The very first DOS chess program was?

[mclane]

i think i wrote a few articles for computer-chess and games magazine in germany at the time... about super-forte B/C and about other novag machines. i also remember w-chess for pc.
i still do have many novag dedicated chess computers.

when i was younger i had the super-constellation.
we were all completely happy about the way super-constellation played sacrifycing games.

i do have star diamond, tourqoise, citrine, and and and.

those were good days when the cpu were only 6502 with 4 mhz...

the good old days.

i still have a constellation-expert, kind of super constellation in wood.

[fern]

Well, George, I only expect him to push my wheelchair for a while and wipe my lips of the last supper remains...what else..

Fern

[gleperlier]

My first computer was a Thomson TO7 70 :

http://dcmoto.free.fr/_pictures/to770.png

And I remember a very nice chess game : Blitz!

http://dcmoto.free.fr/programmes/blitz/index.html
http://dcmoto.free.fr/programmes/blitz/c3.jpg

And a match between Blitz! and Sargon III !

http://dcmoto.free.fr/programmes/blitz/r1.jpg

[Dave K]

My last name does start with K, but I'm just someone with an interest in chess, computers and programming. When microcomputers were introduced back in the 70's, I bought a Digital Group Z80 processor kit, took several weeks building and getting it to work and then sat there wondering what to do with it. Then I read a series of articles in Popular Science magazine about chess, alpha- beta pruning and minimax theories. So I started writing. The program evolved over the next several years and became competitive against Sargon. Then the IBM PC was introduced. I jumped on that, but never did port the chess program to it, So yes, I am a Dave K but not THE Dave K.

[Gerd Isenberg]

What about Sfinks?
Seems a very early DOS program, played ACM 1982 and 1983.
But no date mentioned on the site:
http://www.textfiles.com/digitize/items/sfinks-pc/

[Dr.Ex]

I don't think so. wiki says it came out later for the PC.
This site says 1985:
http://www.dosgamesonline.com/index/gam ... Chess.html

[Gerd Isenberg]

What about Sfinks?
Seems a very early DOS program, played ACM 1982 and 1983.
But no date mentioned on the site:
http://www.textfiles.com/digitize/items/sfinks-pc/

Oups, WCCC 1983, was still the 8-bit program running on a TRS-80.

[fern]

You have the right to keep your name incognito, but let us see what real Kittinger said to Whitby in an interview:

" I had gotten a copy of the original Microchess (which ran on a z80) and was a 4k assembly program as I recall. It had a number of levels and a setup mode. I played it taking off both my Q and both Rooks, and could always WIN. I thought - I can do better than that! So first thing I did was write a disassembler (in z80 assembly) to see how the program worked".

This sounds similar to what you have said here. Too many coincidences, name, surname, beginnings, etc

In any case, it does not matter. You will be and you are appreciated or not according your posts here. As K....something or Kittinger.

Have a great week end , David...

Fern

[Don]

You have the right to keep your name incognito, but let us see what real Kittinger said to Whitby in an interview:

" I had gotten a copy of the original Microchess (which ran on a z80) and was a 4k assembly program as I recall. It had a number of levels and a setup mode. I played it taking off both my Q and both Rooks, and could always WIN. I thought - I can do better than that! So first thing I did was write a disassembler (in z80 assembly) to see how the program worked".

This sounds similar to what you have said here. Too many coincidences, name, surname, beginnings, etc

In any case, it does not matter. You will be and you are appreciated or not according your posts here. As K....something or Kittinger.

Have a great week end , David...

Fern

Aren't you going to ask him if he used any of the great ideas in Microchess in his future programs?

Seriously, I also had Microchess for the TRS-80 and was bitterly disappointed when I got it. It played so horribly and I had waited weeks for it to get delivered, believing the marketing hype that it would play like a master.

However I had a friend with an Apple computer and it was much stronger. I think it was still very weak, but they had obviously done something to solve the tactical blunder situation. In the TRS-80 version you could attack the queen in one move, and capture it on the next - it would not even move the queen away.

Later I purchases Sargon 2 and it was close to my own level and I enjoyed it immensely, setting up strict structured matches against it. It was really solid in the sense that it seemed to have a quies search, was tactically keen for such a limited depth and sometimes finished 4 ply searches in tournament time control.

[JuLieN]

Later I purchases Sargon 2 and it was close to my own level and I enjoyed it immensely, setting up strict structured matches against it. It was really solid in the sense that it seemed to have a quies search, was tactically keen for such a limited depth and sometimes finished 4 ply searches in tournament time control.

S2 did have a quies search. What the Spracklens called a "full depth search", and which was the main improvement over S1, that only had an SEE.