Bluebush Chess (1983) program

[pdg]

Hi everyone,

I'm wondering if anyone knows anything about the origins of this chess program: Bluebush Chess (1983). It seems to be from a small/independent vendor, published for the IBM PC, but I can't anything else about it beyond one or two magazine reviews. Any and all info would be fascinating.

https://books.google.ca/books?id=kS4EAA ... &q&f=false
https://archive.org/details/msdos_Bluebush_Chess_1983

TY!

[Ajedrecista]

Hello Paul:

The simple search Bluebush Chess in Google retrieves tons of results and is available for download at many abandonware sites. Other thing is to know about its origin...

There is a thread at Reddit about some old chess engines and the copy of the OP is from 1984, maybe when was copied from a 5.25" floppy disk. The user from the OP later writes about TDC... what is TDC? The answer is right below.

TDC stands for Total DOS Collection. Here is TDC Release 14 at archive.org:

https://ia600906.us.archive.org/view_ar ... ase_14.zip

Code: Select all

file                                                                                                    size                                                                                     
[...]                                                                                                   [...]
TDC release 14/1983/Bluebush Chess [h1] (1983)(Bluebush Software) [Strategy, Chess].zip                 12157
TDC release 14/1983/Bluebush Chess [tr Es] (1983)(Bluebush Software) [Strategy, Chess].zip              17605
TDC release 14/1983/Bluebush Chess v1.30 (1983)(Bluebush Software) [Strategy, Chess].zip                14873
[...]                                                                                                   [...]

I managed to track TDC Games 1982, TDC Games 1983 and TDC Games 1984, with Bluebush Chess only appearing in 1983, as expected.

There are probably other TDC releases with Bluebush Chess, but the origin is still a mystery. It was supposidely developped by 'Bluebush Software' or 'Bluebush Incorporated', whatever it was. I found some info about 'Bluebush Incorporated', but I do not know how much reliable is:

https://www.bizapedia.com/ca/bluebush-incorporated.html

[...] The business was filed on May 2, 1983 [...]

[...]

[...] The entity is scheduled to expire on December 1, 1986.

This is the close I can answer your question.

------------

An Italian Google Group listed 'Bluebush Chess 1989 - DOS-chess program', concretely a post of July 12th, 1999:

#Software per tutti#

It said 1989... is this a typo or a newer version? Who knows, but I guess that is a typo or a re-release, knowing the above information about the scheduled expiration date of the company.

This gave me an idea: what about searching Bluebush at rec.games.chess.computer? There were not any results. A more generic Google search 'site:https://groups.google.com/ Bluebush' did not provide anything useful.

Looking back into the Italian Google Group again, there were three results of Bluebush, but only the former one about the engine. The other two are URLs that contained 'bluebush', specifically ftp://gambitsoft.com/pub/shareware/bluebush/[...], with links to other engines. I find it quite curious, given that 'bluebush' is not an everyday word in URLs.

------------

Bluebush Chess supposedly played the Austrian Defence (d4, d5; c4, c5) a lot with black, according to this thread at Chess.com (post #4). The emulator of your OP played QGA at novice level with black:

[pgn][Event ""]
[Site ""]
[Date "2026.05.10"]
[White "Ajedrecista"]
[Black "Bluebush Chess (1983)"]
[Result "*"]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 e6 5.Bxc4 c5 6.O-O a6 7.dxc5 Bxc5 8.Qxd8+ Kxd8 9.Ne5 Rf8 10.Rd1+ Bd7 11.Nxd7 Nbxd7 12.a3 Ne4 13.b4 Bd6? ({(Finally the first blunder at move 13)}) 14.f3 Bxh2+ 15.Kxh2 Nf6 16.Nc3 Re8 *[/pgn]

I found the easiest level ot the emulator quite competitive, very far from random or blunderfest.

Regards from Spain.

Ajedrecista.

[Eelco de Groot]

My guess would be an American programmer - as opposed to being a British product?- also because of using USCF chess pieces (see below) and of course the relation with the IBM PC in the brochure, and no language give aways that the English is non native. Could be the precursor of Deep Blue if really from IBM



From https://www.tumblr.com/arconinternet/81 ... tware-1983

[Ajedrecista]

Hello Eelco:

It is hard to see 'dark on right' and swapped kings and queens in a dedicated chess software ad; it would be more understandable in a casual setup of a film.

As I wrote before, 'Bluebush Incorporated' was based in California, U.S.A., so looks more likely to be from American programmers.

Regards from Spain.

Ajedrecista.

[Eelco de Groot]

You are right ! It looks strange but I think it is because in the monitor output, bright green was used for the white squares and no color for the dark squares, green becomes blue but in print 'no color' is White and deep blue is dark and all the White pieces also move to the other side. It is like looking at a film negative. I had not noticed also that you found the firm was from California. I do not think IBM has headquarters in California, but not 100% sure. We are getting closer though! I think Fidelity at the time was in California but somebody else maybe knows more. The AIs are not helping at least I did not see anything in Google and have not tried. And rather obscure subject for them so long ago. Ron Nelson?