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Computer Chess Created In 487 Bytes, Breaks 32-Year-Old Record
An anonymous reader writes: The record for smallest computer implementation of chess on any platform was held by 1K ZX Chess, which saw a release back in 1983 for the Sinclair ZX81. It uses just 672 bytes of memory, and includes most chess rules as well as a computer component to play against. The 32-year-old record has been beaten this week by the demoscene group Red Sector Inc. They have implemented a fully-playable version of chess called BootChess in just 487 bytes (readme file including source code).
Depends on what you consider an operating system. Alpine Linux uses 130 MB (http://alpinelinux.org/about), including an usable graphical interface (Xfce).
A really minimal system, like a virtual machine running a site, can be reduced to far less than that. For instance, Mirage OS (http://www.openmirage.org).
Windows, OSX, and some Linux distros are not designed to be tweaked like that.
It would be cool to see which programming languages could have the best short chess programs.
I'd nominate Haskell, scheme and prolog to try it in.
The game discussed here is written in x86 asm. The source code is certainly having more bytes than 487b, but the compiled result is just 487b. If you would write it in any of the languages you mentioned, the compiled result would be bigger.
Don't forget MenuetOS and its opensource derivative KolibriOS. They fit on a single floppy.
To be fair, the ZX81 had only 1k of RAM. So they had to cut through the chess rules. Nowadays they could of course implement the whole game including all rules. But would that be interesting provided that it couldn't compare to that 1983 program?
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
there was a 4KB Java games contest some years http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki...
one of the winning entries was a chess game. May be interesting to check.
"I think this line is mostly filler"
here is the link to aichess4k site http://ulf.ofahrt.de/aichess4k...
"aichess4k implements all chess rules and tops it off
with an ai that casual players find difficult to beat."
and a graphical board from the screenshots
"I think this line is mostly filler"
Looking at the comment threads, yes, it appears to be a 'faithful' implementation of the original code's rules, or rather a superset, since it includes the pawn promotion rule and the original did not.
Min
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before