Rupert Lane writes about Arthur Samuel's checkers program running on the WAITS operating system. Samuel began developing his checkers program in the late 1940s and 1950s, introducing machine learning techniques like rote learning to the field. The article details the program's history from the IBM 7090 to its porting to the PDP-10 at SAIL, where the 1972 version runs on WAITS. It also covers Samuel's work on a home computer version for the VideoBrain and provides instructions for playing the game on WAITS, including board visualization and command syntax.
- The 1952 checkers program was written in raw machine code as the IBM system lacked an assembler at the time.
- Samuel introduced rote learning to the program on the IBM 704 in 1954, enabling interesting gameplay.
- A 1976 match against Duke University was abandoned due to excessive CPU time, though analysis suggests a draw was possible.
- The VideoBrain home console version operated within 1KB of RAM and offered four difficulty levels.
- Users can visualize the board on WAITS with the `BD` command or observe the AI declare wins based on search depths.
- Oldest surviving source file `CKP2.MAC 2,ALS » ` dates to 1971, while the running binary is from 1972.
- The 1952 checkers program was written in raw machine code as the IBM system lacked an assembler at the time.
- Samuel introduced rote learning to the program on the IBM 704 in 1954, enabling interesting gameplay.
- A 1976 match against Duke University was abandoned due to excessive CPU time, though analysis suggests a draw was possible.
- The VideoBrain home console version operated within 1KB of RAM and offered four difficulty levels.
- Users can visualize the board on WAITS with the `BD` command or observe the AI declare wins based on search depths.
- Oldest surviving source file `CKP2.MAC 2,ALS » ` dates to 1971, while the running binary is from 1972.
