Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 12:28:06 09/01/05
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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. > > >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.) After a huge effort to build these programs, they will play like utter crap compared to modern programs. In addition, they will not have a standardized interface. If someone finds the actual card images and JCL for these programs, it would be nice to have for historical purposes. But there is no technical value in their resurrection. IMO-YMMV
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