April 2022’s column about an old rule that may have no use any longer.
https://new.uschess.org/news/just-rules-still-rule
Tim’s article inspired me to write this article about a related topic:
pittsburghchessclub.org/en-pass … ittsburgh/
I remember the old ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) annual tournaments for chess playing computer programs in the late 1960s and 1970s.
The programs all ran on mainframes, hooked together through acoustic modems in a central location (it was in Chicago at least once), with the general public invited (though the attendance was usually below 100). The positions were set up on manually operated demo boards on the stage. GM David Levy would walk back and forth across the stage, analyzing each position whenever a new move came in over the modems. “Look here, white thinks he is being clever, but all black needs to do is castle and get out of all the complications.”
A frequent winner was the program written by David Slate and Larry Atkin of Northwestern University. Their program was named simply “Chess 4.0” or something like that. The other programs had fancier names, like “MacHack” and so on.
In those days the programs were, at best, class B strength. Indeed, times have changed.
Bill Smythe
I ran the demo boards for the ACM computer chess championship event that was held in Chicago, around 1971, as I recall.
It was an interesting experience, because I knew Larry and Dave quite well (I worked at the computer help desk at Vogelback as an undergrad, the first non grad student hired for that task) and I got to talk to Hans Berliner and David Levy quite a bit during those evenings.
I used to help Larry and Dave out by playing against their program during the 3rd shift at Vogelback, after midnight. I remember kicking rocks in disgust all the way back to the dorm at 3 AM after the first time it beat me. I was just barely a C player at the time.