Author: Terry Giles
Date: 09:07:18 03/02/05
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On March 01, 2005 at 19:51:48, Mark Ryan wrote: >I don't know why, but the idea of computer chess has always fascinated me. When >I was a university student in the early 1970s (taking a side course in computer >science) I had a notion to write a chess program. I never followed through, >partly because I dropped out of school. > >In the mid 1970s, the annual Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver announced >that there would be a chess-playing computer that visitors could challenge. On >the first day of the Exhibition, I arrived fifteen minutes before opening time >so that I would be first in line to play the computer. Absolutely nobody else >was there early. I played slowly and carefully, writing down the moves, my >heart pounding as I began to realize that I had winning chances. The machine >was not terrible, but it was not strong. After about one hour, I delivered >checkmate. At that point, I realized that a small audience had gathered. There >were around a dozen spectators. Here's the funny part. They were all looking >at me as though I was Bobby Fischer ... I had beaten a COMPUTER at chess ... >like I was a grandmaster or something. If they only knew, I'm an absolute >patzer. > >I should have offered to sign autographs at $5 a shot. > >Mark :) Great story! Mark, I remember many years ago, way before computers or dedicated machines were able to play anything more than a legal game of chess, I argued with my chess friends that one day a computer would defeat a grandmaster at chess. "No way!" was the usual response I received, but I 'stuck to my guns' and as time went on I became ever more confident as their confidence waned. It was particularly interesting though that most of my non-chessplaying friends in those early days just assumed that computers could already beat any human players. Terry
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