On Aug 4, 2022, at 8:57 PM, cole erskine <cers...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi guys,
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Thanks Joe, this one worked just fine.
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On Aug 6, 2022, at 5:50 AM, Richard Davis Jr. <rickdav...@gmail.com> wrote:
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The version that Joe posted differs from the one on the github site but almost all the differences are in the first sector, which is probably the I/O front end. I was guessing that perhaps the version from the github site was for the 8250 (H8-4) console but I was unable to get it to respond (I didn’t hook up the H9 but Cole already tried that). I’ll take a closer look to see if I can understand the difference. If both are worth keeping we’ll have to give them different names of course.
I don’t’ know how good a chess game this is but its impressive that it fits in 6k…
From: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Joseph Travis
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On Aug 8, 2022, at 3:25 PM, Joseph Travis <jtravi...@gmail.com> wrote:
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Do I did do an analysis of the two H8CHESS programs, one being the one in our H8T collection on Github and the other being the one shared by Joe Travis. We have determined that Joe’s version works but we have been unable to get the other copy to work.
They are both hard coded for the H8-5 (8251) console port (372Q/373Q). They differ only in the console I/O drivers in the first 256 bytes. The functions, and even much of the code is the same between the two versions, however the routines are in a different order in the good version. The good version has some tweaks/fixes such as at the beginning of the USART set up code there is a DI instruction and at the end there is an EI (console input is interrupt-driven); also there is at least one other tweak to how the USART is initialized. There may be other changes as I only did a visual comparison on the disassembled code.
My conclusion is that the one on the Github site is perhaps an early beta release or may never have worked reliably? The one Joe shared is improved/debugged code and is the one to use. Joe: any idea what the provenance is of this version?
I should be able to replace the site version with the good copy that Joe has provided.
The program was released in 1978 and written by “Software Specialists.” I could find no reference to them in the Sextant magazine advertiser index, nor in Mark Garlanger’s list of vendors. Perhaps a one-person and/or one-product operation or hobbyist ?
I guess I would trust Sargon to be perhaps a better chess player than this one… or MYCHESS (but you’ll need HDOS) which is in Vol. 5 of Les’ archive
https://sebhc.github.io/sebhc/software/Applications/H8DCATALOG_VOL5.HTML
I would consider adapting Sargon to use the HA-8-3 graphics card as we have full source code plus I have a copy of Dan and Kathe Spracklen’s book which describe the code in detail…
Rick Davis mentioned (here) that years ago he had adapted Sargon II for use with an 8080 (the original was Z80) and the H 8 front panel. Rick? Is this code still around somewhere?...
I guess since we’re speaking of Chess there’s also the Turbo Pascal version, which has full source…
This is a case where running software from the H8T format (vs an OS-based program on HDOS or CP/M) has an advantage as the full memory space is available to the code. No pesky OS hogging the RAM!
And finally (sorry to ramble): Cole: how did your H8/H9 demo go at VCF west?
Ok really finally now (more rambling) this Computer History Museum interview with the Spracklens is interesting:
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I have their book but I believe it’s for the original version. If we want to get something working it would be nice if it was Sargon II, if we could find it. Not sure they ever published a book with the Sargon II listing??
Tom: what’s the story on the FORTRAN version you shared? Have you gotten that to run on an H8/89?
From: <se...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Tom Wilson <tomlan...@gmail.com>
Reply-To: <se...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Thursday, August 18, 2022 at 12:46 PM
To: <se...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [sebhc] Chess, anyone? Any more H8T format archives?ive
Been looking for my Sargon book all week...
Tom
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One possible explanation for the display misbehaving is that you need to disable the ROM monitor auto-update of the display if you are controlling it in your program. That may be what's going on.
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Rick: congratulations on getting this working. I’m sure it was a lot of work!
I was able to download and run this. First impressions/experiences:
Will keep experimenting. Will try a depth of 1 for starters…
Thanks!
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Rick: So I did try running the Sargon program at 10Mhz CPU. I did this by:
I saw some inconsistent flakiness in the front panel display.
The prompt “Play?” was quite shaky and inconsistent, but once I hit ‘1’ (for yes) the next menus (color and level) displayed fine. then once the game began the display showing the moves was shaky and inconsistent. Other LED display programs seem to work fine at 10Mhz on this machine (it is using the “new” front panel driven by on-board 2.048 Mhz oscillator).
Were you planning to share your code somewhere? Perhaps if we looked at the code we could understand what’s causing these odd behaviors…
From: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Richard Davis Jr.
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2022 9:17 AM
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Great! Although it was a bit difficult to decipher the messages on the flickering LEDs I was able to play a chess game at 10Mhz, though I only played about 10 moves or so… at 10Mhz it is pretty responsive! the LED display is rock solid while entering the new move but as soon as it goes into “thinking” mode it starts flickering all over the place and continues that when it is displaying the move. Not sure if that helps you any…
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Great. Was able to download and verify that it works. Haven’t tried to play a game yet. Tx.
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I played the 8080 version for a bit and after half a dozen moves or so it seems to have crashed. While the computer was thinking about its move it suddenly beeped and displayed 377377 (top of RAM) which usually means it did a reset. I don’t think this was a hardware issue – it seems something got clobbered and reset the machine….
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There seems to be a bug of some kind in SARGONZ80 in the front panel entry code. No matter if I play black or white I can’t enter the number portion of the move. E.g. if I play black and the computer moves white “E2-E4” then I want to move, say “E7-E5” I hit the ‘5’ key and see an ‘E’ but no matter what key I hit next I get an “invalid move”… “try again”… these same keystroke sequences were working fine in the 8080 version…
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On Sep 24, 2022, at 7:30 PM, Richard Davis Jr. <rickdav...@gmail.com> wrote:
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Seems to work fine Rick! I’ve only played about 10 moves into the game but so far so good. Even though it’s only Level 1 (otherwise takes a long time) that’s not a bad match for my (poor) chess skills!
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I was able to beat the computer pretty easily on level 1 (I’m playing black):
https://photos.app.goo.gl/xc5tzxyCXUh79SDt9
I think the LED display says “u Win” ?? the CPU was running at 2 Mhz.
I used my old Fidelity Chess Challenger strictly as a playing board for this game. (The power supply got lost somewhere along the way, or maybe it died. Can’t remember.)
I may rig up a replacement PS and have the Fidelity play Sargon II. Battle of the 70’s micros… (both Z80s…)
FYI the H8 is the system I call “Game Boy”. I’ve been using it primarily to develop programs and games for the new HA-8-3 board (more info on that coming at a later time…)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/AiK1CV6pzc75SgQP8
it has mostly “new” boards:
Z80 CPU Rev 3.1 w/ DUART/USB daughterboard
H8-H67-H37 disk I/O
Z67 IDE+ (in re-purposed ZDS cabinet: https://photos.app.goo.gl/DVjnWD8XBhvsn4VGA)
H8-8255 PPIO board (currently used only for parallel printing)
“new” front panel with backlit keypad and “relegendable” keycaps
The H8-5 is original except for the “Astrorat” daughterboard used to download H8T files
The power supply and backplane are also original (backplane is the later “gold pin” version)
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So this discussion of computer chess from the 70s sent me down a rabbit hole (as often happens) and I stumbled on Franz Huber’s site:
which has an emulator “CB-Emu” (for Windows) that can run about 400 different chess playing programs. The site is current and actively maintained. His emulator uses the original ROM images. So below is Fidelity Challenger “7” (Model BCC) for example (I have the actual device, which was a gift from my parents when I got my first “real” job. I need to track down a power supply).
If I get ambitious one of these days I may throw the ROM image at the Dazzle Star disassembler and see what I get (I’ve been unable to find any source code.) I also learned that Dan and Kathe Spracklen (of Sargon fame) collaborated with Ron Nelson at some point on the Chess Challenger code, so some of the Sargon data structures may show up in there (?) He’s also got most (all?) of the Fidelity games in there, e.g. backgammon, reversi, checkers…
Amazing what Fidelity was able to do with 4K of ROM and only 256 bytes of RAM. In addition to the Z80, 2 RAM chips (2111) and the ROM there were only four ICs on the board: 7404 hex inverter (CPU clock); 75492 & NE591 (LED display & sound driver); 74365 (3-state bus driver); 74LS378 (6 flip flops).
I haven’t yet compared compute speed to the original but the emulator does at least slow down the I/O and LED functions to be like the real one.
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Rick: it’s a rainy day here so I am having MYCHESS (Software Toolworks) play against your Z80 implementation of SARGON. MYCHESS has a bit of an advantage as its running on a Z80 at 10Mhz with a ply level of 3 (plus I think it’s a more mature chess program than Sargon). SARGON is running on a Z80 at 2 Mhz. I chose a ply level of 2, so SARGON obviously takes much more time to make its move than MYCHESS. SARGON is playing White, MYCHESS is playing Black.
At the 5th move something happened with the SARGON display. it’s not clear what move it was trying to display (and the “to” field of the move is C4 but it had already moved the white bishop to C4 on the previous move!? So both the “from” and “to” fields seem to be messed up). SARGON H8 is on the top in this picture:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/YCYNxmCifEftwMCA8
I realize you don’t have a Z80 system so this may be a difficult bug to track down but thought I should let you know…
I may try another game (but at lower ply level on SARGON to speed things up). Will let you know if I find anything else…
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Sent: Sunday, October 02, 2022 8:41 PM
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On Oct 23, 2022, at 12:07 PM, Richard Davis Jr. <rickdav...@gmail.com> wrote:
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