Author: Alastair Scott
Date: 03:00:50 09/24/02
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On September 24, 2002 at 04:56:32, Graham Laight wrote: >On September 23, 2002 at 23:51:26, ludicrous wrote: > >>1) HIARCS - An Amateur Program suddenly wins the world championship >>2) Junior - Won the World Championship a few years ago (Junior 4.6?), while >>regarded still an amateur >>3) Tiger - Shot up the SSDF list a few years back, right after its introduction >>4) Ruffian - A newcomer who took all-comers, and beat down some really big name >>programs. :-) > >Cray Blitz - in the late 1970s and early 1980s, this program, which ran on a >Cray (which was the best known brand name for supercomputers at the time), was >sensational. An amateur program - there being clearly no commercial market for >it - it was written by Bob Hyatt. I would add at least two others: Fidelity, for the Chess Challengers. These were the dedicated computers that _really_ broke things open. Richard Lang and Psion for QL Chess. Its three-dimensional board caused a huge fuss, and I remember it being reported on BBC News (!) and quoted as reason enough to buy a Sinclair QL. (For those not conversant with the last machine, ftp://ftp.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair/technical-docs/QLUsersGuide.pdf and ftp://ftp.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair/technical-docs/QLServiceManual.pdf tell you all you need to know; this http://www.soft.net.uk/dj/ is a nice 'retro' site).
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