Years ago, I had an Atari 800 with Sargon-II. I recently started
reading about how computers play chess. I recently read about how
computers play chess and had some questions about how it played;
mostly curiosity; since I don't have access to this old game to see
how it does.

Question 1: Does it do alpha-beta pruning?
Question 2: Does it do any other form of pruning? Null search
pruning? Fail-high/fail-low pruning?
Question 3: Did it's evaluation of a position use a q-search to get
the pawn value? Pocket-chess apparently doesn't do this, because I
have seen its queen eat a knight that was protected if I didn't give
it long enough to evaluate its move.
Question 4: How good was its positional evalution function?
Question 5: Did anyone of a serious rating ever lose to it?
Question 6: It's skill level was 0-6. I never tried level 6 because
it never would generate a move. Was this a 6-ply search? I assume in
the end-game, it would make sense to increase its strength and a 6-ply
search probably wouldn't take a week.

I assume there is no hash table because with 48K of RAM, you don't
have much room to work with. Still, it would beat me because I was,
and still am, a beginner. Was it only a game for beginners to play
chess with against their home computer, or was it at all of a
challenge to intermediate players?

In article , Robert Richter wrote:
Years ago, I had an Atari 800 with Sargon-II. I recently started
reading about how computers play chess. I recently read about how
computers play chess and had some questions about how it played;
mostly curiosity; since I don't have access to this old game to see
how it does.

Question 1: Does it do alpha-beta pruning?
Question 2: Does it do any other form of pruning? Null search
pruning? Fail-high/fail-low pruning?
Question 3: Did it's evaluation of a position use a q-search to get
the pawn value? Pocket-chess apparently doesn't do this, because I
have seen its queen eat a knight that was protected if I didn't give
it long enough to evaluate its move.
Question 4: How good was its positional evalution function?
Question 5: Did anyone of a serious rating ever lose to it?
Question 6: It's skill level was 0-6. I never tried level 6 because
it never would generate a move. Was this a 6-ply search? I assume in
the end-game, it would make sense to increase its strength and a 6-ply
search probably wouldn't take a week.

I assume there is no hash table because with 48K of RAM, you don't
have much room to work with. Still, it would beat me because I was,
and still am, a beginner. Was it only a game for beginners to play
chess with against their home computer, or was it at all of a
challenge to intermediate players?

I remember playing it on my old Atari 400, and I do recall that I beat
it on occasion. Memory also reminds me that Dan and Kathe Spracklen
wrote a book "Sargon -- A Chess Program", that a moment's research reveals
was published by Hayden Press.

You can read some at:

http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/computer_chess.php

Mark VandeWettering wrote in message g.net...
In article , Robert Richter wrote:
Years ago, I had an Atari 800 with Sargon-II. I recently started
reading about how computers play chess. I recently read about how
computers play chess and had some questions about how it played;
mostly curiosity; since I don't have access to this old game to see
how it does.

Question 1: Does it do alpha-beta pruning?
Question 2: Does it do any other form of pruning? Null search
pruning? Fail-high/fail-low pruning?
Question 3: Did it's evaluation of a position use a q-search to get
the pawn value? Pocket-chess apparently doesn't do this, because I
have seen its queen eat a knight that was protected if I didn't give
it long enough to evaluate its move.
Question 4: How good was its positional evalution function?
Question 5: Did anyone of a serious rating ever lose to it?
Question 6: It's skill level was 0-6. I never tried level 6 because
it never would generate a move. Was this a 6-ply search? I assume in
the end-game, it would make sense to increase its strength and a 6-ply
search probably wouldn't take a week.

I assume there is no hash table because with 48K of RAM, you don't
have much room to work with. Still, it would beat me because I was,
and still am, a beginner. Was it only a game for beginners to play
chess with against their home computer, or was it at all of a
challenge to intermediate players?

I remember playing it on my old Atari 400, and I do recall that I beat
it on occasion. Memory also reminds me that Dan and Kathe Spracklen
wrote a book "Sargon -- A Chess Program", that a moment's research reveals
was published by Hayden Press.

You can read some at:

http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/computer_chess.php

Some of the questions may be answered he

http://madscientistroom.org/chm/Sargon.html