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Path: utzoo!lsuc!dave
From: dave@lsuc.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,rec.games.chess
Subject: Re: The Game of Chess - Summary
Message-ID: <1748@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 24-Apr-87 00:18:06 EST
Article-I.D.: lsuc.1748
Posted: Fri Apr 24 00:18:06 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Apr-87 03:47:13 EST
References: <183@tness1.UUCP>
Reply-To: dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman)
Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 41
Summary: v7 chess compiles on a Perkin-Elmer

In article <183@tness1.UUCP> mechjgh@tness1.UUCP (8753) writes:
>  from  ihnp4!sun!gorodish!guy (Guy Harris)
>
>Most likely, the reason why they didn't port it is that there are
>large chunks of PDP-11 assembly-language code in it, and nobody felt
>like rewriting it. 
>
>> Does anyone have the source code to chess ?
>
>Grab a PDP-11 V7, S3, or maybe S5 tape, and start from there.  Make
>sure you have a PDP-11 instruction set description handy, and maybe a
>VAX one if you decide to rewrite the stuff in VAX assembler....

Fascinating. We're running Edition VII Workbench (basically v7
with a few bits of BSD thrown in) on a Perkin-Elmer 3220, with source.
The source to chess is here -- I just tried compiling it, and it
compiles fine.  A bunch of the routines are indeed written in assembler.

The P-E 3220 is equivalent to the old Interdata 7/32 and 8/32,
the first 32-bit machine (and I believe the first non-PDP-11)
to which UNIX was ever ported.  It doesn't have a PDP-11
compatibility mode, or anything like that, as far as I know.
I presume the assembler must be very similar to PDP-11 assembler,
since someone must have translated it.

There's no indication as to where the P-E chess sources come from.
The README file contains one sentence ("This program not the one that
won the U.S. championship.").  The P-E UNIX port, as far as I know,
was originally done at the University of Woollongong, Australia,
and cleaned up and turned into Edition VII Workbench by TWG ("The
Woollongong Group"), a (US?) company formed by ex-Woollongong people.

I'd be interested in further light anyone can shed on this;
I'm curious as to what was involved in rewriting or translating the
assembler.

David Sherman
The Law Society of Upper Canada
Toronto
-- 
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