Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 16:56:45 08/28/05
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On August 28, 2005 at 12:07:56, kaqs.1662@bumpymail.com wrote: >Since I have an interest in old chess programs, I was wondering if anybody has >ever bothered to disassemble MacHack VI and attempt to recreate the assembly >source code? (Or make a modern portable C version of it.) > >I'd do it myself, but I don't know PDP-6/10 assembly. And it's been a long time >since I've disassembled a program and converted it back into readable commented >assembly code. > >It looks like there are still two versions of Machack on the web and I was just >wondering if anybody had ever messed with it. I did years ago. In fact, Greenblatt gave me a copy of the source, somewhere around 1976 or so, as I was talking to him about coming to an ACM conference The University of Southern Mississippi was hosting. I wanted him to give a talk, and we were going to have a mini computer-chess tournament there as well. He declined the offer to speak, saying he was not a "good speaker" whatever that meant. But he sent me a small dec-tape (if you know what they were) with a copy of the source. Unfortunately, this disappeared so long ago I wouldn't know where to start... I've taught PDP-10 assembly in the past, but the disassembly process and then converting that to something that is "readable" is quite a task... > > >Yes, I know, it's an antique. The play is terrible, etc. But still, it's a >classic and that makes it interesting to me. I'd much rather mess with a 20+ >year old chess program than a modern one. > >I'll say it again.... It's a heck of a shame that so many of the classics have >disappeared. Tech, TinkerBelle, Blitz, CrayBlitz, AWIT / WITA, Chaos, CoKo, >Chess 3/4, etc. (What we need is some of the 'old timers' to step forward and >start donating their old programs to a computer chess archive. And then get in >touch with the people they used to play against, and see what they have. And so >on...) > >But it looks like MacHack still exists. (Two versions, unless the differences >are due to bad tape copies.) Although I don't know PDP os commands etc. to be >able to actually try it. > > >I was going over the list of historically significant saved chess programs, and >there aren't many. > >Those with source: > >Microchess 1 >Sargon 1 >Chess 0.5 (Atkin, in BYTE.) >unnamed program from 79. Prob by Ken Thompson. > >And that's about it. > >Of the ones with just executables, > >Sargon 2 >Mychess (cpm, etc.) >Machack VI (Possibly....) > >And I think that's about it for the reasonably significant historic programs. > > >(Plus hardware based chess computers, but I don't know much about them... I >wouldn't mind having a few old ones, but I don't have a great intrest in them to >spend the cash to do it.)
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