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Computer Chess Hall of Fame

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Komputer Korner

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Apr 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/13/97
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The initial entrants are listed below and there can be no argument about
them. Future entrants will be decided by a committee struck among the
present Hall of Fame members.

In alphabetical order and reason for entrance:

Ingo Althofer- 3 Hirn and Dopplefritz experiments
Chrilly Donninger- Invention of the DOS autoplayer
Steven J. Edwards- Inventor of the PGN standard
Robert Hyatt- For Cray Blitz winning 2 WCCC and publication of Crafty
source code and other chess programming innovations.
Feng Hsiung Hsu- For developing Deep Blue which defeated Kasparov in
a 40/2 game.
Michael Leahy- For the promotion of the EDP standard for chess positions
Richard Lang- For the Genius and Mephisto programs winning all those
WMCCC Championships.
A.J. Roycroft- For the invention of the endgame coding system
Lewis Stiller- For his investigation of 6 man endgames
Ken Thompson- For creation of the Belle program and investigation of
4 and 5 man endgames
Rob Weir - For creation of all the ChessBase utilities
Victor Zakharov and Inform Systems programmers- Creation of world's
first
chess database system

I know there are a lot of programmers out there who may wonder what
about
them, but it is up to others to judge and create a Programmers Hall of
Fame.
--
Komputer Korner

The inkompetent komputer.

Komputer Korner

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Apr 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/13/97
to

Komputer Korner wrote:
>
snipped.

I forgot 3 very important individuals that should not have been
left out. Please forgive my omissions. The revised list is below:

Ingo Althofer- 3 Hirn and Dopplefritz experiments
Chrilly Donninger- Invention of the DOS autoplayer
Steven J. Edwards- Inventor of the PGN standard
Robert Hyatt- For Cray Blitz winning 2 WCCC and publication of Crafty
source code and other chess programming innovations.
Feng Hsiung Hsu- For developing Deep Blue which defeated Kasparov in
a 40/2 game.

Richard Lang- For the Genius and Mephisto programs winning so many
WMCCC Championships.


Michael Leahy- For the promotion of the EDP standard for chess positions

A.J. Roycroft- For the invention of the endgame coding system

John Stanback- For his co-invention of PGN and his writing of GNU Chess
Claude Shannon- Inventor of the alpha beta algorithm


Lewis Stiller- For his investigation of 6 man endgames
Ken Thompson- For creation of the Belle program and investigation of
4 and 5 man endgames
Rob Weir - For creation of all the ChessBase utilities
Victor Zakharov and Inform Systems programmers- Creation of world's
first chess database system

Conrad Zuse- inventor of the first chess computer program

Robert Hyatt

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Apr 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/14/97
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Komputer Korner (kor...@netcom.ca) wrote:
: Komputer Korner wrote:
: >
: snipped.

: --
: Komputer Korner

: The inkompetent komputer.

From my perspective, I offer the following suggestion: First, I really don't
think I belong in your "hall of fame." I'd suggest the removal of that name.

Second, I'd add David Slate/Larry Atkin, for chess 4.x... this program became
the foundation of so many chess programs, the article in "Chess Skill in Man and
Machine" served as a blueprint for so many of us, that they are really likely
the father of almost all current computer chess programs. My first exhaustive
search program (circa 1978) followed this book almost exactly. I suspect I'm not
the only one. I remember Tom Truscott and Bruce Wright doing exactly the same thing
with Duchess, only a year earlier.

You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone that has had a more profound impact on most
of us than these two. Dave Slate has continued to remain active sporadically through
the present.

Other names: Monty Newborn for organizing the ACM computer chess events which really
kicked off world-wise interest in computer chess.

Barend Swets for his vision that turned into the ICCA at the 1977 World Computer
Chess Championship in Toronto, Canada.

Schaeffer, et. al, for Chinook which needs no introduction...

Dan and Kathe Spracklen for the first decent microcomputer chess programs back in
the late 70's (Sargon, etc.)


Komputer Korner

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Apr 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/14/97
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Whoops, I misspelled EPD. Sorry Mike, I guess it is back to spelling class.
Revised list with correct spelling of EPD is:

Computer Chess Hall of Fame



Ingo Althofer- 3 Hirn and Dopplefritz experiments
Chrilly Donninger- Invention of the DOS autoplayer
Steven J. Edwards- Inventor of the PGN standard
Robert Hyatt- For Cray Blitz winning 2 WCCC and publication of Crafty
source code and other chess programming innovations.
Feng Hsiung Hsu- For developing Deep Blue which defeated Kasparov in
a 40/2 game.

Richard Lang- For the Genius and Mephisto programs winning all those
WMCCC Championships.
Michael Leahy- For the promotion of the EPD standard for chess positions


A.J. Roycroft- For the invention of the endgame coding system

Claude Shannon- Inventor of the alpha beta algorithm

John Stanback- For his co-invention of PGN and his writing of GNU Chess

Moritz Berger

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Apr 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/14/97
to

On Sun, 13 Apr 1997 23:34:16 -0400, Komputer Korner <kor...@netcom.ca>
wrote:

>Komputer Korner wrote:
>>
>snipped.
>
>I forgot 3 very important individuals that should not have been
>left out. Please forgive my omissions. The revised list is below:

< snip >

Dear KK,

I think that there are some more individuals missing:

Dave Kittinger who brought us the Super Constellation

Ed Schroeder who was the 1st micro programmer to win a world
championship against big iron hardware in 1992

Frans Morsch who wrote Fritz 3 that among other things finished 1st
together with Kasparov in the 1993 Intel Blitz match at Munich

Slate and Atkin for their success with and articles about Chess 4.5

Marty Hirsch for M-Chess 1.x which was a major breakthrough in PC
chess programs

Matthias Wuellenweber who contributed much to the popularity of chess
databases with ChessBase

Johan de Koning who is the author of the program (The King) of the
strongest dedicated machine (TASC R30)

The Spracklens for their Sargon series (which for some time was one of
the best programs around)

Chris Whittington who holds the record for being the commercial chess
programmer with the longest development cycle ever with his Chess
System Tal :-)

Garry Kasparov for beating Deep Blue :-)))

and so on ....

-------------
Moritz...@msn.com

Ronald de Man

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Apr 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/14/97
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Komputer Korner <kor...@netcom.ca> writes:

>Komputer Korner wrote:
>>
>snipped.

>I forgot 3 very important individuals that should not have been
>left out. Please forgive my omissions. The revised list is below:

>Claude Shannon- Inventor of the alpha beta algorithm

Although Shannon was the first to describe how one could program a
computer to play chess, I'm not sure he really invented the alpha beta
algorithm. Some of the first chess programs didn't even use it (and
as a result had to restrict to e.g. a 6x6 board).

I think that John McCarthy came up with the alpha beta idea. (I remember
reading somewhere that he was attending a talk on one of the early
chess programs and criticized it on the spot for not using what is
now called alpha beta.)

Ronald de Man


Robert Hyatt

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Apr 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/14/97
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Ronald de Man (de...@wsdw10.win.tue.nl) wrote:
: Komputer Korner <kor...@netcom.ca> writes:

: >Komputer Korner wrote:
: >>
: >snipped.

: Ronald de Man


Actually, I believe that Shannon invented minimax. I have the paper he
wrote in my files, something he sent to me years ago. I believe (but am
not certain) that alpha/beta was presented in a paper by "newell, simon and
shaw"???

I also think that at the 1970 ACM event alpha/beta was common, because
Greenblatt used alpha/beta in machack... As did Tech, Coko (I think I
still have the source to Coko around somewhere) and others...

chrisw

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Apr 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/14/97
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--
http://www.demon.co.uk/oxford-soft

Komputer Korner <kor...@netcom.ca> wrote in article
<01bc488a$f8421ba0$d75ab5cf@korner>...


> Whoops, I misspelled EPD. Sorry Mike, I guess it is back to spelling
class.
> Revised list with correct spelling of EPD is:
>
> Computer Chess Hall of Fame
>
> Ingo Althofer- 3 Hirn and Dopplefritz experiments
> Chrilly Donninger- Invention of the DOS autoplayer
> Steven J. Edwards- Inventor of the PGN standard
> Robert Hyatt- For Cray Blitz winning 2 WCCC and publication of Crafty
> source code and other chess programming innovations.
> Feng Hsiung Hsu- For developing Deep Blue which defeated Kasparov in
> a 40/2 game.
> Richard Lang- For the Genius and Mephisto programs winning all those
> WMCCC Championships.
> Michael Leahy- For the promotion of the EPD standard for chess positions
> A.J. Roycroft- For the invention of the endgame coding system

> Claude Shannon- Inventor of the alpha beta algorithm

> John Stanback- For his co-invention of PGN and his writing of GNU Chess
> Lewis Stiller- For his investigation of 6 man endgames
> Ken Thompson- For creation of the Belle program and investigation of
> 4 and 5 man endgames
> Rob Weir - For creation of all the ChessBase utilities
> Victor Zakharov and Inform Systems programmers- Creation of world's
> first chess database system
> Conrad Zuse- inventor of the first chess computer program

Contentious. It was thought to be Turing. Some revisionism of history then
produced Zuse, but it still seems to me that this development happened in
the UK and not Germany.

Chris Whittington

chrisw

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Apr 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/14/97
to

--
http://www.demon.co.uk/oxford-soft

Moritz Berger <Moritz...@msn.com> wrote in article
<3355f26d...@PersonalNews.Germany.EU.net>...


>
> On Sun, 13 Apr 1997 23:34:16 -0400, Komputer Korner <kor...@netcom.ca>
> wrote:
>

> >Komputer Korner wrote:
> >>
> >snipped.
> >
> >I forgot 3 very important individuals that should not have been
> >left out. Please forgive my omissions. The revised list is below:

> < snip >
>
> Dear KK,
>
> I think that there are some more individuals missing:
>
> Dave Kittinger who brought us the Super Constellation
>
> Ed Schroeder who was the 1st micro programmer to win a world
> championship against big iron hardware in 1992
>
> Frans Morsch who wrote Fritz 3 that among other things finished 1st
> together with Kasparov in the 1993 Intel Blitz match at Munich
>
> Slate and Atkin for their success with and articles about Chess 4.5
>
> Marty Hirsch for M-Chess 1.x which was a major breakthrough in PC
> chess programs
>
> Matthias Wuellenweber who contributed much to the popularity of chess
> databases with ChessBase
>
> Johan de Koning who is the author of the program (The King) of the
> strongest dedicated machine (TASC R30)
>
> The Spracklens for their Sargon series (which for some time was one of
> the best programs around)
>
> Chris Whittington who holds the record for being the commercial chess
> programmer with the longest development cycle ever with his Chess
> System Tal :-)

I'm trying so hard to prove I'm an amateur :)

Chris Whittington

David Eppstein

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Apr 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/14/97
to

In <5isseq$l...@wsdw10.win.tue.nl> de...@wsdw10.win.tue.nl (Ronald de Man) writes:
> I think that John McCarthy came up with the alpha beta idea. (I remember
> reading somewhere that he was attending a talk on one of the early
> chess programs and criticized it on the spot for not using what is
> now called alpha beta.)

An early paper on MacHack (I think included in "Computer Chess
Compendium", it's at home though so sorry for the inexact attribution)
cites McCarthy as suggesting that the program use alpha-beta, but I
couldn't tell whether it meant that McCarthy thought it up himself or
whether he had heard of it elsewhere and was merely passing along the
idea.

Other papers from that time period give the credit to Newell, Simon and Shaw.
--
David Eppstein UC Irvine Dept. of Information & Computer Science
epps...@ics.uci.edu http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/

Tom C. Kerrigan

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Apr 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/14/97
to

What is this, exactly?

Cheers,
Tom

Jim Gillogly

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Apr 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/14/97
to

Robert Hyatt wrote:

> Actually, I believe that Shannon invented minimax. I have the paper he
> wrote in my files, something he sent to me years ago. I believe (but am
> not certain) that alpha/beta was presented in a paper by "newell, simon and
> shaw"???

The earliest paper I've found for minimax is Ernst Zermelo's paper:
"Ueber eine Anwendung der Mengenlehre auf die Theorie des Schachspiels"
in Proceedings, 5th International Congress of Mathematicians
(Cambridge 1912).

Newell said the NSS program used alpha-beta, but they didn't
include it explicitly in their paper because it was "obvious".
I don't know of an earlier program that used it. I don't
recall who was the first to describe it in print, but I think
it was Greenblatt. I learned about it from Greenblatt, anyway.


>
> I also think that at the 1970 ACM event alpha/beta was common, because
> Greenblatt used alpha/beta in machack... As did Tech, Coko (I think I
> still have the source to Coko around somewhere) and others...

Speaking of Greenblatt, if we're doing nominations for the Hall of
Fame, he belongs there:

Richard Greenblatt: for writing the first program that played
better than off-the-street humans.

In my opinion that's when chess programming achieved success...
beating the best possible human is a fine and worthy goal, but
bettering average human performance is (in my view) the important
benchmark.

I'd also nominate Alan Turing and Donald Michie for writing the
first algorithms for full chess: Turochamp and Machiavelli were
fully described algorithms, despite the fact that they were
executed by hand.

Jim Gillogly
j...@acm.org

John Stanback

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Apr 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/14/97
to

Komputer Korner wrote:
>
> Komputer Korner wrote:

>
> I forgot 3 very important individuals that should not have been
> left out. Please forgive my omissions. The revised list is below:
>

snip...



> John Stanback- For his co-invention of PGN and his writing of GNU Chess

Sorry, but I didn't co-invent PGN -- I think Steven deserves all the
credit for both the PGN and the EPD standards.


John

mclane

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Apr 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/15/97
to

Moritz...@msn.com (Moritz Berger) wrote:

>On Sun, 13 Apr 1997 23:34:16 -0400, Komputer Korner <kor...@netcom.ca>
>wrote:

>>Komputer Korner wrote:
>>>
>>snipped.
>>


>>I forgot 3 very important individuals that should not have been
>>left out. Please forgive my omissions. The revised list is below:

>< snip >

>Dear KK,

>I think that there are some more individuals missing:

>Dave Kittinger who brought us the Super Constellation

>Ed Schroeder who was the 1st micro programmer to win a world
>championship against big iron hardware in 1992

>Frans Morsch who wrote Fritz 3 that among other things finished 1st
>together with Kasparov in the 1993 Intel Blitz match at Munich

>Slate and Atkin for their success with and articles about Chess 4.5

>Marty Hirsch for M-Chess 1.x which was a major breakthrough in PC
>chess programs

>Matthias Wuellenweber who contributed much to the popularity of chess
>databases with ChessBase

>Johan de Koning who is the author of the program (The King) of the
>strongest dedicated machine (TASC R30)

>The Spracklens for their Sargon series (which for some time was one of
>the best programs around)

>Chris Whittington who holds the record for being the commercial chess
>programmer with the longest development cycle ever with his Chess
>System Tal :-)

>Garry Kasparov for beating Deep Blue :-)))

Thomas Nitsche and Elmar Henne having produced the chess-program with
the smallest NPS-ratio that has ever been commercial AND
micro-chess-champion in one, the Mephisto III (and III S).

Martin Bryant who gave us Colossus in a time where many chess-programs
coming from Cassette-tapes were out of standard, his program had
anything you could expect, together with strong-engine and massive
features (book-learning and help-mate-levels).

mclane

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Apr 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/15/97
to

Jim Gillogly <j...@acm.org> wrote:

>Robert Hyatt wrote:

>> Actually, I believe that Shannon invented minimax. I have the paper he
>> wrote in my files, something he sent to me years ago. I believe (but am
>> not certain) that alpha/beta was presented in a paper by "newell, simon and
>> shaw"???

>The earliest paper I've found for minimax is Ernst Zermelo's paper:
>"Ueber eine Anwendung der Mengenlehre auf die Theorie des Schachspiels"
>in Proceedings, 5th International Congress of Mathematicians
>(Cambridge 1912).

!!! Unbelievable ! 1912 !!
That was the year Karl May died.
Mengenlehre ?! Uff. My teachers always threatened me with this kind of
stuff.


Robert Hyatt

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Apr 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/15/97
to

mclane (mcl...@prima.ruhr.de) wrote:
: Jim Gillogly <j...@acm.org> wrote:

: >Robert Hyatt wrote:


in looking thru my files, Jim may well be right. the paper I was thinking
of was "How to program a computer to play chess" by Shannon. There he
explained how to use minimax to play the game of chess... so obviously it
already existed...

Bob


Peter Suzman

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Apr 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/15/97
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In article <3352F70E...@acm.org>, Jim Gillogly <j...@acm.org> wrote:

>
>I'd also nominate Alan Turing and Donald Michie for writing the
>first algorithms for full chess: Turochamp and Machiavelli were
>fully described algorithms, despite the fact that they were
>executed by hand.
>

My recollection is that Donald Michie also described and programmed a
more general predecessor of hash tables in the early seventies or before.
Basically he implemented a mechanism whereby a function would "remember" its
output for a given input, and thus speed up if it was ever given the same
input again.

Peter Suzman

Robert Hyatt

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Apr 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/15/97
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Peter Suzman (suz...@netcom.com) wrote:

Greenblatt used 'em in the early 60's in MacHack... So far as I know,
that was the first published use. I got a copy of his early paper on
MacHack from a DEC user's group proceeding. I'm unaware of any use
earlier than that. Note that he did not use the "Zobrist" hashing
algorithm we all depend on now, as that wasn't developed until around
1970 or so if I recall...

Peter Fendrich

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Apr 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/15/97
to

In David Levy's "Computer Chess Compendium" there is an article about a
Robot from
1914 which could play K+R vs K. It is a mechanical construction which,
according to
the article, can be seen in the museum at the Polytechnic in Madrid.

The first chess playing device ever?

In the same book one can find Ernst Zermelo's paper translated to
english.

--
J-P Fendrich

Komputer Korner

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Apr 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/15/97
to

mclane wrote:
>
snipped

> Martin Bryant who gave us Colossus in a time where many chess-programs
> coming from Cassette-tapes were out of standard, his program had
> anything you could expect, together with strong-engine and massive
> features (book-learning and help-mate-levels).
>
> >and so on ....
>
> >-------------
> >Moritz...@msn.com

I think we need a Programmers Hall of Fame.
--
Komputer Korner

The inkompetent komputer.

Francesco Di Tolla

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Apr 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/15/97
to

Ronald de Man wrote:
>
> Komputer Korner <kor...@netcom.ca> writes:
>
> >Komputer Korner wrote:
> >>
> >snipped.
>
> >I forgot 3 very important individuals that should not have been
> >left out. Please forgive my omissions. The revised list is below:
>
> >Claude Shannon- Inventor of the alpha beta algorithm
>
> Although Shannon was the first to describe how one could program a

> computer to play chess, I'm not sure he really invented the alpha beta
> algorithm. Some of the first chess programs didn't even use it (and
> as a result had to restrict to e.g. a 6x6 board).
>
> I think that John McCarthy came up with the alpha beta idea. (I remember
> reading somewhere that he was attending a talk on one of the early
> chess programs and criticized it on the spot for not using what is
> now called alpha beta.)
>
Here the I have a reference supporting McCarthy:
in a footnote in the paper "Some Studies in Machine Learning Using the
Game of Checkers. II - Recent Progress" A.L.Samuel
IBM Journal of research and development, (1967) pp 601-617

the author states:

[alpha-beta heuristic] <<So named by Prof. John McCarthy. This procedure
was extensively investigated by Prof. McCarthy and his students at MIT
but it has been inhadequately described in the literature. It is, of
course, not heuristic at all, being a simple algorithmic procedure and
actually a special case of the more general "branch and bound" technique
which has been rediscovered many times anc which is currently being
exploited in integer programming research. [...a lot of outdated
refs...]>>

bye
Franz
--
Francesco Di Tolla, Center for Atomic-scale Materials Physics
Physics Department, Build. 307, Technical University of Denmark,
DK-2800 Lyngby, Denmark, Tel.: (+45) 4525 3208 Fax: (+45) 4593 2399
mailto:dit...@fysik.dtu.dk http://www.fysik.dtu.dk/persons/ditolla.html

Dan Thies

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Apr 18, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/18/97
to

On 14 Apr 1997 04:19:29 GMT, "Komputer Korner" <kor...@netcom.ca>
wrote:


>Claude Shannon- Inventor of the alpha beta algorithm

I didn't realize Claude Shannon had developed the alpha-beta
improvement to the minimax algorithm. Thanks for the history lesson.
:)
Dan

PS Don't forget to add Atkin & Slate.

Robert Hyatt

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Apr 18, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/18/97
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Dan Thies (rt...@accessone.com) wrote:
: On 14 Apr 1997 04:19:29 GMT, "Komputer Korner" <kor...@netcom.ca>
: wrote:


: >Claude Shannon- Inventor of the alpha beta algorithm

: I didn't realize Claude Shannon had developed the alpha-beta
: improvement to the minimax algorithm. Thanks for the history lesson.
: :)

I don't believe he did. I first read about it in Newell, Simon and Shaw's
paper. Shannon wrote about programming a computer to play chess, explained
his type A and B strategy, a board representation, some evaluation ideas,
move generation and the like.

Let's get it right if it's going to be in print. Jim (Tech) G. wrote me
about this also. Is this your recollection, Jim? I don't remember A/B
being in Shannon's paper at all...


: Dan

Jim Gillogly

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Apr 18, 1997, 3:00:00 AM4/18/97
to

Robert Hyatt wrote:
> Let's get it right if it's going to be in print. Jim (Tech) G. wrote me
> about this also. Is this your recollection, Jim? I don't remember A/B
> being in Shannon's paper at all...

Right -- there's no reason to believe Shannon knew about
alpha-beta. Ditto Turing, Ulam, or the others before Newell
Shaw and Simon. The NSS program did include alpha-beta in the
50's according to Alan Newell; I believe there's one footnote
or offhand comment that proves it in their paper, but they
didn't go into detail because Newell said it was "obvious".
I understand Kotok used it (early 60s?) and wrote it up in
his thesis. Greenblatt's description was the first generally
available one in print so far as I know.

Jim Gillogly
j...@acm.org

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