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From: michaelb@wshb.csms.com ( WSHB Operations Eng)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: CORE WAR inquiry- has any =one heard of this thing?
Message-ID: <1084@wshb.csms.com>
Date: 31 May 91 14:46:04 GMT
References: <1991May29.150606.25121@cs.yale.edu> <194@s5000.rsvl.unisys.com>
Organization: WSHB, The Christian Sci. Monitor Syndicate, Pineland, S.C.
Lines: 35

In article <194@s5000.rsvl.unisys.com> gray@s5000.rsvl.unisys.com (Bill Gray x2128) writes:
>dirk@laplace (dirksen bussiere) writes:
>
>>Around two years ago in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN there was an article on a  
>>programming "game" known as CORE WARS. . .  Has anyone heard of this "game"?
>
>>                                  -Dirk Bussiere
>
>I read about it once a long time ago. . .  I think Nixon was president.

I saw another article about Core Wars about 5 months ago for something called
a "Core Wars Standard" which was to be compiled and made available.
I kept a copy of the article for a while and sent mail to the address,
but nothing was ever forthcoming. (Sorry, I can't find the address now.)
I seem to remember that the idea was a standardized set of op codes for a 
virtual CPU. The fact that the opponants were supposed to write their code 
in the machine language of the virtual CPU attests to the age of the idea. 

(I suppose there isn't any reason that an assembler for the opcodes couldn't 
be written. Then someone could write a c++ compiler for the thing, also. 
After that we could use the c++ compiler to port SVR4 to the virtual CPU. 
.... Guess that's getting a little carried away :-)) 

Anyway, the idea was that a standard would exist so I could 
develop my code on a Motorola box, you could develop yours on an Intel
box, and someone could have a contest on just any old box with everyone's
entry working correctly. This is beginning to sound like the chess program
tournaments.

Michael
-- 
Michael Batchelor--Systems/Operations Engineer #compliments and complaints
WSHB - An International Broadcast Station of   #   letterbox@csms.com
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