David Horne's 1K Chess on the ZX81 (2001) • Hacker News Board

Re: David Horne's 1K Chess on the ZX81 (2001)

#51

Post by metaphorm » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 7:18 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #50

metaphorm wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is an interesting historical artifact demonstrating the skill of one individual. its not "what counts", it was a low importance side project in its time, and is interesting today only as a piece of history, not for any lasting technology impact it had. why you're using this as an excuse to take cheap shots at web developers is beyond me.

Not true. A lot of people were so amazed by the potential of ZX81 game programming they became programmers themselves - sometimes games programmers, but just as often general developers. If the ZX81 hadn't done anything of interest it wouldn't have persuaded those people that awesome programming was possible. Dismissing this kind of coding as a side show is arrogant and ill-informed. The ZX81 itself was a similar pro…

please don't put words into my mouth or deliberately misinterpret me for your own purposes. this kind of rhetorical dishonesty really reflects badly on you.

I didn't dismiss it as a sideshow. My exact words were "low importance side project". It was a side project, as in, not the code he was working on full time for his business. It was low importance, because it was just a chess game, not a piece of system software or a business application or anything else that mattered materially.

Its possible to admire the skill and craft of a low importance side project and its author, and to be inspired by that skill and craft, and yet still acknowledge that it was a low importance side project.

When you slander me by accusing me of being arrogant and ill-informed you reveal your true character. You don't know me at all. You're eager to falsely attribute beliefs to me that I don't have and you're eager to criticize me for things I have not even said. You should probably take some time to consider why you feel the need to do this. Its pretty obscene.

Re: David Horne's 1K Chess on the ZX81 (2001)

#52

Post by ctdonath » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 7:36 PM UTC

j2kun wrote: post #47

I'm not sure why the size of a program has any serious bearing on it's greatness. Sure it's an incredible feat of engineering, but shouldn't the "greatest program ever written" be primarily judged by what it allows us to do, not need to do, to build, or what insights it provides? For example, certainly the first widely used assembler was a "greater" program than any chess game, not only because it stopped us from hav…

The greatness of an achievement may be in and of itself.

The Mona Lisa is great purely based on its appearance, not that anything useful comes of it. The "7 Wonders of the World" are noted for their scale vs the ability of then-modern construction, not their ability to move water or house dead bodies. Great exploration often leads to laudable yet largely unproductive dead ends (Everest, Antarctica). In this case, cramming a viable AI playing the quintessential expression of human intelligence (playing chess) into less than 700 bytes is astounding, and at least a candidate for greatness.

The first widely used assembler may vie for "greatest tool", but it did little of interest in and of itself.

Re: David Horne's 1K Chess on the ZX81 (2001)

#53

Post by Zitrax » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 7:37 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #37

Impressive, as is the recent smaller program from a French programmer. Note, however, that both have sacrificed some rules. I believe they have both left out en passant, which is rare enough that it won't be missed most of the time. It's rare enough that if you use it against a casual player, there is a good chance they will accuse you of making it up. Castling, however, which is also omitted, is much more serious. G…

I am also curious, what is the smallest implementation of full chess ? I tried to search a bit but only found more examples that skipped some rule.

Re: David Horne's 1K Chess on the ZX81 (2001)

#54

Post by ctdonath » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 7:42 PM UTC

Supraperplex wrote: post #45

By the standards of the linked article I would say the greatest program is the original Elite game. A whole universe complete with star systems and 3D models for spaceships plus some other content like missions... I think the name says it: elite. All in 52 kb on disk.

A close candidate for "greatest" indeed. Which is greater, the long-recognized summary of human intelligence in 672 bytes? or a universe in 77x the space?

Re: David Horne's 1K Chess on the ZX81 (2001)

#55

Post by T-hawk » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 7:42 PM UTC

VonGuard wrote: post #20

Just for the record, the Atari 2600 also had a chess game with AI. It also had only 1024 bits of RAM, but it had access to all of it because there was no OS or underlying hardware support, like in the Speccy. So while this is definitely amazing, the 2600 version is very close in the "insanely well coded" category, especially because the 2600 had some SERIOUSLY quirky hardware to deal with. For example, on the 2600, y…

Not exactly; this overstates the complexity of the chessboard display.

The order isn't exactly what you wrote, it's bits 4567 / 76543210 / 01234567 for the three playfield registers for the left half of the screen. This can be either repeated or mirrored for the right half. A common trick as 2600 Video Chess did was to simply not use the leftmost (mirrored to rightmost) register, which still gets you 16x2 bits of mirrored playfield in the middle, trading computational cost for a slightly smaller play area.

Now an 8x8 checkered board is not symmetrical for mirroring. 2600 Video Chess actually draws only 7 of the files with the mirrored playfield registers, with the center one of the 7 (the 'e' file) straddling the mirror line. The additional (leftmost) file is actually a sprite object (the "ball"). Pretty clever.

The real trick in 2600 Video Chess is drawing 8 sprites per row on a system whose hardware only has 6. It does this with the "venetian blinds" trick, where each sprite is striped onto alternating scanlines. That way there's only ever 4 actual sprites at a time, which are moved back and forth by a square's-width on alternating lines.

Re: David Horne's 1K Chess on the ZX81 (2001)

#56

Post by ctdonath » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 7:43 PM UTC

metaphorm wrote: post #35

3327 wrote: post #8

Holy smokes... blown away. 1K RAM? less then most email's we write... Now'a days rockstars and Ninja's are the glorified ruby guys who "seemingly" do Ruby/django magic... This is what counts...This is the real deal...

this is an interesting historical artifact demonstrating the skill of one individual. its not "what counts", it was a low importance side project in its time, and is interesting today only as a piece of history, not for any lasting technology impact it had. why you're using this as an excuse to take cheap shots at web developers is beyond me.

"Strange how much human progress and achievement comes from contemplation of the irrelevant." - Scott Kim

Re: David Horne's 1K Chess on the ZX81 (2001)

#57

Post by mrottenkolber » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 7:54 PM UTC

j2kun wrote: post #47

I'm not sure why the size of a program has any serious bearing on it's greatness. Sure it's an incredible feat of engineering, but shouldn't the "greatest program ever written" be primarily judged by what it allows us to do, not need to do, to build, or what insights it provides? For example, certainly the first widely used assembler was a "greater" program than any chess game, not only because it stopped us from hav…

I agree. I couldn't care less what he had to do in order to fit his not really usable (from a chess enthusiasts perspective) chess implementation in N kb. Apparently N kb is not enough for a good chess program.

Re: David Horne's 1K Chess on the ZX81 (2001)

#58

Post by bokchoi » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 7:57 PM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #29

illsorted wrote: post #25

Original source: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/8/10/12620/2164

Whoah, I'd almost completely forgotten Kuro5hin, and a lot of other people obviously have, too, as the site is a ghost town. It was a really neat pre-reddit user-generated social media site; kind of a more democratic Slashdot. I knew the founder in some capacity (I don't even remember how/why, now, or their name...maybe because I worked on Squid or because I worked in Perl), and used to advertise my old company on Ku…

My favorite Kuro5hin article is the intro to the K language:

https://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/11/14/22741/791

Re: David Horne's 1K Chess on the ZX81 (2001)

#59

Post by sago » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 8:04 PM UTC

j2kun wrote: post #47

I'm not sure why the size of a program has any serious bearing on it's greatness. Sure it's an incredible feat of engineering, but shouldn't the "greatest program ever written" be primarily judged by what it allows us to do, not need to do, to build, or what insights it provides? For example, certainly the first widely used assembler was a "greater" program than any chess game, not only because it stopped us from hav…

The 4 minute mile was amazing because of the four minutes, not because someone managed to run a mile. Amazing feats in the face of incredible constraints are inherently worthy, I'd say.

Re: David Horne's 1K Chess on the ZX81 (2001)

#60

Post by j2kun » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 8:05 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #52

j2kun wrote: post #47

I'm not sure why the size of a program has any serious bearing on it's greatness. Sure it's an incredible feat of engineering, but shouldn't the "greatest program ever written" be primarily judged by what it allows us to do, not need to do, to build, or what insights it provides? For example, certainly the first widely used assembler was a "greater" program than any chess game, not only because it stopped us from hav…

The greatness of an achievement may be in and of itself. The Mona Lisa is great purely based on its appearance, not that anything useful comes of it. The "7 Wonders of the World" are noted for their scale vs the ability of then-modern construction, not their ability to move water or house dead bodies. Great exploration often leads to laudable yet largely unproductive dead ends (Everest, Antarctica). In this case, cra…

And yet, when you ask what is the greatest thing or idea ever created by humans, the reply is not usually any of the Wonders of the World, or the Mona Lisa, or a chess program. It is usually language or writing or something which was similarly a sea change in the development of humanity as we know it today.

My argument is that these are the better criteria for "greatness" than the relative ease of performing a specific task, though that task may implicitly represent the great thing. E.g., one may call the printing press the greatest invention ever, not because it was great but because it ushered in a new age.