Comments | chrisdolley: Confessions of a Pioneer Computer Game Designer (Part Two: The Most Aggressive Chess Progam Ever)

chrisdolley

Confessions of a Pioneer Computer Game Designer (Part Two: The Most Aggressive Chess Progam Ever)

Jul 28, 2006 16:40

My first close encounter with a computer came in 1978 when I joined the Home Office as a programmer. The computer was enormous and lived in its own pressurised room. It was an ICL1904S with a massive 48k words of RAM - a word being 24 bits. Yes, this was a time before the byte - a time when we were so poor that we only had 6 bits for each ( Read more... )

humour, humor, chess, computer games, games, lunar, computers

Comments 7

On chess anonymous August 7 2006, 07:03:14 UTC

bloody beautiful - thank you for making my day start with a bloody good laugh.

Re: On chess chrisdolley August 9 2006, 07:48:19 UTC

More than happy to oblige:)

re computer program for chess anonymous November 18 2006, 03:38:13 UTC

Hello,

I wish to make a computer program for chess. Any ideas on what i should learn to do first? or who to contact to make my program with my ideas? Thanks.

Re: re computer program for chess chrisdolley November 18 2006, 09:08:33 UTC

You need two things: one, to know how to play chess and, two, a suitable programming language.

Most of the programs these days work by calculating every possible move to a huge depth, assigning scores to each outcome, then selecting the best move. It's a simple technique dependent on a really fast computer. The faster the computer the more moves that can be analysed in the time.

Another approach - if you just want to have fun - is to try and program the way you play chess. A human player doesn't look at every move, they use their experience to analyse a small subset of the available moves.

So, google 'chess' and 'program' see what's out there and have fun.

nostalgia kbrenner May 12 2008, 12:35:23 UTC

Hi - this article quite a bit of nostalgia for me. My first memory was using the Atari 2600 to play Space Invaders - quite an advance in those days

Hello Kris from Blind Boy Cheney glencheney May 29 2015, 18:27:20 UTC

I have often wondered what happened to you after you left Negas, I wasn't sure if the author I found on Amazon was you, but the references above to ICL 1900, clinches it.

cheers - Glen Cheney (aka BBC )

Re: Hello Kris from Blind Boy Cheney chrisdolley May 29 2015, 20:08:05 UTC

Hi Glen,

Really great to hear from you. I tried to trace you and Graham Middleton a few years back. Still watching the Blades?

Chris