Computer chess created in 487 bytes

[djes]

http://www.geek.com/games/computer-ches ... d-1614445/

RSi rulezzzz !!!!

[Tenaja]

That is awesome. Maybe Wilbert can pull a byte out...

[J. Baker]

Now that's impressive! I just wonder how many bytes were used in order for it to be cross platform?

1K ZX Chess - 672 bytes

[luis]

BootChess is the smallest computer implementation of chess on any platform (487 bytes) for Windows / Linux / OS X / DOS / BSD / DOSBox / Bochs

I just wonder how many bytes were used in order for it to be cross platform?

It's not cross platform, don't know why they felt the need to make you believe that.
Thanks to that also almost any place reporting the "news" says it can run on all those OSes. MAH!

Runs on computers having a PC-compatible BIOS without requiring any particular OS since the program is loaded from the boot sector and it just requires the basic I/O BIOS routines for keyboard input and characters output provided by all the PC-compatibles, the good old software interrupts loved by DOS programmers (INT 0x10 anyone ?).

Write the bootsector to floppy, set the BIOS to boot from it, and then you can have OS/2 or Banana OS on your PC and it still will work.

Does that mean it "runs on" or it is "for" OS/2 and Banana OS too ?

It's basically more like a DOS program using just BIOS calls than anything else.

There is an option to build a .COM program from it by setting the appropriate starting offset using the fasm 'org' directive (and some other small details) and that's it.

BTW: these software are obviously nice and very interesting and all but they should be called "chess-like" or "sub-chess" programs since they don't implement all the chess rules.
For one, tell a chess player he can't castle...

[tj1010]

The real question is: how good is the AI?

[luis]

Not very good, but what can you expect from around 500 bytes ?
Also didn't catch some illegal moves, as already reported by others and I've verified that.
That's bad.
I appreciate the effort still required to get even this (took 3 months to write @ 1 to 3 hours per day) and the value it has for the person who wrote it (you must give everything you got and solve countless problems, and it's all good) but I don't see the reason to write something incomplete just to forcibly try to dethrone a previous software which HAD TO stay in 1KB.
1KB was a constrain imposed by the hw, since that was the amount of RAM the machine was sold with. So he had to do the best possible with what was available.

Today, write a complete implementation with the smallest footprint you can if you want, but make something that work. All this work for something broken...
You are using a different architecture, a different instruction set with another cpu, different code in ROM to support you, a comparison doesn't make sense anyway.

There are some decent chess engines (very good really for their size) in 1-2 KB. I find those a lot more interesting than this. And they play CHESS and they can beat many beginners easily.

They can certainly beat Bill Gates -> http://www.chess.com/news/bill-gates-vs ... conds-8224
I'm not joking.

[skywalk]

Thanks for the link. Chess nerd here.
The feat can be admired at first glance, but ultimately not practical.

[tj1010]

I wrote a simple chess prediction tool once that had no memory, it only listed moves that couldn't be compromised inside two turns. It was a lot of code.

For actual AI you need memory for guarding algorithms plus code to simulate turns based on a complexity setting. I'd hate to have to manage assembler code-base for that..

[Otrebor]

Interesting!

I found some links related (Zx Chess):
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?s ... d=48938327
http://www.sinclairzxworld.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1476

[luis]

@otrebor

I agree with the person in the first link (unsurprisingly).
Didn't know about the last point he's mentioning, so thanks for the link.

BTW: Toledo Atomchess Game (from Óscar Toledo)
http://www.nanochess.org/chess6.html

comments from Bootchess author:
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=64962#c715480

answer from Toledo (author of a LOT of small chess programs):
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=64962#c715482

[Otrebor]

Thank you for the links, Luis.
Well...i think that in nowadays the chess is competitive in a different way

[luis]

Well...i think that in nowadays the chess is competitive in a different way

They have modified their source, adding this:

Code: Select all

; BootChess is the smallest computer implementation of chess on any platform
; Chess in a 512-byte x86 boot sector for Windows / Linux / OS X / DOS / BSD
; Coded by Olivier "Baudsurfer/RSi" Poudade with extra help of Peter "QKumba"
; Ferrie. Logo by Frederic "Cleaner/Break" Cambus. (c)2015 WTFPL v2 license. 
; ****************** To Mr. Oscar Toledo and others : **********************
; YOU MAY REFACTOR THE RESULT OF OUR WORK (THIS FILE) BUT PLEASE CREDIT US !
; ******************************************************************

Remember -> http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=64962#c715482

They may be somewhat competent at coding, even if they tend to lie about their achievements or to not verify their statements just to gain media attention, but the resulting final picture of them is embarrassing. They suck on so many levels.
Then again they are being celebrated on countless pages and even on BBC, and if that is all they were looking for, I suppose it's a success.