[TUHS] Unix v6 chess source code?

[TUHS] Unix v6 chess source code?

[Mattis Lind]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1354 bytes --]

Hello!

I saw someone playing chess on their pdp-11 and thought it could be an
interesting project to run on my pdp-11. At this point the RK05s are not
yet running so booting unix v6 is not possible.

I then thought that if the source code could be found it might be possible
to get it to run standalone with some modifications.

After some googling I found the archive
https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/UNSW/7/record0.tar.gz

which contained a chess.lib file. It appeared that this archive contained
source code for some kind of chess program. I have been told that it isn't
the chess written by Ken Thompson so the question is who wrote it? There
are not many comments in the code. Could be interesting to know more about
this chess implementation.

Just looking through the source files and the mk file show that it is
missing a set of files. The mk file references a set of "b"-prefixed
assembly files, bgen.s, bmove.s, bheur.s and bplay.s which are present in
the archive. But it also references a set of files with "w"-prefix, wgen.s,
wmove.s, wheur.s and wplay.s which are missing.

I also recognise that there is an include file, "old.h" that is included
from all c-modules that most likely is present in the overload.lib which
seems to be an overlay loader.


Anyone that has an idea how this thing was built once upon a time?

/Mattis

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1749 bytes --]

[TUHS] Re: Unix v6 chess source code?

[Jonathan Gray]

On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 08:11:29AM +0100, Mattis Lind wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> I saw someone playing chess on their pdp-11 and thought it could be an
> interesting project to run on my pdp-11. At this point the RK05s are not
> yet running so booting unix v6 is not possible.
> 
> I then thought that if the source code could be found it might be possible
> to get it to run standalone with some modifications.
> 
> After some googling I found the archive
> https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/UNSW/7/record0.tar.gz
> 
> which contained a chess.lib file. It appeared that this archive contained
> source code for some kind of chess program. I have been told that it isn't
> the chess written by Ken Thompson so the question is who wrote it? There
> are not many comments in the code. Could be interesting to know more about
> this chess implementation.
> 
> Just looking through the source files and the mk file show that it is
> missing a set of files. The mk file references a set of "b"-prefixed
> assembly files, bgen.s, bmove.s, bheur.s and bplay.s which are present in
> the archive. But it also references a set of files with "w"-prefix, wgen.s,
> wmove.s, wheur.s and wplay.s which are missing.
> 
> I also recognise that there is an include file, "old.h" that is included
> from all c-modules that most likely is present in the overload.lib which
> seems to be an overlay loader.
> 
> 
> Anyone that has an idea how this thing was built once upon a time?
> 
> /Mattis

a pre-v7 version of those files exists in

tuhs/Applications/Spencer_Tapes/unsw3.tar.gz
usr/source/chess

tuhs/Applications/Usenix_77/ug091377.tar.gz
3/ken/chess

code is the same in the above

v7 chess only has a few small changes, such as seek->lseek

UNSW 107, UNIX L6 Source 2
tuhs/Distributions/UNSW/107/107.tar.gz also has
gt40/chess/ch.mac.z

;
; chess display for gt40
;
; note: not a chess program, just the display
;
;       probably for use with unix chess.
;

[TUHS] Re: Unix v6 chess source code?

[Mattis Lind]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 726 bytes --]

>
>
>
> a pre-v7 version of those files exists in
>
> tuhs/Applications/Spencer_Tapes/unsw3.tar.gz
> usr/source/chess
>
> tuhs/Applications/Usenix_77/ug091377.tar.gz
> 3/ken/chess
>
> code is the same in the above
>
> v7 chess only has a few small changes, such as seek->lseek
>

Thanks! Exactly what I wanted.



>
> UNSW 107, UNIX L6 Source 2
> tuhs/Distributions/UNSW/107/107.tar.gz also has
> gt40/chess/ch.mac.z
>
> ;
> ; chess display for gt40
> ;
> ; note: not a chess program, just the display
> ;
> ;       probably for use with unix chess.
> ;
>

Too bad that I don't have a GT40. Would have been interesting to see.
Perhaps one could do something similar with an AR11 and a VR12 display
(which I do have).

/Mattis

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1233 bytes --]