Author: kaqs.1662@bumpymail.com
Date: 17:29:24 08/28/05
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On August 28, 2005 at 19:56:45, Robert Hyatt wrote: >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... If you are a pack-rat like me, it probably still exists. But it's buried under 6 tons of other stuff and will never be found...[grin] I moved recently and finally threw out some stuff I had printed out 20 years ago.... If I hunted a bit harder, I could probably find stuff older than that. >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... Oh yeah!! I've done that before. It's not a lot of fun. It can be done, but maaaan it's a lot of work. Back in my old 8 bit micro days, I was disatisified with the disassemblers I had (which blindly disassembled the code), so I wrote one myself to jump through the code, look at the data to see if it might be jump tables, etc. etc. Even then, it's still a heck of a lot of effort. > >> >> >>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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