Question about the C and G files (Part1 and 2), in which nearly all games existed

[+Vorticon]

There are squigly lines on the board squares with the Extended Basic version, but not when you run the program directly from the EA menu.

[AW127]

15 hours ago, Vorticon said:

There are squigly lines on the board squares with the Extended Basic version, but not when you run the program directly from the EA menu.

 

Really? Must have a look again then, cause i had not noticed that.

 

Is it the same on your PC, that "Sargon 1" sometimes needs ages of time, until he makes a move, when the user has chosen "select look ahead = 6"? Even when i speed-up the emulator to maximum, this is the case. Little bit strange. But 6 is the strongest level i guess and i wanted to make a game against him on that level, but he don't move sometimes for a long time. Do you know, if there exists a "force move" key, i have not found out until now.

Edited November 29 by AW127

[+Vorticon]

Just now, AW127 said:

 

Really? Must have a look again then, cause i had not noticed that.

 

Is it the same on your PC, that "Sargon 1" sometimes needs ages of time, until he makes a move, when the user has chosen "select look ahead = 6"? But 6 is the strongest level and i wanted to make a game against him on that level, but he dont move sometimes. Do you know, if there exists a "force move" key, i have not found out until now.

Yes, it's extremely slow on the highest level, and I am not aware of a force move feature unfortunately...

[AW127]

Okay     then my game against "Colossus Chess 4" on the C64 will take half of the day tomorrow.  *lol*  But luckily speeding-up the emulator to highest possible helps a little bit.

[AW127]

I made the game between Colossus 4 (C64) and Sargon 1 (TI-99). Problem was, that on Level 5, 4 and even 3 "Sargon" needed so long to make moves, that it was not possible to realize it at these levels. Even not when speeding up the emulator. So i let "Sargon 1" play on Lv 2 and "Colossus 4" in its standard mode which is set, when the game is loaded and nothing will be changed. Colossus then is on a middle-class level i would say.

 

Here is the match

 

 

As it can be seen, "Colossus 4" don't needed really long to win. It was a clear victory. Sad, that Sargon needs really ages of time on higher levels to make moves. Sometimes even when the emulator was speeded up i waited 20 minutes, then i break up the game on that level und choose Lv2 finally.

 

Edited December 1 by AW127

[+thegoldenband]

Just wanted to comment -- very briefly for now -- that I love your project with old chess programs. I've got a long-term project of pitting myself against them, mostly console programs, as seen here:

 

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/198604-video-chess-the-first-chess-video-game/

 

Right now I've beaten:

• Video Chess (Atari 2600)
• USCF Chess (Intellivision)
• Chess (Tandy CoCo; also a Sega Genesis unlicensed game by the same name)
• Chessmaster (NES, Game Boy, Game Gear)
• New Chessmaster (Game Boy)
• Star Wars Chess (Sega CD)
• Battle Chess (NES, 3DO)
• Simple 1500 Series Vol. 9: The Chess (PlayStation; aka Checkmate)

Some of those games are in the thread, some aren't. I didn't record all of my games, since several of the engines were just pathetically weak. USCF Chess for Intellivision and the various versions of Chessmaster have been the strongest relative to their peers.

 

I don't think I've taken on Video Chess for the TI-99/4A yet...not sure why, though I wonder if it's just that I don't own it? (checks list) Heh, yes indeed, that's the reason: I don't have the cart!

 

[AW127]

4 hours ago, thegoldenband said:

Just wanted to comment -- very briefly for now -- that I love your project with old chess programs. I've got a long-term project of pitting myself against them, mostly console programs, as seen here ...

 

 

Very interesting indeed. I will have a look at this thread and read. If you really want to play against a really strong CPU program from the older time, you should play against "Psion Chess" on the Atari-ST. If you don't have a Atari-ST, you can emulate it with "Steem SSE" or "Hatari".

 

Against "Psion Chess" in a higher level, i never won back in the days.     Also it beats all my C64 and Amiga chess programs in the most matches when i let them play against each other and also it had some wins again GNU Chess on the PC. But GNU won most times, but often it was very close.

 

You listed alot of programs you already have beaten. Not bad. In which level you played against them all? A middle-strong level? I sometimes think to myself, that playing against older chess programs, which maybe have some own weaknesses, was more interesting as playing against the modern chess-programs. Cause against the modern ones, a human player nearly have no chance at all, or you select such a weak level in them, that they make mistakes with intention. But when a program makes mistakes with intention it's also kind of stupid then, i think. It's like, letting the human player win. But older programs still have some weaknesses which make them more human and also more interesting as an opponent. At least for me. 

 

 

 

 

Addendum some minutes later:

 

Now i have read parts of your linked thread and i saw, you really beat some of these programs on higher levels. Good work! Think then you really should try programs like "Psion-Chess" (Atari-ST), "Colossus Chess 4" (C64) or "The Final Chesscard" on the C64. They should be stronger than the ones you already played against, but not as strong as the current PC chess-engines. Which means, there is a chance to win as a human. And you don't need to have all these systems, you can emulate them. Sadly the C64-version of "The Final Chesscard" with it's own 5MHz processor inside the cartridge, can not be emulated so far. Maybe i really will buy a used one in the future, when the price is okay. It would interest me, how strong it is, compared to other, normal C64 chess-programs.

 

 

Ouh ouh, now i must take care, that this thread not completely turns into a Chess thread.     In first line it should be about file-types on the TI-994A.

 

Edited December 2 by AW127