CP/M chess programs

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BenRedic
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Post by BenRedic »

mychess wrote:In Byte of October 1978, page 196, there is an advertising from Software Specialists about this chess program ($35, $50 with presetting the board, 8Ko, with castling, en passant and promotion).
Also, Personal Computing from the same month, on page 83. Next to an announcement of Chess Challenger 10 https://archive.org/stream/PersonalComp ... %201978-10
Yeah, that looks like the one. Another catalog mention: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ ... y_1984.pdf. Also, MyChess :-)

Still no credits for who really did it, though.

Didn't know it was also available for TRS-80, and can't find that version anywhere.

North Star, as far as I understand, was a disk system for computers like the Altair, Imsai etc. Those computers were basically just a box with CPU, a teeny bit of RAM, some switches and LEDs and little else, and needed a load of peripherals to be useful in any way.
Thank you for an interesting game.
TracySMiller
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Bugs?

Post by TracySMiller »

I've been having fun pitting some of these CP/M programs against some of my lower-rated dedicated units. So far, Mychess (the one from 1979) has been doing well, but it has some bugginess. About every third game or so, it won't accept a legal move. I'm really careful to input moves correctly, and double check against the text-based board, so it's kind of frustrating when it occurs, as I have to abandon the game.

In the last game I played, it was up a pawn in an endgame against my Radio Shack 1750L, and it put a second King on the board for Black! The text of the move was "O H1", which was puzzling, and I looked at the text-based graphic of the board, and sure enough, it had put a brand new King on H1. Ha, ha.

Anyone else noticed this bug? I wonder if, instead of a Mychess bug, it is a CP/M emulator bug, because Mychess competed in some big tournaments back in the day, and I doubt those bugs were present in the version they were using.
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BenRedic
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Re: Bugs?

Post by BenRedic »

TracySMiller wrote:Anyone else noticed this bug? I wonder if, instead of a Mychess bug, it is a CP/M emulator bug, because Mychess competed in some big tournaments back in the day, and I doubt those bugs were present in the version they were using.
Haven't seen this bug yet, but then I haven't played that many full games with any of these programs yet. But I have noticed bugs in the 1984 version for MS-DOS, usually related to promotions. Sometimes the program hangs completely. I have even tried to reproduce a crashing game by playing the very same game again from scratch, and sure enough: MyChess consistently hangs on the very same move.

I would not rule out that the programs competing in the 70s and early 80s had their fair share of bugs. A number of games were determined by crashes, illegal moves or other technical difficulties. In fact, the tournament rules usually gave room for timeouts so the team could work out any kinks that would turn up during games, but if they failed to fix things within the time limit the game was lost.

Oh, and BTW, I just beat a GM over the board today. In a simul, and in his defence he had way too little time considering the amount of opponents he had, but still :-D
Thank you for an interesting game.
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Post by Cyberchess »

Greetings Ben Redic:

Wow! I haven’t loaded the CP/M operating system since my days as a student. Does anyone remember the Vi text editor? Yes, we actually used this archaic editor to compose computer code in the Unix environment with CP/M on the terminals. Back in those days we all owned or had access to PCs running DOS, so we played Sargon, Chessmaster, Psion, etc. through DOS exclusively.
Fernando wrote: If it is so, then this program make illegal moves and things like that...
Greetings Fern:

As I recall, the very first Fidelity Chess Challenger had a programming issue pertaining to the rules of castling, though the subsequent program corrected this by the end of 1977. While there was no public internet at the time, word of the initial flaw spread through chess organizations/publications, and unfortunately must have hurt Fidelity Electronics’ sales early on. On the other hand, if they had submitted the first unit for QA testing, the delay in doing so might have resulted in a competitor having the first commercially available chess computer.

Vintage Tech Regards,
John
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BenRedic
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Post by BenRedic »

Cyberchess wrote:Wow! I haven’t loaded the CP/M operating system since my days as a student. Does anyone remember the Vi text editor? Yes, we actually used this archaic editor to compose computer code in the Unix environment with CP/M on the terminals. Back in those days we all owned or had access to PCs running DOS, so we played Sargon, Chessmaster, Psion, etc. through DOS exclusively.
Vi? Isn't that a precursor to Vim? I use that all the time.

As for my current CP/M exploits I now have a number of CP/M environments set up. In addition to my previously posted CPM player I have installed CP/M and set up disks with the chess programs under the MyZ80 emulator running under DOS, Z80Pack with CPMSIM under Linux, as well as a Commodore 128 (VICE) booting CP/M from a floppy image :-)
Thank you for an interesting game.
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BenRedic
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Re: Bugs?

Post by BenRedic »

BenRedic wrote:
TracySMiller wrote:Anyone else noticed this bug? I wonder if, instead of a Mychess bug, it is a CP/M emulator bug, because Mychess competed in some big tournaments back in the day, and I doubt those bugs were present in the version they were using.
Haven't seen this bug yet, but then I haven't played that many full games with any of these programs yet. But I have noticed bugs in the 1984 version for MS-DOS, usually related to promotions. Sometimes the program hangs completely. I have even tried to reproduce a crashing game by playing the very same game again from scratch, and sure enough: MyChess consistently hangs on the very same move.
I came over this old interview: http://www.chesscomputeruk.com/html/dave_kittinger.html In the first answer, Dave states that Mychess only holds variables for the pieces, not the squares like modern programs do, so you can only promote to captured pieces. This might explain some of the problems related to Mychess and promotion. I know that Microchess does the same thing, but I have not experienced crashing there.

I also came over this game I played between Sargon and Mychess some time ago:

Code: Select all

[White "Sargon lev2"]
[Black "Mychess DOS lev4"]
[Result "1-0"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.Bc4 Bb4 5.Qe2 d6 6.a3 Bxc3 7.dxc3 Bg4 8.Bg5 h6 9.Bxf6 Qxf6 10.Qd3 Bxf3 11.gxf3 Qf4 12.Rg1 g5 13.Rg3 O-O-O 14.Qd5 Rhf8 15.Rd1 Kb8 16.Qb5 a6 17.Qd5 Ne7 18.Qd3 f5 19.Rh3 g4 20.Rg3 fxe4 21.Qxe4 gxf3 22.Rg4 Qxh2 23.Rh4 Qg1+ 24.Bf1 Qg5 25.Rg4 Rf4 26.Rxf4 Qxf4 27.Qxf4 exf4 28.Rd3 Re8 29.Rxf3 Ng6+ 30.Kd2 Rf8 31.Rh3 Rh8 32.Bd3 Ne5 33.Be4 Nc4+ 34.Kc1 Re8 35.f3 Re6 36.Rh5 Ne3 37.Kd2 b5 38.b3 Nf1+ 39.Kd3 Ne3 40.Kd2 Ng2 41.a4 bxa4 42.bxa4 Ne3 43.Kd3 Nd1 44.Ra5 Ka7 45.Rf5 Nb2+ 46.Kd2 Nc4+ 47.Kc1 Rg6 48.Kb1 Nb6 49.a5 Na4 50.c4 Rg1+ 51.Ka2 Nc3+ 52.Kb3 Nxe4 53.fxe4 Rg3+ 54.c3 f3 55.Rf7 Kb7 56.Rf8 Kc6 57.Kb4 h5 58.Rf5 h4 59.Kb3 h3 60.Kb4 h2 61.Rh5 f2 62.Rh3 Rxh3 63.Kb3 1-0
Mychess has a completely winning game, a rook up and two pawns ready to promote, but simply freezes, and I have to award the game to Sargon. I can only speculate, but my guess is that Mychess wants to promote but somehow gets stuck in some loop.
Thank you for an interesting game.
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Cyberchess
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Post by Cyberchess »

BenRedic wrote:
Cyberchess wrote:Wow! I haven’t loaded the CP/M operating system since my days as a student. Does anyone remember the Vi text editor? Yes, we actually used this archaic editor to compose computer code in the Unix environment with CP/M on the terminals. Back in those days we all owned or had access to PCs running DOS, so we played Sargon, Chessmaster, Psion, etc. through DOS exclusively.
Vi? Isn't that a precursor to Vim? I use that all the time.

As for my current CP/M exploits I now have a number of CP/M environments set up. In addition to my previously posted CPM player I have installed CP/M and set up disks with the chess programs under the MyZ80 emulator running under DOS, Z80Pack with CPMSIM under Linux, as well as a Commodore 128 (VICE) booting CP/M from a floppy image :-)
Yes. Having just looked up Vim (a contraction of Vi Improved), I see that this version was released in ’91, and has the capability to run as a standalone app in a GUI. Prior to purchasing my first DOS based PC, I only had access to the original command line based Vi for writing code since it was included with Unix. Subsequent to owning my own PC, however, I would simply compose my code in my favorite DOS based text editor and save the file as pure ASCII text. Likewise, I would access our school’s network by means of terminal emulation and my USR 1200 baud phone modem, transfer the files using FTP, and save them to my network drive for compilation.

We also used the old dialup modem for playing terminal chess and accessing all those great BBS sites for technical info, email, entertainment, etc.

Linux is an excellent operating system, and I look forward building another Linux based system when time permits. As far as Windows based terminal emulation of the old Z80 and those early MPU based games go, I find that MAME (XMAME for Unix based systems) works really well and has been a work in progress since 1997.

http://mamedev.org/about.html

MAME is mostly used to emulate the vintage arcade game platforms allowing us to enjoy the original video games of our youth, but can also be used to emulate many of the popular chess computers sans real pieces, though I’ve never actually used it for such. Without a material chess set, we mind as well….

Just Play Software Regards,
John
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Bryan Whitby
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Post by Bryan Whitby »

Ben

Ron Nelson has told me that he didn't write a chess program for the Atari nor any commercially sold video screen chess software.

Bryan
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BenRedic
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Post by BenRedic »

Chessmaster Ireland wrote:Ron Nelson has told me that he didn't write a chess program for the Atari nor any commercially sold video screen chess software.
Atari? I was talking about Altair. But either way, if he didn't write any commercial software product for any personal computer then I guess the one I have for the Altair is not his.
Thank you for an interesting game.
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Post by Volodymyr »

I found several retro chess programs for Nascom computer.
Work in a dosbox,through the emulator.

The Nascom Home Page
http://www.nascomhomepage.com

NASCOM Chess
LogiChess
SARGON 1.2 (Start press E2FB8)
SARGON 1.3
Schach
http://www113.zippyshare.com/v/QWbirpqG/file.html

Image
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BenRedic
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Post by BenRedic »

Volodymyr wrote:I found several retro chess programs for Nascom computer.
Work in a dosbox,through the emulator.

The Nascom Home Page
http://www.nascomhomepage.com

NASCOM Chess
LogiChess
SARGON 1.2 (Start press E2FB8)
SARGON 1.3
Schach
http://www113.zippyshare.com/v/QWbirpqG/file.html
Thank you for this.

The ZippyShare-link wants me to add all manner of addons to my browser before I can download anything, which I am not comfortable doing, but I will check out the Nascom page :-)
Thank you for an interesting game.
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Post by Volodymyr »

Hi BenRedic
From this file-sharing service it's hard to download?
I did not know that.
Very good site www.planetemu.net ,a lot of retro games.

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BenRedic
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Post by BenRedic »

Volodymyr wrote:Hi BenRedic
From this file-sharing service it's hard to download?
I did not know that.
Very good site www.planetemu.net ,a lot of retro games.
Clicking your ZippyShare link, I see three download buttons, two of which counts down 10 seconds before they become active. When I click any of them I get a popup asking me to install an addon called MusicBox Search or something similar. I can close the popup, but am no closer to getting the file. I have not tried accepting the addon to see if that redirects me to the file, and have absolutely no intention of doing so.

But I have managed to get the emulator and the chess games from the Nascom site you linked to working, so I'll be fine. The german programs look like they may be based on Sargon? The original sargon was released as full source code in a book, and there were plenty of ports, versions and Sargon-based offspring running around.

Logichess looks interesting, though. A Kaare Danielsen program if I am not mistaken. Which also makes sense since the program is in danish. I think I'll be toying a little bit with this one :-)

I am aware of PlanetEmu, and have most of the games in the screenshot.
Thank you for an interesting game.
Volodymyr
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Post by Volodymyr »

Chess for Vektor06C(Вектор 06Ц) and SpecialistMX(Специалист МХ).Emulator 3000(multi language).There is English.
This is a Ukrainian file-sharing service.I do not know if it works well.Wait 30 seconds.

http://files.dp.ua/file?source=18022120272273375520

Image
Image
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BenRedic
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Post by BenRedic »

Volodymyr wrote:Chess for Vektor06C(Âåêòîð 06Ö) and SpecialistMX(Ñïåöèàëèñò ÌÕ).Emulator 3000(multi language).There is English.
This is a Ukrainian file-sharing service.I do not know if it works well.Wait 30 seconds.

http://files.dp.ua/file?source=18022120272273375520
Wow, now we are digging into yet another class of computers I know nothing about :-)

I did manage to download the files, and run them. There was one game for the vector which looks like your screenshot.

In the SpecialistMX folder there are two files; I get one of them (shahm_mx.i80) to work, but it doesn't look like the black and white image you have. It's a yellow background with a blue board, and pieces that look exactly the same as Sargon II for the Apple II. See respective screenshots:

Image
Image

I don't understand cyrillic letters, though. Do you have any additional background info on any of these programs? Authors, years, manuals etc?

Tried to play a little bit with both of them. The MX program did not even understand castling. The vector program does, but it does not understand en passant. Also, does some very weird opening moves, letting me chase the knight around the board for several moves. I don't understand much of the text, but I can make out the year 1989, and how to move the pieces. Probably not a very strong program, at least not by 1989 standards. I beat it pretty easily, though I have no idea what kind of strength setting it was playing at. In the end the program just quit in a completely lost position. I don't know if it resigned or threw some error.

The other program, shahmat.i80, I did not get to run at all. Is that where your b/w screenshot comes from?
Thank you for an interesting game.
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