https://www.retro11.de/ouxr/211bsd/usr/ ... pdp/chess/
Chess VI (Belle) 11/1/73
Written by Ken Thompson and was a precursor to Belle. It was a program that ran on a DEC minicomputer (PDP-11).
Originally written in an intermediate version of Unix C. At the time, C hadn't been finalized or publicly announced.
It competed in the New Jersey open in 1972 and in the Atlanta ACM tournament of 1973.
The program was officially "Belle" but the USCF wouldn't allow a single name to be entered into a tournament, so he put a "T"
on it with no particular meaning. T. Belle does not stand for "Tinkerbelle" or "Thompson Belle" or "Telephone Belle" (he worked at
the phone company during that time.) Mr. Thompson definetly says that "T." has "no particular meaning".
The program was tested in the Westfield chess club and it got a 1420 ranting.
It was retired around 1975 in favor of the more famous hardware based "Belle" chess computer / program.
Code ported to modern systems by Jim Ablett 03/04/2026
Windows & Linux builds (console & winboard support)
Proton link:
https://drive.proton.me/urls/SYXDFSN22W#s412WevZRDVY
Smash link:
https://fromsmash.com/PDP11Chess6JA
Jim.
