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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).
I've noticed that they take a fairly liberal definition of "chess", as they simply discard certain rules, such as en passant pawn capture or castling moves, which are pretty important chess moves. It's a bit hard to argue that this is really "chess" if they just decide to leave out inconvenient rules ("chess lite?"). I probably wouldn't complain about other ommissions such as the 3-repetition rule, but castling?
Even so, a very cool accomplishment in micro-optimization techniques.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
I suppose that's legit, if they're purposely reproducing the limitations of that original program, in which case there's a baseline to measure against with similar rule sets. Do you happen to know if that's the case - that the chess rules actually match? I read the articles linked but didn't see that specifically mentioned.
I still have an issues with the claim of "world's smallest chess program on any platform", though, because it's not a complete chess program as nearly anyone would define it.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Modern Chess is not now a variant called Mad Queen. It is a standardized game referred to as Chess and understood world-wide.
Modern chess may have originated in a game that at one time was referred to as "Mad Queen".
Why can't people like you just appreciate the technical accomplishment instead of nit picking.
Tell you what - why not go away and try and write any type of chess program then get back to us?
As someone who has written a chess program which even after some code optimisation still came out at ~3000 lines of C, I can tell you this is damn impressive.
You've got to be kidding. A visual representation of the board is insufficient to distinguish it from Checkers!
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