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Chess

Nov 1951

Honorable Mention

Ferranti Mark 1

manchester-university.prinz-dietrich.195

Hey look we're back to chess already! This version, created in 1951 by Dietrich Prinz was again for the Ferranti Mark 1. Prinz realized just like Turing that the Ferranti did not have enough power to play a full game of chess. However rather than give up, he decided to restructure his idea and have the computer focus on just mate-in-2 problems. He would set up the chess pieces in any order that he wanted and as long as the computer could win in two moves, it would. In our last few games, AI only had a few options or formulas it had to follow in order to produce the next move, but the AI here had to look at all possible options, not just for this turn, but for the player's turn,and then its turn again! A huge leap in terms of AI development. However as a game, well...is it one? I mean only the computer can win, so...Not to mention no display, no availability to the public, no emulation that I can find. It may be more of a leap in terms of actual computer programming then it is in gaming. Here it's just an honorable mention.

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