Is it compatible to WinBoard (CECP)-protocol and -if yes- which command line parameters are required to run under Arena-GUI?
...
Norbert

Sometimes I dream we would get a modern compile and UCI interface for all this famous oldies : Ferret, Chess Genius 3, Chess System Tal, Fritz 3, MChess Pro 3.12, Chessmaster 2100, Gambit Tiger 2, Shredder 5.32, ...
And on the other way, I'd like to see Stockfish 10 tested on a Pentium 200 MMX

Agreed....Chessmaster 2100 is possible.....(win 16) Chess Genius is w16 (g7 Does not work in my windows 64 system although the Gui works for other engines) Junior 7 is pretty close to Junior 2010 UCI and Deep Junior 12 or 12.5
Gambit Tiger works in Fritz 11 GUI still...along with Fritz 5.32 and Fritz 6... Mchess Pro...never got it to work in w32 sytem at all. Chess System Tal..(not impossible) wish that one was UCI or wb compatible...would be something special! :wink

[mclane]

Gerbil by Bruce Moreland and Tom Kerrigan chess program were easy chess engines made for programming beginners.

Yes, Gerbil was open source but was way weaker than Ferret !

Of course. Those engines were didactical and made for beginning chess programmers

[MikeGL]

Ferret competed in quite a few tournaments from 1995-early 2000s, and it was active on chessclub.com. Some games are available here:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=30003

Thanks for the link.
Fun to see some strong games of Ferret engine there.
I noticed its wonderful games against the very strong GM Gulko, who once claimed in NewInChess mag that he was the only GM on the planet with a plus score against Gari Kasparov. But on below games, GM Gulko can't seem to out-calculate Ferret.

[pgn] [Event "02, m 30' ICC"] [Site "02, m 30' ICC"] [Date "1996.??.??"] [EventDate "?"] [Round "?"] [Result "1-0"] [White "Ferret (Computer)"] [Black "Boris Gulko"] [ECO "B07"] [WhiteElo "?"] [BlackElo "?"] [PlyCount "69"] 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.f3 c5 4.Bb5+ Bd7 5.Bxd7+ Nbxd7 6.Nc3 cxd4 7.Qxd4 g6 8.Nge2 Bg7 9.O-O O-O 10.Qb4 Qc7 11.Be3 a6 12.Nf4 e6 13.Rfd1 Nc5 14.e5 dxe5 15.Bxc5 exf4 16.Bd6 a5 17.Qb5 Qc8 18.Bxf8 Bxf8 19.Ne4 Nxe4 20.fxe4 Qxc2 21.Qxb7 Rc8 22.Rf1 Bc5+ 23.Kh1 Be3 24.Rae1 Rc7 25.Qb5 a4 26.Rd1 Qc4 27.Qe5 Rd7 28.Rg1 Rd4 29.Rge1 Qb4 30.b3 a3 31.Rf1 Rd2 32.Rxd2 Qxd2 33.Qa1 Qc2 34.Rd1 Kf8 35.Qh8+ 1-0 [/pgn]

[pgn] [Event "01, m 30' ICC"] [Site "01, m 30' ICC"] [Date "1996.??.??"] [EventDate "?"] [Round "?"] [Result "0-1"] [White "Boris Gulko"] [Black "Ferret (Computer)"] [ECO "E97"] [WhiteElo "?"] [BlackElo "?"] [PlyCount "58"] 1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 g6 3.e4 d6 4.d4 Bg7 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2 e5 7.O-O Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.b4 Nh5 10.Re1 f5 11.Ng5 Nf4 12.Bxf4 exf4 13.Rc1 h6 14.Ne6 Bxe6 15.dxe6 fxe4 16.Nxe4 Nc6 17.b5 Nd4 18.Bf3 Re8 19.Nc3 c6 20.bxc6 bxc6 21.Qd3 Qf6 22.Re4 Rxe6 23.Rxd4 Qxd4 24.Qxd4 Bxd4 25.Bxc6 Rb8 26.Bd5 Bxc3 27.Bxe6+ Kg7 28.Kf1 Ba5 29.Rc2 Rb1+ 0-1 [/pgn]

[Guenther]

I'm not aware of any version of Ferret ever being released, commercially or otherwise.

As far as I can remember Bruce kept Ferret private.

Steve

Bruce Moreland also wrote a WB-compatible engine, Gerbil :

http://rwbc-chess.de/download.htm

Has anyone tried it?

CL

Looks like a book download only.

I noticed I have the source code of a Gerbil version on my HD, not sure how it landed there.

The post you answered was already six years old and it was already hilarious in 2013,
because Gerbil of course was tested in 10.000s of games on rating lists and tournament sites.
(But, yes there is still a Gerbil book download on my site)

Links to download Gerbil and all other chess programs are given at the usual places:

http://www.computer-chess.org/doku.php? ... ngine_list
http://rwbc-chess.de/chronology.htm

[silentshark]

Well, I thought I'd just throw this in, given the Bruce/Ferret thread.

I first met Bruce at WMCCC, 1995, Paderborn. It was a great event, where a lot of us amateurs met for the first time. Bruce was/is a real gent, and one of those people who you think 'wow, he's figured everything out 100x better than me'. We had a lot of fun, with computer chess, drinking beer etc.

There was a Ferret vs Francesca game at the event - this was Francesca's first 'public' outing, and we had a lot of fun, with Bruce helpfully commenting on what he thought was happening in the game. Ferret won comfortably, and I think we had some TV cameras covering the 'UK vs USA' footage, though I've never seen that.

Others have said it, but Bruce's computer chess pages were great. Clear. Easy to understand. Informative.

I think it's a pity that Ferret petered out. Imagine Ferret with LMR, LMP and all the other modern techniques. I'm sure it would be near the top, if Bruce had continue to work on it. But of course, like for most of us, life makes other demands.

I will dig out the 1995 game if I can. It was only going to go one way, but it was a lot of fun seeing my engine have a go, in its infancy vs what was one of the top engines in the world back then.

Just my 2p worth