ETAION SHRDLU?

[Gerd Isenberg]

Hi,
searching the author(s) of ETAION SHRDLU, a chess program which participiated at ACM 1975 and ACM 1976 computer chess events,
see ACM COMPUTER CHESS by Bill Wall.

The Computer History Museum Photo, a Gift of Monroe Newborn:

from The Computer History Museum states Newborn and Courtois at the 6th ACM North American Computer Chess Championship in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1975.
I found Pierre-Jacques Courtois from Belgium with Google, which might be the right one, but found nothing relevant on his pages according to the ACM chess events.

Ok, I may try to mail Pierre-Jacques Courtois or Newborn. Maybe some of you (e.g. Bob, Carey) know more about this program and their author(s)?

This one has obviously some wrong text associated:

from here. Bob, who is the guy far left? (not Levy, I guess!)

Thanks,
Gerd

[Gerd Isenberg]

Another question on Newborn.

What is his correct name?

Monroe M. Newborn
Monroe M. (Monty) Newborn
Monty Newborn
or even
Monroe Monty Newborn ?

Is Monty a kind of nickname?

Thanks,
Gerd

[Carey]

Gerd;

Sorry, but I don't know much about ETAION SHRDLU either.

It just showed up in 75 and then kind of disapeared.

What little I've heard about it suggested nothing truely historical or radical about it.

And since it didn't stay around long, it just faded away like so many others.


Monty's name is Monroe Newborn. Monty is just a nickname. But considering he writes papers & books with 'Monty' I assume he prefers that over Monroe.

I once asked him about whether he was interested in releasing Ostrich, but I didn't hear back from him. However, I figure that since he donated so much to the ComputerHistory.org people, if he wanted it released (or could) he would have done so.

Carey

[Rolf]

This one has obviously some wrong text associated:

from here. Bob, who is the guy far left? (not Levy, I guess!)

Thanks,
Gerd

I dont know for sure but the second from left looks like Bob IMO. <g>

[Gerd Isenberg]

Gerd;

Sorry, but I don't know much about ETAION SHRDLU either.

It just showed up in 75 and then kind of disapeared.

What little I've heard about it suggested nothing truely historical or radical about it.

And since it didn't stay around long, it just faded away like so many others.


Monty's name is Monroe Newborn. Monty is just a nickname. But considering he writes papers & books with 'Monty' I assume he prefers that over Monroe.

I once asked him about whether he was interested in releasing Ostrich, but I didn't hear back from him. However, I figure that since he donated so much to the ComputerHistory.org people, if he wanted it released (or could) he would have done so.

Carey

Hi Carey,
thanks for your answer. There seems some confusion with Monty's name,
amazon.de and other book sellers often state two authors
In Paper lists, e.g. this one of the ICGA/ICCA Journal Table of Contents, you'll find
M. Newborn
Monty Newborn
Newborn, M.
Newborn, M.M.
I used Monroe M. (Monty) Newborn so far...

On Courtois and ETAION SHRDLU, I found the name of the program quite funny, and would like to find more about the author(s). Anyway, not that important of course. May be there is even a typo in the name of the program, since ETAOIN SHRDLU refers to the Linotype history.

ETAION SHRDLU by Monty
ETAOIN SHRDIU by Bill Wall
ETAOIN SHRDLU the approximate order of frequency of the twelve most commonly used letters in the English language, best known as a nonsense phrase that sometimes appeared in print in the days of "hot type" publishing due to a custom of Linotype machine operators.

Cheers,
Gerd

[Gerd Isenberg]

This one has obviously some wrong text associated:

from here. Bob, who is the guy far left? (not Levy, I guess!)

Thanks,
Gerd

I dont know for sure but the second from left looks like Bob IMO. <g>

Hehe, I guess it is this one.

[Zach Wegner]

May be there is even a typo in the name of the program, since ETAOIN SHRDLU refers to the Linotype history.

Interesting story, and that's a damn cool name for a program.

[Gerd Isenberg]

May be there is even a typo in the name of the program, since ETAOIN SHRDLU refers to the Linotype history.

Interesting story, and that's a damn cool name for a program.

Yes exactly, not sure about the pronunciation though. The potential programmer looks interesting es well. But I did not recognize his face in the ACM 75 photo, do you?

[Carey]

Hi Carey,
thanks for your answer. There seems some confusion with Monty's name,
amazon.de and other book sellers often state two authors
In Paper lists, e.g. this one of the ICGA/ICCA Journal Table of Contents, you'll find
M. Newborn
Monty Newborn
Newborn, M.
Newborn, M.M.
I used Monroe M. (Monty) Newborn so far...

I could be wrong. Maybe he really is named Monroe Monty, but I don't think so.

You could certainly ask him. Tell him you want to make sure you get his name right etc. He'd probably appreciate the effort since nobody likes to have their name done wrong.

On Courtois and ETAION SHRDLU, I found the name of the program quite funny, and would like to find more about the author(s). Anyway, not that important of course. May be there is even a typo in the name of the program, since ETAOIN SHRDLU refers to the Linotype history.

ETAION SHRDLU by Monty
ETAOIN SHRDIU by Bill Wall
ETAOIN SHRDLU the approximate order of frequency of the twelve most commonly used letters in the English language, best known as a nonsense phrase that sometimes appeared in print in the days of "hot type" publishing due to a custom of Linotype machine operators.

Cheers,
Gerd

The name of the program does indeed refer to Linotype. At least that's what my references say about it.

Surprised nobody came out with EBCDIC.

[bob]

Hi,
searching the author(s) of ETAION SHRDLU, a chess program which participiated at ACM 1975 and ACM 1976 computer chess events,
see ACM COMPUTER CHESS by Bill Wall.

The Computer History Museum Photo, a Gift of Monroe Newborn:

from The Computer History Museum states Newborn and Courtois at the 6th ACM North American Computer Chess Championship in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1975.
I found Pierre-Jacques Courtois from Belgium with Google, which might be the right one, but found nothing relevant on his pages according to the ACM chess events.

Ok, I may try to mail Pierre-Jacques Courtois or Newborn. Maybe some of you (e.g. Bob, Carey) know more about this program and their author(s)?

This one has obviously some wrong text associated:

from here. Bob, who is the guy far left? (not Levy, I guess!)

Thanks,
Gerd

I barely remember the program. In that photo, the only ones I recognize are myself, and Harry Nelson standing over my shoulder. blue shirt with stripes. I am not sure who that is across the table from me. Possibly someone from the Mephisto team although I can't quite make out the opponent's name. It was certainly 1981 or later as that was when Harry became involved as we started to use a Cray.