A Brief History of Core War

• Core War
• History

1950s

• Magnetic-core memory was used for the first time in the MIT Whirlwind computer

1960s

• Darwin was the first programming game, invented in 1961 and played in the memory of an IBM 7090 at Bell Labs
• Gregory Benford created the first computer virus, written in Fortran at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory (Livermore)
• Early versions of Core War were played at a number of computer labs, including DEC and Infodata

1970s

• Creeper & Reaper are two mobile programs created in 1971 by Bob Thomas and Ray Tomlinson at BBN
• John Walker wrote PERVADE in 1975, a subroutine which allowed the ANIMAL game to self-propagate on UNIVAC Exec-8
• John McCarthy proposed an implementation of Core War in 1977 using LISP and machine language
• RobotWar was developed by Silas Warner, a robot-based programming game for the PLATO computer system

1982

• Rich Skrenta wrote the Elk Cloner virus which infected Apple II DOS 3.3 disks

1984

• The Core War Guidelines by D. G. Jones and A. K. Dewdney introduced Core War, Redcode and the MARS virtual computer
• “In the game called Core War hostile programs engage in a battle of bits” published in the May issue of Scientific American

1985

• “A Core War bestiary of viruses, worms and other threats to computer memories” published in the March Scientific American
• Robert Martin published Core Wars for the Macintosh, supporting the original Redcode spec and the PCT instruction
• The International Core Wars Society was formed, with Mark Clarkson as the first director
• CROBOTS was released by Tom Poindexter, a robot-based programming game with robots written in a subset of C

1986

• The ICWS'86 Redcode Standard was published in May
• The First International Core War Tournament was held in Boston, Mass. with Chip Wendell's Mice taking first place

1987

• “A program called MICE nibbles its way to victory at the first Core War tournament” published in the January Scientific American
• The Core War Newsletter began publication in March, edited by William R. Buckley
• The Core War Colosseum was published by AMRAN Software
• The Japan Core Wars Society, or ICWS Japan was formed
• The Second Annual International Core Wars Society Tournament was held with first place going to Ferret by Robert R. Reed III
• William R. Buckley is appointed as the second director of the ICWS

1988

• The Armchair Universe by A. K. Dewdney was published, a collection of his articles from Scientific American
• 1988 Core War Programmers Open - a double-elimination tournament sponsored by Mark Durham
• The Third Annual International Core Wars Society Tournament was held with Cowboy by Eugene P. Lilitko claiming first place
• Core War '88 - A Proposed Standard by Thomas Gettys was published in the Summer 1988 issue of TCWN

1989

• The Fourth Annual International Core Wars Society Tournament was won by Hypray by Bono Francesco
• The first Amiga User Group Switzerland tournament was held in August, with killer4 in first place
• CoreWar Plus was released by Stefan Strack

1990

• The Fifth ICWS Tournament was held with Paper by Scott Nelson in first place
• The Coreworld: Emergence and Evolution of Cooperative Structures in a Computational Chemistry by Steen Rasmussen et al

1991

• The rec.games.corewar Usenet group was formed
• The ICWS Qualification Tournament was held by the EBS in November
• The 1991 ICWS Tournament was won by XTC by Stefan Röttger
• William Shubert announced the play-by-email King of the Hill server in December

1992

• EBS Valentine Tournament
• Jon Newman takes over as the third director of the ICWS in February
• Anders Ivner invented the imp ring in October
• EBS Tournament
• In the ICWS 1992 Tournament Nándor Sieben and Ander Ivner tied for first place
• Core Wars Genetics: The Evolution of Predation by John Perry
• Work begins on the ICWS'94 Draft Standard

1993

• Albert Ma releases Mercury, his speedy new assembly language Mars implementation
• A portable C Mars named pMARS becomes available
• Optima released by Nándor Sieben
• EBS Summer Tournament - Dan Nabutovsky and W. Mintardjo battle in the final, with Dan emerging victorious
• June - Scott Ellentuch sets up the new King of the Hill server at Stormking
• Sphinx v2.8 by W. Mintardjo made Core War history by becoming the first warrior to pass the age of 2000, finally being pushed off age 2102
• 26 issues of Push Off
• Michael's New Corewar Tournament
• EBS Fall '93 Tournament
• Winter - fourteenth issue of The Core War Newsletter
• Spring - fifteenth issue of The Core War Newsletter
• Summer - sixteenth issue of The Core War Newsletter
• 1993 Annual ICWS Tournament. Paul Kline claims first place with Cannonade, followed by Anders Ivner and Stefan Strack

1994

• March - seventeenth issue of The Core War Newsletter
• EBS Spring '94 Tournament
• April - Thomas H. Davies provides the Pizza King of the Hill server
• The final 2 issues of Push Off
• Issues 1 to 14 of The '94 Warrior
• My First Corewar Book by Steven Morrell
• Fall - eighteenth and final issue of The Core War Newsletter
• Corestep released by Jay Han

1995

• P-Space invented
• Nándor and Stefan's Fall Core War Tournament - after 9 rounds, Steven Morrell emerges champion, with Robert Macrae and Paul Kline as runners-up
• 9 issues (1 to 9) of Core Warrior
• Planar's Warrior Archive
• Steven's Page No 1

1996

• March - Intelligent Warrior Tournament, Kurt Franke claims first place with System Trap
• Steven's Page No 2
• Mathematical Models for Step Sizes by Steven Morrell
• Mount Olympus - the first infinite hill
• The Battle Royal tournament was held in May, with John K. Wilkinson's Iocane taking first place
• June - Robert Macrae's Thermite II becomes the second warrior in history to reach the age of 2000, surviving to a final age of 2262
• The Wilkies benchmark is published by John K. Wilkinson
• Beppe's Direct Elimination Core War Tournament - winner Philip Kendall
• 44 issues (10 to 53) of Core Warrior
• 13 issues of Steve's Guide for Beginners
• Wilbez advanced benchmark

1997

• Anton's Core War Tournament
• Koenigstuhl, Christoph C. Birk's infinite hills
• Franz releases SYS4, his Perl Corewar evolver
• Jason Boer releases the GA_WAR.C evolver
• 10 issues (54 to 63) of Core Warrior

1998

• January - Redcode Maniacs Tournament - after 9 rounds, first place is taken by David Moore, followed by Robert Macrae then John K Wilkinson
• April - Ilmari's Mini Tournament #1 - won by Philip Kendall. Second place goes to Robert Macrae
• 6 issues (64 to 69) of Core Warrior
• The Oversby Autumn 1998 Tournament - after 8 rounds, M. Joonas Pihlaja is declared victor, followed by Christian Schmidt and Robert Macrae
• Wilmoo benchmark
• David Moore's '88 benchmark
• Redmaker is released by Terry Newton, a Corewar evolver

1999

• May - Intelligent Warrior Tournament. In the final showdown, John K. Wilkinson is proclaimed winner after defeating David Moore
• October - Ilmari's Mini Tournament #2 - in which h1_36.red evolved by Dave Hillis captures first place. Next are Ken Espiritu and Ransom Smith in second and third places
• 7 issues (70 to 76) of Core Warrior
• #COREWARS IRC channel created on irc.KOTH.org

2000

• Koth Fall Corewars Tournament (Kofacoto). After the preliminary four rounds, eight players go through to the playoffs. Robert Macrae succeeds against Michal Janeczek in the final round to take first place. Michal is left with second, while third goes to David Moore
• 2 issues (77 to 78) of Core Warrior
• Lukasz Adamowski creates the Polish Hills
• Walter Hofmann creates the Sourceforge Hills
• Exhaust is released by M. Joonas Pihlaja, an easy to embed C Mars
• Y.A.C.E. is released by Martin Ankerl, Yet Another Corewar Evolver
• Redrace is released by Dave Hillis, a Corewar evolver

2001

• 1 issue (79) of Core Warrior

2002

• Spring / Summer 2002 Corewar Tournament. After five rounds, first place is held by Michal Janeczek. Steve Gunnell takes second place, with Philip Thorne in third
• 5 issues (80 to 84) of Core Warrior
• Wilfiz benchmark

2003

• Redcoders Frenzy: The Ongoing Corewar Tournament
• Will Varfar releases Species, his Corewar evolver
• March - the weekly IRC Tournaments begin
• Loren Jamison releases CRE, his Corewar evolver
• 4 issues (85 to 88) of Core Warrior
• Barkley Vowk releases CCAI, his distributed evolver
• Chip Wendell releases CoreWin, a feature packed Windows Mars
• Fizzle is released by Terry Newton, his latest evolver
• October - Oversby/Pihlaja's Son of Vain becomes the third warrior to pass the age of 2000. Son of Vain finally left the hill with a record age of 2573
• The SAL hills are opened

2004

• 2 issues (89 to 90) of Core Warrior
• 1 issue of Tinywarrior
• Optimax is released, a multi-stage optimizer written in Perl
• ICC2004 meeting held in Berlin
• Michal Janeczek releases fMars

2005

• 1 issue (91) of Core Warrior
• 2 issues of Tinywarrior
• Terry Newton releases REBS, a Corewar evolver
• 2 issues of Core Explorer
• Corewar Single Elimination Tournament 2005 - after 5 rounds Chip Wendell claims first place, with Roy van Rijn taking second, and S.Fernandes third

2006

• First issue of nanoWarrior
• 2006 Corewar Spring Tournament - after 5 rounds double elimination, Chip Wendell takes first place, followed by Zul Nadzri and Neogryzor

2007

• Down The Core And More tournament - after 3 rounds, Inversed takes first place followed by Chip Wendell and Mizcu
• February - Muddy Mouse (RBv1.6r1.1.231) evolved by The MicroGP Corewars Collective passes the age of 2000 on SAL's nano hill
• 1 issue (92) of Core Warrior
• 1 issue (02) of nanoWarrior

2008

• 1 issue (03) of nanoWarrior

2009

• Christian Schmidt opens The Corewar Dynahill
• 1 issue (04) of Tinywarrior

2010

• 3 issues (1 to 3) of Redcode Talk
• The First International Corewar Programming Contest - Inversed takes first place, followed by Roy van Rijn and Zul Nadzri

2011

• The Second International Corewar Programming Contest - Inversed takes first place, followed by Roy van Rijn and Dave Hillis
• 1 issue (4) of Redcode Talk

2012

2013

2014

• Gérman Labarga claimed first place in the Spring 2014 Core War Tournament at The Centre for Computing History in Cambridge
• The Halloween Core War Tournament - inversed takes first place, followed by Roy van Rijn and Robert Macrae

2015

• The Valentine Core War Tournament - Steve Gunnell claims first place
• Issue 1 of CoreOps focused on Agony-style scanners
• Christian Schmidt and John Metcalf share first place in the Tiny Stone Challenge

2016

• Easter Core War Tournament
• The CoreWar RITSI Tournament was held on 11th March at the VII Congreso RITSI in Madrid

2018

• The First CoreWarUCM Tournament took place on 7th May at the Universidad Complutense Madrid. The winner was Mr. Roche by Roche Spain

2019

• The Second CoreWarUCM Tournament was held at the Universidad Complutense Madrid on 30th March. Justice Prevails by Ramza claimed first place

2020

• Issue 2 of CoreOps focused on resonant papers
• The Third CoreWarUCM Tournament took place on 7th March at the Universidad Complutense Madrid and was won by La Maga Oscura by Sara Ignacio
• Hullab3loo by Roy van Rijn was pushed off the 94nop hill age 2054 on 15th April

2021

• The Fourth CoreWarUCM Tournament was held at the Universidad Complutense Madrid on 16th April. First place was taken by Laniakea by Oxinetone

2022

• The Corewar Global Masters tournament was livestreamed on Twitch with Roy van Rijn emerging as winner
• The Fifth CoreWarUCM Tournament took place on 5th March at the Universidad Complutense Madrid. The winner was El Sabio Oscuro by Sara
• Muddy Mouse (RBv1.6r1.1.231) evolved by MicroGP was pushed off the nano hill age 2447 on 23rd June

2023

• The Sixth CoreWarUCM Tournament, won by Chains of Destruction by Patxy, was held on 25th March at the Universidad Complutense Madrid
• Monster_Human_Grunt by Inversed was pushed off the 94nop hill age 2289 on 12th September

2024

• The Seventh CoreWarUCM Tournament was held on 9th March at the Universidad Complutense Madrid, and was won by Guillermo Calvo Arenaza's Lamp of Murmur