Author: kaqs.1662@bumpymail.com
Date: 20:56:48 08/28/05
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P.S. Mr. Hyatt... If you do get a copy, let me know here so I can send you a better email address... I guess I really should update my profile, but most of my email addresses thesedays tend to have somewhat agressive spam filtering. They seem to let the spam in and keep out the good stuff. On August 28, 2005 at 23:36:52, kaqs.1662@bumpymail.com wrote: >On August 28, 2005 at 23:14:41, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On August 28, 2005 at 20:29:24, kaqs.1662@bumpymail.com wrote: >> >>>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 don't have any of that very old stuff. Threw out tens of thousands of punched >>cards 20 years ago, along with hundreds of "dec tapes" (the small reels used to >>ship stuff from PDP to PDP...). > > >Then it's quite safe to say you are more organized and disciplined than I am. I >hate throwing out stuff because I know that as soon as I do, I'm going to want >it for some reason... > > >>Used to have a copy of Coko IV, sent to me by Ed Kozdrowicki also... 100K lines >>of FORTRAN written in the very early '70s... > >Cool. I've read the CACM paper but that's about all I know of its inner >workings. > > >>I'll ask Harry Nelson who might have saved a copy of the chess 4.9 assembly >>source for the CDC... > >Very cool!! Thanks for asking. > >Even if it turns out that he doesn't, I do appreciate your asking. > >You've been around long enough in computer chess that you can ask Mr. Nelson >(naturally him, but anybody else too) and actually get an answer. > >If a nobody like myself asks, it's more likely to get ignored. That's what >happened the last time I went on an antique chess program search. > > >As I've said... I get more excited by the old chess programs than I do the >modern ones. > > >> >> >> >> >> >>> >>> >>>>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. >> >>Main problem is oddball binary constants that can look like an instruction, >>getting the disassembler "off" and highly confused... > >Hey, some early programmers did worse than that... > >They'd use program instructions as constants, do self modifying code and then >reuse both... > >I remember hearing a story about a programmer who did a blackjack (?) program on >an old drum memory computer. He must have pulled every trick in the book and a >few new ones due to the physical hardware. I think in one case, he used a >memory counter that just happened to turn into the right value at just the right >time for the program to execute right over the data. > >Later when the program needed to be modified, they never could figure out how it >worked. And that's with the original source. > > >Still, my old home written disassembler could handle that. It only followed the >instruction flow and the commands you gave. If it ever ended up in data, a >simple command to it was all it took for it to be told that was data. If it >started getting into unrecognized opcodes, it'd back up to the last point it was >reasonably sure as instructions and mark the rest as data. And then look at the >data to see if it appeared to be any sort of jump table or ascii text strings, >etc. > >Of course, that was all years ago on an 8 bit system. > >I used it to disassemble the the ROMs the system had, and even the C compiler >library I was using. (Actually, for it, I ended up recreating the source based >on what the compiler generated... A waste of time, but I had nothing better to >do that week.) > >I haven't messed with assembly in 15 years, so I don't know what modern >disassemblers are like. > > > >> >> >>> >>> >>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>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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