COMPUTER MEMORIES, Chapter 68

COMPUTER CHESS AND CHECKERS
Years ago, I remember people saying what a waste it was to use a computer to create chess and checker games. I also remember one of the people programming a chess game was very happy to hear my version of why it was a very good exercise. I said that it was a type of program that would help the programmer learn how to work with a simulation program, much different from more normal math program, and in the case of chess or checkers, there was a very easy way to test a simulation program and see if it worked. All you needed to do was to have the computer play chess with a wide range of human chess players, and you would know almost immediately if the program was any good. It was a little more difficult to have real airplanes crash, and real bombs explode, just to prove that a war-game program was working.

Many of the same ideas and concepts that were used in the chess game were employed when a computer simulated flying aircraft, damage from bombing raids, the interaction between messages sent (or not), and the actions taken as a result of receiving or not receiving those messages.

Never did hear what happened to the ping-pong project where they were to design a computer driven arm that would be controlled by a computer that also employed a camera lens of some kind. This was long before video was generally available for such things.