They will gather intelligence, lay false trails and strike at their opponents suddenly and with determination.”

Dewdney, A. K. Scientific American January 1987.

A scanner searches for the opponent and hits hard, first stunning with a SPL attack then switching to a deadly DAT attack. Modern scanners are often large and fragile, scoring well against paper but losing to stones.

Blur Scanner

A blur scanner has a continuous SPL wipe and a scan in the same loop. The scan directs the wipe to anything found. After the main attack the scanner either falls through to a core-clear or alternatively switches to a DAT wipe. The first blur scanner was created by Anton Marsden in January 1996.

        step   equ 4884

wptr    mov.b  scan,       #0
scan    add    #step,      #step
gate    mov    *bomb,      >wptr
        jmz.f  scan,       @scan
        jmn    wptr,       *wptr

bomb    spl    0,          0
clear   mov    dbmb,       >gate
        djn.f  clear,      >gate
dbmb    dat    <2667,      2-gate

HSA Scanner

        step   equ 7

        org    scan

wptr    dat    2000

        for    4
        dat    0,0
        rof

bomb    spl    #1,         {1
wipe    mov    bomb,       <wptr
        mov    >wptr,      >wptr
        jmn.f  wipe,       >wptr
scan    add    #step+1,    wptr
        jmz.f  scan,       <wptr
        slt    wptr,       #last-wptr+4
        jmp    wipe,       <wptr
        djn    scan,       #13
last    jmp    scan+1,     {wipe

XTC Scanner

        step   equ 6792
        count  equ 12
        wptr   equ scan-4

scan    add    #step,      #0
        jmz.f  scan,       @scan
        mov    scan,       wptr
wipe    mov    *bomb,      >wptr
        mov    *bomb,      >wptr
cnt     djn    wipe,       #count/2
gate    mov    #count/2,   cnt
        jmn    scan,       @scan+1

bomb    spl    #0,         0
clear   mov    dbmb,       >gate
        djn.f  clear,      >gate
dbmb    dat    <2667,      3-gate

Example Scanners

Agony 3.1, Agony 5.1, Agony II, Arrow, Backstabber, Bayonet, Beholder's Eye v1.7, BIgital SHOT, Blade, Blur, Blur 2, Blur '88, Boys are Back in Town 1.1, B-scanners live in vain, Charon v7.0, Charon v8.1, Claw, Crimp, Crimp 2, Discord, Eternal Exile, Excalibur, Foggy swamp, Grendel's Revenge, Griffin 2, HazyLazy C 11, Herbal Avenger, Impurge, Iron Gate, Jinx, Leprechaun 1b, Medusa's v7X, Macro Magic, Memories, Mirage 1.5, Mirage 2, No Mucking About, Pendulum, Perseus, quiz, Recon 2, Soldier of Fortune, Shot to Nothing, Stalker, Stasis, Valkyrie, Win!, Xenosmilus, Zooom...,

Further Reading

  1. Bailey, Steve. "Analysis of Stefan Strack's Rave." Steve's Guide for Beginners 10 (Mar 1996).
  2. Bezzi, Beppe. "Memories." Core Warrior 19 (4 Mar 1996).
  3. Bremer, Myer R. "Scanner Payloads." Core Warrior 18 (26 Feb 1996).
  4. Cisek, Julius. The Science of Scanning. Usenet newsgroup rec.games.corewar, 25 Jun 1992. (HTML)
  5. Karpov, Peter. "Agony and Ecstasy-style scanners." CoreOps 1 (17 Mar 2015).
  6. Marsden, Anton. "The Mirage/Blur Scanner Series." Core Warrior 36 (1 Jul 1996).
  7. Metcalf, John. "Anatomy of the Scanner." Core Warrior 89 (11 Apr 2004). (HTML)
  8. Strack, Stefan. "Agony: Rejuvenating a Classic." The '94 Warrior 3 (2 Mar 1994).
  9. Wangsaw, Mintardjo. "Scanners." Intro to Art in '88: Paper — Stone — Scissors Trilogy. KOTH.org, 1994.