From: stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu (Stefan Strack) Subject: Re: Newbie Q: what is ;assert? Date: 1995/10/01 Message-ID: <9510012205.AA15575@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar John Wilkinson wrote: >Beppe Bezzi wrote: > >>;assert is a condition of the environment that has to be met for the warrior >>to function properly. >> >>For example, if you have imps you must have a CORESIZE == 8000 assert line, >>so that, if you submit your warrior to the wrong hill the compiler aborts >>and warns you. >> >>More examples are in p-mars.doc > >Yeah, I know that's the thinking behind it, but the compiler doesn't abort, >it just tells you the error. I mean, I suppose I can see how it might be >helpful, in some case... but I haven't used it yet... pMARS aborts with an error message if the ;assert expression fails (i.e. the condition is not met), but issues only a warning if there is no ;assert line. Most warriors have been tuned to one specific core size (8192, 8000, 55440), some, as Beppe mentioned, will only work in that particular core. I would strongly recommend against using something like ";assert 1" in all your warriors, unless they will truly work under all conditions (like a mov 0,1 imp). A meaningful assert line is especially important if you want your published warrior to be part of any upcoming warrior collections (like warrior1.zip at soda) -- the meaning of the ;redcode flag may change over time, but an ;assert line will ensure that people will know what options to set when running your warrior. -Stefan From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: *CHANGES* - Stormking Hills Date: 1995/10/01 Message-ID: <44liq5$8ka@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <44l418$5na@valhalla.stormking.com> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar > The following hills now fight for 250 rounds : > > Standard, ICWS and Multi 94 Expertimental > > the following hill has gone to 500 rounds : > > Multi 94 Draft > > If there are any commpents or question, please contact me. Are you gonna re-run all the old battles? It would seem that you'd have to, right? So, am I gonna get mail telling me what my new scores are? -- -John K. Wilkinson- From: tuc@news.stormking.com (Scott J. Ellentuch) Subject: Re: *CHANGES* - Stormking Hills Date: 1995/10/01 Message-ID: <44m0iv$kmk@valhalla.stormking.com>#1/1 references: <44l418$5na@valhalla.stormking.com> <44liq5$8ka@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar John K. W. (jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu) wrote: : > The following hills now fight for 250 rounds : : > : > Standard, ICWS and Multi 94 Expertimental : > : > the following hill has gone to 500 rounds : : > : > Multi 94 Draft : > : > If there are any commpents or question, please contact me. : Are you gonna re-run all the old battles? It would seem that you'd have : to, right? : So, am I gonna get mail telling me what my new scores are? No, they won't be re-run. As the first new warrior hits the hill it will re-calculate from there. Tuc -- * --- --- |Scott J. Ellentuch, Pres | The Telecom Security Group * * | | | |Comm. and Comp. Security | (Storm King family of Companies) * * | |__|__ |Consultants and Engineers | P.O. Box 69, Newburgh, NY 12551 * From: pan0178@comune.bologna.it (MV) Subject: Re: Phq# Date: 1995/10/01 Message-ID: <199510012323.TAA16822@valhalla.stormking.com>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >Greetings. > >I was just wondering if there are significant differences >in the Phq series since they seem to have similar scores. >What justifies having all three on the hill? It would be >nice to free up some slots for some other worthy warriors >( not that I have any :( anyways ). Not a big deal. > >Regards. >Myer R Bremer > > > Well I had my reasons to submit 3 identical (yes Phq# are the SAME program) warriors! Of course I'll kill all Phq-clone (except the original ;-) soon as possible! So what I have discovered is summarized in the follow results: Phq3 wins: 46 (the same progs!) Phq2 wins: 37 Ties: 17 Phq3 wins: 46 (the same progs!) Phq wins: 37 Ties: 17 *Right* (!) results 'cos Phq2=Phq but... Phq2 wins: 51 Phq wins: 36 Ties: 13 By the way: Phq2 vs Phq2 Phq2 wins: 51 Ties: 13 Phq3 vs Phq3 Phq3 wins: 50 Ties: 12 Phq vs Phq Phq wins: 51 Ties: 13 I sent Phq# sequentially (Phq, Phq2, Phq3) and it seems that the last arrived kills easily the old copies (even if they are the same prog). I promise that I'll never send Phq4 ;-), but I'm quite sure that it would kill all the previous versions! Any comments about this *random* fluctuations, just not so random ? Maurizio Vittuari From: pk6811s@acad.drake.edu Subject: Re: Die Hard Date: 1995/10/01 Message-ID: <1995Oct1.152603@acad.drake.edu>#1/1 references: newsgroups: rec.games.corewar (Magnus Paulsson) writes: > myVamp v3.7 wins: 49 > Die Hard wins: 27 > Ties: 24 Show off! :-) Actually that's pretty good. The best program I tried only went about 33/33/33 against Die Hard - and that's knowing the code! But hang on to your program, I'm hoping to issue a Die Hard challenge in the near future. I see both Die Hard and pStone fell off today. Hard to believe a score of 130 can't make it. Good thing I retooled Torch or I'd be history. (In fact old Torch had a BUG!) -- Paul Kline pk6811s@acad.drake.edu From: bremermr@cartoon.ecn.purdue.edu (Myer R. Bremer) Subject: Phq# Date: 1995/10/01 Message-ID: <44l4da$euj@mozo.cc.purdue.edu>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Greetings. I was just wondering if there are significant differences in the Phq series since they seem to have similar scores. What justifies having all three on the hill? It would be nice to free up some slots for some other worthy warriors ( not that I have any :( anyways ). Not a big deal. Regards. Myer R Bremer From: tuc@news.stormking.com (Scott J. Ellentuch) Subject: *CHANGES* - Stormking Hills Date: 1995/10/01 Message-ID: <44l418$5na@valhalla.stormking.com>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Hello all, I just wanted to announce as of 00:01 October 1, 1995 the following change has been made to SKI-ICWS (Stormking Industries - Interactive Core War Server) : The following hills now fight for 250 rounds : Standard, ICWS and Multi 94 Expertimental the following hill has gone to 500 rounds : Multi 94 Draft If there are any commpents or question, please contact me. *****ALSO***** - It seems that alot of the links in the tutorial section are broken on http://www.stormking.com/~koth . I'm looking into this. (Stephen Beitzel, can you please call the front desk?) Tuc -- * --- --- |Scott J. Ellentuch, Pres | The Telecom Security Group * * | | | |Comm. and Comp. Security | (Storm King family of Companies) * * | |__|__ |Consultants and Engineers | P.O. Box 69, Newburgh, NY 12551 * From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: Newbie Q: what is ;assert? Date: 1995/10/01 Message-ID: <44kvot$q4c@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <199510010053.BAA10730@iol-mail.iol.it> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Beppe Bezzi wrote: >;assert is a condition of the environment that has to be met for the warrior >to function properly. > >For example, if you have imps you must have a CORESIZE == 8000 assert line, >so that, if you submit your warrior to the wrong hill the compiler aborts >and warns you. > >More examples are in p-mars.doc Yeah, I know that's the thinking behind it, but the compiler doesn't abort, it just tells you the error. I mean, I suppose I can see how it might be helpful, in some case... but I haven't used it yet... -- -John K. Wilkinson- From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: P-space Date: 1995/10/01 Message-ID: <44kvj0$q4c@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <199509301210.NAA06682@iol-mail.iol.it> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >A third-generation brainwasher, just an idea don't know if one can implement >it and if it would ever work, can vamp you, force you to scan your p-space >till you find a nonzero value, read and store it and, from then on, he can >braiwash you with but a simple bomb, and use itself different strategies to >attack and brainwash. >Hypnotism, more than Brainwashing :-) > Hmmmm... that's be nice, except that my pspace has multiple non-zero values, in most cases. And, if one of those was ever known to be on the hill, everyone would start trashing their own space with meaningless values... > >>Exactly, if I had Die Hard in my corner, that's what I'd do. :) >> >Die Hard is getting a bit softer :-) Its losses are growing a bit. > Vamps... So I can only assume it's some sort of imp/silk combo. Probably more imp than silk. >And what about others warriors? You can defend yourself from Brainwashing, >but doing so you pay to others; your stategic part will grow in size and/or >boot time for Thermite pleasure. Sounds good, the balance is kept, no single >strategy will dominate the hill. > How could one? I mean, every program can be beaten by another... can't it? I don't suppose that could ever be proven. (With the exception of simply mathematically sifting through every possible warrior, and running the 5.79*(10 to the 389th power) battle permutations between each one. Of course, given only two warriors, it'd take thousands and thousands of times the current age of the Universe simply to run through them on a Pentium-133. Damn. Did I do the math right? That's a really incomprehensibly long time, just to determine, conclusively, which of two warriors is better. Yep, that is correct... man... that's a long time... -John From: John Subject: Re: Warrior aging Date: 1995/10/01 Message-ID: <44kutk$q4c@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <199509301210.NAA06678@iol-mail.iol.it> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >>>We can make a warrior age only if the outgoing warrior has a score >100,= > in >>Sorry to burst your bubble there, Beppe. But, according to your system, >>no warrior would ever make it past age 0. :) >> >Why ? Maybe I didn't explain well, look at this example: Oh, sorry... I was still thinking along the lines of score equalling the warirors age. Simple misunderstanding. >Using warrior names is not fair because there is no control that a warrior >named Gorilla 2 is an evolution of Gorilla 1, and in any case it's another >warrior. Should Stefan submit Agony III he has to restart from zero not from= > 850 > Yep. That's good. And you're idea would satify that just fine. However, I don't think that this idea is any better really than simply not aging warriors after a "kill;", but the difference, in practice, would be very subtle... -John From: pan0178@comune.bologna.it (MV) Subject: Re: Phq# Date: 1995/10/02 Message-ID: <199510021612.MAA03240@valhalla.stormking.com>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar ..... >>Any comments about this *random* fluctuations, just not so random ? >> >I already posted this in the newsgroup. That is the reason I asked for >the 5x100 battle setup. Whichever warrior goes first in the very first >round has a tremnedous effect on all subsetquent rounds in a pspace warrior. > >PHQ is pspace right? Of course, even if it's not, the weird "-F" option >would cause a consistent score difference anyway... I want just underline that Phq doesn't use Pspace in active mode, I mean that Phq doesn't use its Pspace, but it tries just to brainwash the opponents! Well all the previous results were dated 30/9/95, I hope that after 1 Oct the things will be different! Regards. Maurizio Vittuari From: stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu (Stefan Strack) Subject: Re: Phq# Date: 1995/10/02 Message-ID: <9510021504.AA15797@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >Well I had my reasons to submit 3 identical (yes Phq# are the SAME program) >warriors! >Of course I'll kill all Phq-clone (except the original ;-) soon as possible! > >So what I have discovered is summarized in the follow results: > >Phq3 wins: 46 (the same progs!) >Phq2 wins: 37 >Ties: 17 > >Phq3 wins: 46 (the same progs!) >Phq wins: 37 >Ties: 17 > >*Right* (!) results 'cos Phq2=Phq but... > >Phq2 wins: 51 >Phq wins: 36 >Ties: 13 > >By the way: > >Phq2 vs Phq2 >Phq2 wins: 51 >Ties: 13 > >Phq3 vs Phq3 >Phq3 wins: 50 >Ties: 12 > >Phq vs Phq >Phq wins: 51 >Ties: 13 > >I sent Phq# sequentially (Phq, Phq2, Phq3) and it seems that the last >arrived kills easily >the old copies (even if they are the same prog). >I promise that I'll never send Phq4 ;-), but I'm quite sure that it would >kill all the previous versions! > pan0178@comune.bologna.it wrote: >Any comments about this *random* fluctuations, just not so random ? The -F parameter, i.e. the random number seed given to pMARS, changes every month. So if you submitted some of your warriors before 00:00 PST on 9/30 and the others after that, this would explain the differences. -Stefan From: pk6811s@acad.drake.edu Subject: Re: Leprechaun deluxe Date: 1995/10/02 Message-ID: <1995Oct2.165629@acad.drake.edu>#1/1 references: newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Anders Ivner writes: >... > Leprechaun deluxe is, as the name implies, a new version of my > Leprechaun warrior. It's not a very inspired or original piece > of code, but I thought I'd share it with you anyway. Looks like a good one. >... > The scan-bomb is the very nice and effective incendiary bomb (Paul, > is this your invention?) Originally appeared as an alternative to the spl/jmp bomb: spl 0,8 mov -1,<-1 Much better under '94 rules: ibm mov ibs,>ibs ... ibs spl #xx,ibm+1 Or: ibm mov ibs,}ibs ... ibs spl #ibm+1,1 As using a 1 in the b-field sometimes causes core-sweeps to self-destruct :-) -- Paul Kline pk6811s@acad.drake.edu From: Anders Ivner Subject: Leprechaun deluxe Date: 1995/10/02 Message-ID: #1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar I haven't been very active lately (the last two years, or something like that :-), so I thought I should say hi to the new generation of corewars players that has emerged. Hi! You are doing a great job! The activity in the corewars scene has never, to my knowledge, been this high before. Last week, HeremScimitar was pushed off, and, as I don't like the thought of losing touch completely, I increased my efforts. (To answer Paul's question from a while back: This is what led me to the discovery of imp rings. Frustration of being pushed off :-) Leprechaun deluxe is, as the name implies, a new version of my Leprechaun warrior. It's not a very inspired or original piece of code, but I thought I'd share it with you anyway. I changed the engine to 75%c bomb/bomb/scan (can be done without an increase in size under '94). The scan-bomb is the very nice and effective incendiary bomb (Paul, is this your invention?) Much effort was put into finding a good step. It has near optimal find4 and find13 values, and allows me to scan/bomb +3700 locations before coreclearing. Don't really know if this makes much difference, though. /Anders ;redcode-94 ;name Leprechaun deluxe ;kill test ;author Anders Ivner ;strategy 75% bomber/scanner with decoy ;strategy bombs/scans +3700 locations before entering coreclear STEP equ (-5741) A equ (loop+5-STEP) start equ check gate equ loop-3 offset equ XXXX ; insert arbitrary number [2000..6000] ; scan A, glue A+STEP, bomb A+STEP+STEP boot mov clr+1, clr+1+offset mov {boot, gate djn.f clr, {gate const dat -STEP*3,-STEP*3 mb mov @0, }STEP bmb dat -1, 18 for 75 dat boot*1023,1 rof end boot From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: P-space Date: 1995/10/02 Message-ID: <44otj7$dll@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <199509301210.NAA06682@iol-mail.iol.it> <44kvj0$q4c@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <44o71p$c5f@newsy.ifm.liu.se> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >Actually ,myVamp 3.5 (or 3.6) scored something like 0 20 80 against Die Hard >(in Die Hards favor). >The scores myVamp get's now is due to a change in the coreclear, not to the >vamperic part. > >/Magnus > Hmmm... Well, I'd send a vamp to test against Die Hard, but it got pushed off the hill. :( -- -John K. Wilkinson- From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: Newbie Q: what is ;assert? Date: 1995/10/02 Message-ID: <44nd3f$em0@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <9510012205.AA15575@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu (Stefan Strack) wrote: >>> >>>For example, if you have imps you must have a CORESIZE == 8000 assert line, >>>so that, if you submit your warrior to the wrong hill the compiler aborts >>>and warns you. > >pMARS aborts with an error message if the ;assert expression fails (i.e. the >condition is not met), but issues only a warning if there is no ;assert line. Ok... That makes sense. However, the only time I tried to use an "assert" it just screwed up, and I had to change it to ";assert 1". I haven't used it since because I don't want to bother with the major inconveniance that it caused. I'd use it if, like you said, I ever wanted to publish something... -- -John K. Wilkinson- From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: Phq# Date: 1995/10/02 Message-ID: <44ncp4$em0@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <199510012323.TAA16822@valhalla.stormking.com> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >So what I have discovered is summarized in the follow results: > > >I sent Phq# sequentially (Phq, Phq2, Phq3) and it seems that the last >arrived kills easily >the old copies (even if they are the same prog). >I promise that I'll never send Phq4 ;-), but I'm quite sure that it would >kill all the previous versions! > >Any comments about this *random* fluctuations, just not so random ? > I already posted this in the newsgroup. That is the reason I asked for the 5x100 battle setup. Whichever warrior goes first in the very first round has a tremnedous effect on all subsetquent rounds in a pspace warrior. PHQ is pspace right? Of course, even if it's not, the weird "-F" option would cause a consistent score difference anyway... -- -John K. Wilkinson- From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: How to cheat Date: 1995/10/02 Message-ID: <44ncj7$em0@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: newsgroups: rec.games.corewar y91magpa@ida.liu.se (Magnus Paulsson) wrote: >Have a look at this warrior that I wrote when thinking of >the part of the score that you get from fighting yourself. > >;How to score 150 against your own wariors! >pin 111 > >I haven't tested the idea of putting another warior on the hill with >the same PIN, but if you have a couple of warriors on the hill! > >Somehow this must be changed, at least on the one warior hills. Yeah... I think your subject title says it all: that would be cheating... I mean, if I wanted, I could submit warriors that scored 150 against each other, once I got a few on the hill, it would be easier and easier to put MORE on the hill. Eventually, I could take over and keep everyone else out. The PIN should be removed... at least from single warrior hills... I think it should be removed alltogether. -- -John K. Wilkinson- From: tpc@tuck.cs.nott.ac.uk (Timothy Peter Chapman) Subject: Self-Repairing Date: 1995/10/03 Message-ID: #1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Hi there! I have recently been working on a new type of self-repairing program and it almost worked well (although I haven't sent it to Koth yet). I was just wondering if anyone out there had any tips or ideas for techniques to use in self repair.... perhaps some source code??? (I heard a few months ago about a program called Bunker..?) Cheers, Tim Chapman From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: This group makes prime time Date: 1995/10/03 Message-ID: <44s4bk$m90@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <44ruv7$h7a@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> newsgroups: rec.org.mensa,alt.binaries.pictures.erotica,rec.arts.startrek.fandom,rec.games.corewar edp@math.zk3.dec.com (Eric Postpischil) wrote: >In a recent episode of The Simpsons, Bart asked a comic store proprietor >for some information about radioactiveman, whereupon the proprietor went >into the back room and typed "readnews" on a computer. The list of news >groups was, in addition to alt.comics.radioactiveman: > > alt.binaries.pictures.erotica > rec.arts.startrek.fandom > rec.org.mensa > rec.games.corewar I've only got one thing to say to that: "Whoohoo!!" :) -- -John K. Wilkinson- From: adina@jeeves.ucsd.edu (Adina M. Sobo) Subject: Re: This group makes prime time Date: 1995/10/03 Message-ID: #1/1 references: <44ruv7$h7a@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> <44sjl5$2r5@CUBoulder.Colorado.EDU> newsgroups: rec.org.mensa,alt.binaries.pictures.erotica,rec.arts.startrek.fandom,rec.games.corewar In article <44sjl5$2r5@CUBoulder.Colorado.EDU>, mittonk@ucsu.colorado.edu (Mitton Ken) wrote: = Erotica and StarTrek, I can understand... but CoreWar and MENSA? = I can believe that some of the animators (maybe even Mr. Matt) could = go for a little pseudo-virus programming, but a newsgroup devoted = to a society for exceedingly high-IQ point people? A possible future = storyline: Comic Store Owner Smartest Man in World? ;) Congratulations on one of the better trolls I've seen this week. We have to justify the rec.org.mensa and/or Mensa on a pretty regular basis, but I can't recall having ever seen r.o.m used for a storyline before. - - -Adina <- - - pointing everyone to http://www.mensa.org/~mensa, and reminding you that Mensa membership is not required for r.o.m posted to the various groups, cc: to Mitton Ken From: sieben@imap1.asu.edu Subject: Re: How to cheat Date: 1995/10/03 Message-ID: <44qfuk$jru@news.asu.edu>#1/1 references: <44ncj7$em0@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar John K. W. (jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu) wrote: : y91magpa@ida.liu.se (Magnus Paulsson) wrote: : >Have a look at this warrior that I wrote when thinking of : >the part of the score that you get from fighting yourself. : > : >;How to score 150 against your own wariors! : >pin 111 : > : >I haven't tested the idea of putting another warior on the hill with : >the same PIN, but if you have a couple of warriors on the hill! : > : >Somehow this must be changed, at least on the one warior hills. : Yeah... I think your subject title says it all: that would be cheating... : I mean, if I wanted, I could submit warriors that scored 150 against : each other, once I got a few on the hill, it would be easier and easier : to put MORE on the hill. Eventually, I could take over and keep everyone : else out. The PIN should be removed... at least from single warrior : hills... I think it should be removed alltogether. : -- : -John K. Wilkinson- Well I wouldn't say it's cheating. It's nothing like tampering with the header of a mail or anything like that. Also it has a speed penalty. I aggree that this is not desirable. But removing the pin seems to be too drastic. We need different solution for this. Nandor. From: tuc@news.stormking.com (Scott J. Ellentuch) Subject: STORMKING - Maint Date: 1995/10/03 Message-ID: <44scq6$jlt@valhalla.stormking.com>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Hi, Until midnight on October 3rd, SKI-ICWS will be down for maint. You can still check the results as well as see your warrior waiting on the hill. Tuc -- * --- --- |Scott J. Ellentuch, Pres | The Telecom Security Group * * | | | |Comm. and Comp. Security | (Storm King family of Companies) * * | |__|__ |Consultants and Engineers | P.O. Box 69, Newburgh, NY 12551 * From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: Re: No Subject Date: 1995/10/03 Message-ID: <199510032238.XAA04257@iol-mail.iol.it>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >Wow, Agony II finally bit the dust, at the ripe old age of 912. > >Am I correct in assuming that it achieved some sort of honorary >record or something for the oldest death? > No you are wrong. 14-8-95 Iron Gate 1.5 died at the venerable age of 926 I think that this is -94 hill record. I don't know if some warrior managed to pass 1000 in the 88 hill. >-- >-John K. Wilkinson- > -Beppe Bezzi Gaudeamus igitur ... From: stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu (Stefan Strack) Subject: Re: 80 line limit at pizza? Date: 1995/10/03 Message-ID: <9510031750.AA16456@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu wrote: >Is there an 80 column wide text limit on the warriors the you send to Pizza? No, the pMARS assembler accepts lines up to 255 chars long, and my comments frequently extend past column 80. Either the auto-wrap feature of your word processor or some misbehaving mail gateway between you and pizza must be at fault. -Stefan From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: Jack in the box Date: 1995/10/03 Message-ID: <199510031635.RAA00528@iol-mail.iol.it> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar While making the new version of Brain Wash, not yet on hill, I were testing various modules to use stand alone or inserted in the warrior. A bit discouraged for not making a paper good enough against the many scanners, I tried submitting my still not satisfactory one, switched with Tornado in very simple, play safe, strategy: stay with wins or ties, change if you lose. Results have been much better than espected, I found myself near top of the hill, reaching it, first time in my career, with a few improvements :-) Sometimes simple thing are the best. The only things worth noting in the warrior are: the use, in the paper module, of a number of processes above the one required. I'm not sure why it works, but using the right number the score decreases. May be the good old Marcia Trionfale needed a bit of steroid doping to feel jounger :-) the dat 1,1 bomb, launched in streams to slow down warriors using djn streams, like Cmp scanners and old Torch, and to kill forward running clears. Following are results and code for you to enjoy; the values I put in EQUs are obviously false, but don't change warrior behaviour. Now I hope others will publish their warriors; published ones are very few in the hill; stone test will follows as soon as he goes out of test status. -Beppe Bezzi Gaudeamus igitur... ;--------------------- ;redcode-94 ;name Jack in the box ;author Beppe Bezzi ;strategy Marcia Trionfale 1.3 with Tornado ;strategy popping up if confronted by a scanner ;kill Jack ;assert CORESIZE == 8000 org think PIN 0 ;or something larger _RES equ #0 _STR equ #111 ;Not that obviously step equ 85 count equ 533 away equ 4000 ;+- 3000 locations A0 equ 3488 A1 equ 1860 A2 equ 3740 AA0 equ 3620 AA1 equ 1270 AA2 equ -350 marcia spl starta, <1000 ;activate body n. 2 spl 1, <300 ;\ spl 1, <600 ;-\ generate 16 spl 1, <500 ;-/ parallel processes spl 1, <400 ;/ silk spl @0, }A0 ;split mov.i }-1, >-1 ;copy mov.i bomb1, >123 ;bombing silk2 spl @0, }A1 ;split mov.i }-1, >-1 ;copy mov.i bomb1, >1001 ;bombing mov.i bomb , }2042 ;A-indirect bombing mov.i {silk2, A2 ;jmp new copy bomb dat.f >2667, >5334 ;anti-imp bomb bomb1 dat >1, }1 ;anti clear and djn stream bomb for 12 dat 0,0 rof think res ldp.ab _RES, #0 str ldp.a _STR, str1 ;load strategy in use sne.ab #0, res ;check result lost add.a #1, str1 ;lost change mod.a #2, str1 ;secure result win stp.ab str1, _STR str1 jmp @0, tornado dat 0, marcia for 12 dat 0,0 rof tornado mov bm, djmp+away+31 mov bd, djmp+away+32 mov *tptr, @tptr mov {tptr, -1 ;copy mov.i bomba1, >113 ;bombing silk2a spl @0, }AA1 ;split mov.i }-1, >-1 ;copy mov.i bomba, >1001 ;bombing mov.i bomba1, }2042 ;A-indirect bombing mov.i {silk2a,AA2 ;jmp new copy bomba dat.f >2667, >5334 ;anti-imp bomb bomba1 dat >1, }1 ;anti clear bomb end Subject: 94 : Jack in the box challenge results Program "Jack in the box" (length 97) by "Beppe Bezzi" (contact address "bezzi@iol.it"): has challenged the ICWS '94 Draft hill. Program "Eureka!" (length 100) by "Maurizio Vittuari" (contact address "pan0178@comune.bologna.it"): ;strategy No limits to Phantasy... Jack in the box wins: 9 Eureka! wins: 16 Ties: 75 Program "Thermite 1.0" (length 99) by "Robert Macrae" (contact address "nobody"): ;strategy Quick-scan -> incendiary bomber. Jack in the box wins: 32 Thermite 1.0 wins: 35 Ties: 33 Program "Torch t18" (length 93) by "P.Kline" (contact address "PDK@ADMIN.DRAKE.EDU"): ;strategy very rapid incendiary bombing, core-clear & gate ;strategy t18: reinstated boot & decoy ;strategy t18: use jmz not djn for spl/mov bombing! Jack in the box wins: 30 Torch t18 wins: 35 Ties: 35 Program "Phq" (length 100) by "Maurizio Vittuari" (contact address "pan0178@comune.bologna.it"): ;strategy New version! This one likes brainwashes... Jack in the box wins: 9 Phq wins: 9 Ties: 82 Program "Jack in the box" (length 97) by "Beppe Bezzi" (contact address "bezzi@iol.it"): ;strategy Marcia Trionfale 1.3 with Tornado ;strategy popping up if confronted by a scanner ;strategy v 11 Jack in the box wins: 46 Jack in the box wins: 43 Ties: 11 Program "TR" (length 100) by "Maurizio Vittuari" (contact address "pan0178@comune.bologna.it"): ;strategy We're testin'... Jack in the box wins: 9 TR wins: 16 Ties: 75 Program "Brain Vamp" (length 100) by "B.Bezzi, M.Paulsson" (contact address "bezzi@iol.it"): ;strategy Brainwash + myVamp ;strategy v 14 Jack in the box wins: 35 Brain Vamp wins: 35 Ties: 30 Program "Simple Ptest" (length 100) by "M R Bremer" (contact address "bremermr@ecn.purdue.edu"): ;strategy playing that p-space magic ;strategy simple switching--lame components ;strategy I'll have something better after these my exams Jack in the box wins: 40 Simple Ptest wins: 33 Ties: 27 Program "Agony II" (length 99) by "Stefan Strack" (contact address "stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu"): ;strategy Small-interval CMP scanner that bombs with a SPL 0 carpet. ;strategy This is the good old '88 Agony with some '94 enhancements: ;strategy - boots off decoy to delay (quick)scanners; erases boot pointer ;strategy - optimized decoy to avoid self-triggering for more than 6000 cycles ;strategy Submitted: Sun Jul 31 14:48:08 CDT 1994 Jack in the box wins: 59 Agony II wins: 30 Ties: 11 Program "Bevo! v.1d" (length 12) by "John Wilkinson" (contact address "jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu"): ;strategy Scanner based on Rave, but much better against papers now. Jack in the box wins: 64 Bevo! v.1d wins: 29 Ties: 7 Program "myVamp v3.5" (length 100) by "Paulsson" (contact address "mpn@ifm.liu.se"): ;strategy v3.0 new coreclear to get imps. ;strategy v3.1 oops forgot that djn is a conditional jump. ;strategy v3.2 boots of decoy ;strategy v3.5 ran mopt for the first time. ;strategy Submitted: 22 september 95 Jack in the box wins: 56 myVamp v3.5 wins: 36 Ties: 8 Program "Fun v.g2d2" (length 89) by "John K. Wilkinson" (contact address "jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu"): ;strategy Using pspace to find best attacker. ;strategy v.f2 Now includes Bevo, instead of Rave. ;strategy v.g2c I'm using another switch, and a better ;strategy Juliet/Cannonade killer. ;strategy v.g2d2 Same switch, but with a better Bevo. Jack in the box wins: 40 Fun v.g2d2 wins: 16 Ties: 44 Program "Fun v.f" (length 84) by "John K. Wilkinson" (contact address "jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu"): ;strategy Using pspace to find best attacker. ;strategy v.f Major changes... :) Jack in the box wins: 48 Fun v.f wins: 25 Ties: 27 Program "test" (length 100) by "Anders Ivner" (contact address "d91andiv@und.ida.liu.se"): Jack in the box wins: 62 test wins: 32 Ties: 6 Program "Armory - A5" (length 93) by "Wilkinson" (contact address "jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu"): ;strategy use pspace to go to battle ;strategy v 5 - well, I'm still losing to Brain Wash... I may still ;strategy have a pcode bug. :/ ;strategy Major changes. Hoping for more wins, and less ties... Jack in the box wins: 22 Armory - A5 wins: 5 Ties: 73 Program "Brain Wash 11" (length 100) by "Beppe Bezzi" (contact address "bezzi@iol.it"): ;strategy headache, bad thoughts, combat stress ? ;strategy you need a good Brain Wash :-) ;strategy v 11 little changes Jack in the box wins: 37 Brain Wash 11 wins: 23 Ties: 40 Program "Die Hard" (length 90) by "P.Kline" (contact address "PDK@ADMIN.DRAKE.EDU"): ;strategy minimal kill+, maximal survival Jack in the box wins: 0 Die Hard wins: 1 Ties: 99 Program "pStone" (length 97) by "P.Kline" (contact address "PDK@ADMIN.DRAKE.EDU"): ;strategy switching stone&clear with diehard ;strategy (hide under rock until it's safe to come out) Jack in the box wins: 4 pStone wins: 3 Ties: 93 Program "Taking Names" (length 98) by "P.Kline" (contact address "PDK@ADMIN.DRAKE.EDU"): ;strategy sne.x/seq.x scanner using spl-spl-jmp bomb ;strategy and continuous forward-clear ;strategy added decoy Jack in the box wins: 54 Taking Names wins: 40 Ties: 6 Program "theMystery1.5" (length 69) by "Paulsson" (contact address "mpn@ifm.liu.se"): ;strategy How does Die Hard work? (this way maybee?) ;strategy Looking gooood, could it be somthing that begins ;strategy with an i and ends with p? Jack in the box wins: 1 theMystery1.5 wins: 1 Ties: 98 Program "Jack in the box" (length 97) by "Beppe Bezzi" (contact address "bezzi@iol.it"): ;strategy Marcia Trionfale 1.3 with Tornado ;strategy popping up if confronted by a scanner Jack in the box wins: 37 Ties: 26 Your overall score: 142.285714 Jack in the box has been pushed off the ICWS '94 Draft hill. The current ICWS '94 Draft hill: # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 33/ 24/ 43 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 142 1 ..... From: user@portal.dx.net (mneumenth) Subject: Re: P-space Date: 1995/10/03 Message-ID: <44rt81$fts@portal.dx.net>#1/1 references: <199509301210.NAA06682@iol-mail.iol.it> <44kvj0$q4c@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar How do you figure? To test any two warriors against each other, you would only have to have 2*(coresize-mindist) battles. Each possible distance, with each program taking a turn at going first. Even on the huge hill, that would only be something like a hundred-thousand battles. Just give an average Pentium-133 about a Month or so, and youd be done. Faithfullness is an easily attainable, yet hard-to-find trait which is vital in any relationship. Mneumenth Auralight (mneumenth@kernvalley.com) From: "John K. W." Subject: (no subject) Date: 1995/10/03 Message-ID: <44s4fv$m90@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Wow, Agony II finally bit the dust, at the ripe old age of 912. Am I correct in assuming that it achieved some sort of honorary record or something for the oldest death? -- -John K. Wilkinson- From: barnett@news.eng.convex.com (Paul Barnett) Subject: Re: This group makes prime time Date: 1995/10/03 Message-ID: <44s0km$88n@jaguar.convex.com>#1/1 references: <44ruv7$h7a@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> newsgroups: rec.org.mensa,alt.binaries.pictures.erotica,rec.arts.startrek.fandom,rec.games.corewar In <44ruv7$h7a@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> edp@math.zk3.dec.com (Eric Postpischil) writes: >In a recent episode of The Simpsons, Bart asked a comic store proprietor >for some information about radioactiveman, whereupon the proprietor went >into the back room and typed "readnews" on a computer. The list of news >groups was, in addition to alt.comics.radioactiveman: > alt.binaries.pictures.erotica > rec.arts.startrek.fandom > rec.org.mensa > rec.games.corewar I used to get a log of the newgroup messages sent out by everyone and their brother, but not anymore -- has anyone actually created the alt.comics.radioactiveman newsgroup yet? From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: P-space Date: 1995/10/03 Message-ID: <44rusv$i28@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <199509301210.NAA06682@iol-mail.iol.it> <44kvj0$q4c@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <44rt81$fts@portal.dx.net> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >I don't suppose that could ever be proven. (With the exception of simply >mathematically sifting through every possible warrior, and running the >5.79*(10 to the 389th power) battle permutations between each one. > >How do you figure? To test any two warriors against each other, you >would only have to have 2*(coresize-mindist) battles. Each possible >distance, with each program taking a turn at going first. Even on the >huge hill, that would only be something like a hundred-thousand battles. >Just give an average Pentium-133 about a Month or so, and youd be done. Nope, that's wrong. With the addition of pspace, there are now 2*(coresize-mindist) possible pspace configurations after the first battle. That leads to 2*(coresize-mindist)*(coresize-mindist) configurations in the second battle. You wouldn't multiply by the second two, since the who-goes-first is determined by the first battle. Etc... etc... etc... it builds up very fast. In fact, I believe I may have understated the actual number by a power of 2. I think I left out the who-goes-first in my calculation. -- -John K. Wilkinson- From: Anders Ivner Subject: Longlived warriors Date: 1995/10/04 Message-ID: newsgroups: rec.games.corewar On the subject of old warriors, here's a piece of corewar history for you: (Taken from Paul Kline's _PUSH OFF_ articles, mostly) > _PUSH OFF_ > A midweek review of Corewar > March 10, 1993 > 6 32/ 18/ 49 +0 Stormbringer Dan Nabutovsky 146 1031 >Corewar frenzy hit a new high this week as Dan Nabutovsky's >+0 Stormbringer became the first warrior to survive 1000 challenges. > _PUSH OFF_ > A midweek review of Corewar > March 17, 1993 > 1 38/ 24/ 38 It nandor sieben 153 1013 > 4 37/ 26/ 37 +0 Stormbringer Dan Nabutovsky 147 1133 >11 42/ 43/ 14 Sucker 5 Stefan Strack 141 997 >Congratulations to Nandor Sieben and (by the time you read this) Stefan >Strack, whose It and Sucker 5 warriors, respectively, passed 1000 challenges. > _PUSH OFF_ > A midweek review of Corewar > April 14, 1993 >Last week this newsletter reported the premature demise of W. Sheppard's >Night warrior, the first of several long-standing imp-stone programs to >fall of the Hill in months. Well, Mr. Sheppard did not take that kindly, >no-siree-bob! He has unleashed a series of new fighters in what can only >be called "The Week of Wayne's Weveange!". Cover your eyes children :-) >First to fall victim to Wayne's attack was S. Strack's much-emulated >Sucker 5, at the ripe old age of 1261. We all remember that Sucker 4 >fell off the Hill just before making 1000 (when imps reappeared), so >we could almost consider this an effective age of over 2000 -- almost! >Course it didn't take long for Sucker 6 to appear and stake out a claim, >(though it's not riding as high as it used to). >Wayne's second victim was N. Sieben's mysterious 'It', another imp-stone >program of long-standing (1282). Many times It seemed to be up when >other imps were down and down when others were up. Just recently, It >was sharing the top 5 with four scanners. But an unfortunate combination >of opponents, and a determined Sheppard-attack was all-she-wrote for It. >No telling yet how successful the new version of It will be :-). >Not content to just knock fighters off of KotH, Wayne released his >own stone-imp program, Night Crawler. Studying all those opponents >must have given him an idea, 'cause NC is sitting pretty on top of the >Hill. On top of that, his Iron Gate made 1000 just in time for this >edition (hey, even electronic newsletters have lead times :-) >D. Nabutovsky's +0 Stormbringer now has a 400+ lead in the >geriatrics competition and still looks tough. >Congrats to W. Mintardjo, whose Sphinx v2.8 has now passed 1000 challenges. > _PUSH OFF_ > A midweek review of Corewar > April 21, 1993 >For the old, a big round of applause to +0 Stormbringer which passed 1500, >and also to A. Ivner whose Leprechaun 1b has joined the over-1000 ranks >(the over-the-hill gang? :-) > _PUSH OFF_ > A midweek review of Corewar > April 29, 1993 >Another member of the OverTheHill Gang was pushed off the Hill this week - >W. Sheppard's Iron Gate program which had some success against the imps >was pushed off at the ripe old age of 1089. That leaves just three members >of the OTH Gang: +0 Stormbringer, Leprechaun 1b, and Sphinx v2.8. > _PUSH OFF_ > A midweek review of Corewar > May 19, 1993 > 1778 - 1778 - 1778 - 1778 - 1778 - 1778 - 1778 - 1778 - 1778 - 1778 >That's the magic number! +0 Stormbringer's stand as longest-running >warrior is finally over. Dan Nabutovsky's record-setting program withstood >1778 changes in the Hill, not to mention two or three thousand unsuccessful >attempts. > _PUSH OFF_ > A midweek review of Corewar > June 8, 1993 >King of the Hill enthusiasts were successful in knocking off two more >long-standing warriors, Leprechaun 1b by A. Ivner, and Sucker 5 by >S. Strack. Leprechaun 1b's age of 1453 has been succeeded only by >+0 Stormbringer and Sphinx v2.8. >Some drop off, and some rise like good cream to the top. This week >Imprimis 6 passed the 1000-challenge barrier. Kudos to - well - me! > _PUSH OFF_ > A midweek review of Corewar > June 22, 1993 >15 32/ 26/ 42 Sphinx v2.8 W. Mintardjo 139 1762 >Well, Sphinx v2.8 has probably set a new record for duration on KotH by >the time you read this. Congratulations! How high can he go? Sphinx v2.8 was, if I remember correctly, not pushed off until after more than 2000 challenges. Also, Imprimis 6 survived more than 1500 challenges. (correct me if I'm wrong, Paul) Thus, the over-1000-list looks something like: 1. Sphinx v2.8 W. Mintardjo +2000 2. +0 Stormbringer Dan Nabutovsky 1778 3. imprimis 6 Paul Kline +1500 4. Leprechaun 1b Anders Ivner 1453 5. It Nandor Sieben 1282 6. Sucker5 Stefan Strack 1261 /Anders From: rwillia2@csc.com (Ross Williams) Subject: Re: This group makes prime time Date: 1995/10/04 Message-ID: <44u95k$1cj@explorer.csc.com>#1/1 references: <44ruv7$h7a@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> <44sjl5$2r5@CUBoulder.Colorado.EDU> newsgroups: rec.org.mensa,alt.binaries.pictures.erotica,rec.arts.startrek.fandom,rec.games.corewar Mitton Ken (mittonk@ucsu.colorado.edu) wrote: : Erotica and StarTrek, I can understand... but CoreWar and MENSA? : I can believe that some of the animators (maybe even Mr. Matt) could : go for a little pseudo-virus programming, but a newsgroup devoted : to a society for exceedingly high-IQ point people? A possible future : storyline: Comic Store Owner Smartest Man in World? ;) >>ahem<< I am Mensan, and have even less ambition than comicbook store owner. I challenge you. Quick, Blake, my sliderule! -rw (I will best you with logs) From: bakslash@ix.netcom.com (Arthur Levesque ) Subject: Re: This group makes prime time Date: 1995/10/04 Message-ID: <44u238$q94@ixnews4.ix.netcom.com>#1/1 references: <44ruv7$h7a@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> <44s0km$88n@jaguar.convex.com> newsgroups: rec.org.mensa,alt.binaries.pictures.erotica,rec.arts.startrek.fandom,rec.games.corewar edp@math.zk3.dec.com (Eric Postpischil) writes: >>In a recent episode of The Simpsons, Bart asked a comic store >>proprietor for some information about radioactiveman, whereupon the >>proprietor went into the back room and typed "readnews" on a >>computer. The list of news groups was, in addition to >>alt.comics.radioactiveman: [list snipped] barnett@news.eng.convex.com (Paul Barnett) writes: >I used to get a log of the newgroup messages sent out by everyone and >their brother, but not anymore -- has anyone actually created the >alt.comics.radioactiveman newsgroup yet? Not as far as Netcom is concerned... From: rognlie@lute.gcr.com (Richard W. Rognlie) Subject: Richard's C++Robots Server -- Monthly Post Date: 1995/10/04 Message-ID: <44u5du$bpa@ukelele.qnet.com> newsgroups: rec.games.programmer,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,rec.games.corewar,comp.ai.games,comp.programming.contests Richard's C++Robots Server Monthly Posting A generic Play-By-eMail Server has been set up at pbmserv@vtsu.prc.com. It currently supports a variety of games. Of particular interest to this forum is C++Robots. Abalone Ataxx Backgammon C++Robots Connect4 Connect4x4 Gomoku Hex Jungle Lines-of-Action Neutron Othello Pente Philosopher's Football Plotto Qubic Score4 Survival Tanbo & Tanbo3D Terrace Trax & StdTrax Twixt To get more information send mail to pbmserv@vtsu.prc.com with 'help' as the subject line. Or connect to my WWW page at: http://140.188.198.26:8080/~pbmserv Games Currently Supported C++Robots (Copyright (c) 1994 Richard Rognlie) An ongoing "King of the Hill" (KotH) tournament in which players use ANSI C or C++ to create a control program for a robot. Your robot then fights each of the other robots "on the hill". If you do well enough, your robot will "make the hill", bumping the lowest robot from the hill. Robots have the ability to scan for opponents, fire a cannon, move, and determine current position and status. Conceptually based on C-Robots written for the IBM PC by Tom Pointdexter. Abalone On a hexagonal board (radius 5) two to six players have armies of marbles. Players take turns "pushing" 1, 2 or 3 linearly connected marbles, attempting to push their opponents' marbles off the board. Ataxx On a 7x7 board, the two players of ataxx fight to controll a majority of the board via growth and jumps that flip opponents pieces to their color. Backgammon A classic. Connect4 On a 7x6 board, two players alternate dropping their pieces from the top of the board, down a column, attempting to form four in a row. Connect4x4 On an 8x8 board, two players alternate inserting their pieces from the edges of the board, across a row or up/down a column, attempting to form four in a row. Gomoku On a 15x15 board, the two players of gomoku try to be the first to create a line of 5 or more stones in a row of their color. Hex On a 11x11 diamond board, players take turns placing stones of their color on the board. The object is to connect your sides of the board while preventing your opponent from doing the same. Jungle Jungle is sort of a cross between Chinese chess and Stratego. It's popular in China as a children's "stepping-stone" to Chinese chess. It's also an interesting game in its own right. Lines-of-Action The object of the game is to move all your pieces into a configuration where they are in a single group connected horizontal, vertically, or diagonally. Pieces may move horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, but they must move exactly the number of spaces as there are pieces on the row they are moving in. You may not jump over opponent's pieces, nor may you land on your own piece. If you land on an opponent's piece, it is captured and removed from the game. Neutron (Copyright (c) 1978 Charles Wetherell) On a 5x5 board, the two players of neutron fight to either move the neutron to their back row or trap it so the opponent cannot move it. The winner is the player who is able to trap the neutron or gets the neutron to his or her own back row. It does not matter if it is your opponent who moves the neutron to your back row -- you still win. Othello (Copyright (c) 1973,1990 Pressman Toy Co.) On a 8x8 board, the two players of othello fight to control the majority of the board by outflanking and flipping their opponents pieces. Pente On a 19x19 board, the two players of pente try to be the first to create a line of 5 or more stones in a row of their color *or* try to capture 5 pairs of their opponents stones. You capture a pair of stones any time you sandwich the stones between a pair of your stones. Philosopher's Football On a 19x19 board, players take turns either adding men to the field, or moving the football. The football moves by jumping lines of adjacent men (and removing them from the board). The object is to move the football to (or past) your goal line. Plotto (Copyright (c) 1995 David Smith) The players take turns placing one hex shaped piece in turn onto an open space (no board). Pieces are numbered either 1, 2, 3 or 4 and you may play a piece of any number at each turn. The object is to place a pair of pieces with your number in a straight line with two pieces in between. Qubic On a 4x4x4 grid, two players alternate placing their pieces, attempting to form four in a row in any direction. Score4 On a 4x4 grid of pegs, two players alternate dropping their pieces from the top of a peg, down a column, attempting to form four in a row in any direction. Survival (Copyright (c) 1995 David Smith)) Survival is played on a hexagonal board made up of 19 numbered hexagons. Two players take turns placing pieces on the board with the "arrow" of the piece dictating the direction in which the next piece played by that player must be played. The first player who can not move loses the game. Tanbo & Tanbo3d (Copyright (c) 1995 Mark Steere) Played on a Go board, Tanbo crudely models a system of plant roots. Roots which are growing, competing for space, and dying. In beginner play, the roots grow much as the roots in a garden. Over time, the roots become shrewd and calculating. To win, a player must eliminate all eight of his opponent's roots. One player will always win. It's impossible to repeat a board configuration in Tanbo. Therefore a game cannot result in a draw. Tanbo3d extends the game of Tanbo into three dimensions. Terrace (Copyright (c) 1995 by Siler/Siler Ventures. All Rights Reserved) Terrace is played on an 8x8 board consisting of 16 'L' shaped terraces. Two corners of the board are "High" and the other corners are "Low". Each player has pieces of 4 sizes ('A', 'B', 'C' and 'D'). 'A' pieces are the smallest, 'D' pieces are the largest. 'T' pieces are the same size as 'A' pieces and are each player's "key" piece. The object of the game is to capture your opponent's "T" or move your "T" to the lowest square on your opponent's side of the board. Trax & StdTrax (Copyright (c) 1983 David Smith) Trax is a game played with square tiles. Each tile is identical to all other tiles, one side has a white line connecting opposite edges and a black line connecting the other edges, and the other side has a white line connecting 2 adjacent edges and a black line connecting the other edges. The object of the game is to create a loop of your color while preventing your opponent from doing the same. An alternate winning condition is to create a line extending from one edge of the board to the opposite edge of the board when the board is at least 8 tiles wide (or tall). StdTrax limits the board to an 8x8 area. Normal Trax allows to board to grow to whatever size is necessary. Normal Trax is also known as SuperTrax. TwixT (Copyright (c) Avalon Hill) On a 24x24 board, players take turns placing pegs of their color on the board. Any time a peg is placed a "knight's move" from another peg of the same color, a strut is placed, connecting them. A strut can not cross over (through) another strut. The object is to connect your sides of the board while preventing your opponent from doing the same. -- /\/\/\ | Richard Rognlie / Pr. Computer Analyst / PRC Inc. / McLean, VA / \ \ \ | E-Mail: rrognlie@qnet.com rrognlie@vtsu.prc.com \ / / / | Phone: (Home) (703) 361-4764 (Office) (703) 556-2458 \/\/\/ | (Fax) (703) 556-1174 From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: No Subject Date: 1995/10/04 Message-ID: <44t3tl$ff1@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <199510032238.XAA04257@iol-mail.iol.it> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >>Wow, Agony II finally bit the dust, at the ripe old age of 912. >> >>Am I correct in assuming that it achieved some sort of honorary >>record or something for the oldest death? >> > >No you are wrong. My spirits have been crushed. :( >14-8-95 Iron Gate 1.5 died at the venerable age of 926 > >I think that this is -94 hill record. I don't know if some warrior managed >to pass 1000 in the 88 hill. Hmmm... that's old. :) -- -John K. Wilkinson- From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: 80 line limit at pizza? Date: 1995/10/04 Message-ID: <44t3r2$ff1@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <9510031750.AA16456@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >>Is there an 80 column wide text limit on the warriors the you send to Pizza? > >No, the pMARS assembler accepts lines up to 255 chars long, and my comments >frequently extend past column 80. Either the auto-wrap feature of your >word processor or some misbehaving mail gateway between you and pizza must be >at fault. > >-Stefan Hmmm... that's odd. Well, I know my eudora doesn't chop lines... And I've seny mail wider than 80... I don't know, maybe it's utexas' fault. -- -John K. Wilkinson- From: tuc@news.stormking.com (Scott J. Ellentuch) Subject: Re: STORMKING - Maint Date: 1995/10/04 Message-ID: <44sqr6$hcj@valhalla.stormking.com>#1/1 references: <44scq6$jlt@valhalla.stormking.com> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Scott J. Ellentuch (tuc@news.stormking.com) wrote: : Hi, : Until midnight on October 3rd, SKI-ICWS will be down for maint. : You can still check the results as well as see your warrior waiting on : the hill. We finished up a little early. A user reported a problem with the hills reporting of the scores which we needed to investigate and fix. Thanks to those involved, we are up and accepting warriors. Remember, we are now running 250 battles on the ;redcode , ;redcode-icws and ;redcode-94xm hills and 500 on the redcode-94m hill. Tuc -- * --- --- |Scott J. Ellentuch, Pres | The Telecom Security Group * * | | | |Comm. and Comp. Security | (Storm King family of Companies) * * | |__|__ |Consultants and Engineers | P.O. Box 69, Newburgh, NY 12551 * From: bremermr@elsun387.cc.purdue.edu (Myer R. Bremer) Subject: Re: No Subject Date: 1995/10/04 Message-ID: <44sir2$qqs@mozo.cc.purdue.edu>#1/1 references: <199510032238.XAA04257@iol-mail.iol.it> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar In article <199510032238.XAA04257@iol-mail.iol.it>, Beppe Bezzi wrote: >>Wow, Agony II finally bit the dust, at the ripe old age of 912. >> >>Am I correct in assuming that it achieved some sort of honorary >>record or something for the oldest death? >> > >No you are wrong. >14-8-95 Iron Gate 1.5 died at the venerable age of 926 > >I think that this is -94 hill record. I don't know if some warrior managed >to pass 1000 in the 88 hill. > Greetings. I followed corewar for quite some time before I actually started playing. I do recall an imp/stone warrior named +0 Stormbringer that lived way over 1000 successful challenges. Over 1500 I think. The number was 17xx or something similar if I can recall. A decent history of the game can be found at the archive site in the Push Off documents and the 94 Warrior. I wish someone would write something similar for today's game. Regards. From: mittonk@ucsu.colorado.edu (Mitton Ken) Subject: Re: This group makes prime time Date: 1995/10/04 Message-ID: <44sjl5$2r5@CUBoulder.Colorado.EDU>#1/1 references: <44ruv7$h7a@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> newsgroups: rec.org.mensa,alt.binaries.pictures.erotica,rec.arts.startrek.fandom,rec.games.corewar Erotica and StarTrek, I can understand... but CoreWar and MENSA? I can believe that some of the animators (maybe even Mr. Matt) could go for a little pseudo-virus programming, but a newsgroup devoted to a society for exceedingly high-IQ point people? A possible future storyline: Comic Store Owner Smartest Man in World? ;) --Ken Mitton mittonk@colorado.edu http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~mittonk/ PGP KeyID: BAB3CF0D From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: Re No Subject Date: 1995/10/04 Message-ID: <199510041539.QAA11422@iol-mail.iol.it>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Myer R. Bremer wrote: >A decent history of the game can be found at the archive site in >the Push Off documents and the 94 Warrior. I wish someone would >write something similar for today's game. > I whish too; great part of what I know of this game comes from Push Off and 94 Warrior. Writing a newsletter on regular weekly base in sure a burden, may be we can revive something similar with a sort of teamwork or rotation, writing one once every four or five weeks can be amusing, newcomer can profit of it and we can keep a written history of what's happening. -Beppe Bezzi From: rwillia2@csc.com (Ross Williams) Subject: Re: This group makes prime time Date: 1995/10/04 Message-ID: <44uhra$hng@explorer.csc.com>#1/1 references: <44ruv7$h7a@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> <44sjl5$2r5@CUBoulder.Colorado.EDU> <44te2m$nto@noc.usfca.edu> newsgroups: rec.org.mensa,alt.binaries.pictures.erotica,rec.arts.startrek.fandom,rec.games.corewar Nicholas M. Moffitt (nmoffitt@cs.usfca.edu) wrote: : Mitton Ken (mittonk@ucsu.colorado.edu) wrote: : : Erotica and StarTrek, I can understand... but CoreWar and MENSA? : : I can believe that some of the animators (maybe even Mr. Matt) could : : go for a little pseudo-virus programming, but a newsgroup devoted : : to a society for exceedingly high-IQ point people? A possible future : : storyline: Comic Store Owner Smartest Man in World? ;) : Perhaps you mean "Smuggest" : : MENSA is, and always has been, a joke. Couldn't get in, eh? -rw (use a bigger bribe, next time) From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: Re: Ideas? Date: 1995/10/05 Message-ID: <199510052208.XAA25493@iol-mail.iol.it>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar At 15.45 05/10/95 -0400, you wrote: > Well, this is one of my first attempts to get something on the >beginner hill... Any ideas on how to improve on it would be greatly >appreciated (I'm sure there's tons :).. > Your program, three bombers working in parallel if I understood well, has a *serious* bug that now I'll try to explain: >;redcode-b >;name Jezebel v2.0 >;author A. Nevermind >;assert 1 > >[equ removed, irrilevant for the problem] b1c dat 690 b2c dat 1400 >org start > >b1 spl 0, <4 ; slow down >b2 jmp 0 ; paralyze >b3 dat 0 ; and kill > >start spl b2run, <1000 > spl b3run, <2000 > > >b1run add i1, l1 > mov b1, @l1 > jmn -2, spl 0, <-40 > spl -1, <-41 > dat 0 To decrement b1c you have to use: djn.b b1run, blc This decrements the b-field of blc jumping to b1run if not zero. Or, better more, you can save a line djn.b b1run, #690 This one decrements it own b-field and jumps when zero -Beppe Bezzi Gaudeamus igitur ... From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: Re: Hint of the week Date: 1995/10/05 Message-ID: <199510051437.PAA21951@iol-mail.iol.it>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Anders Ivner wote: >Don't submit a warrior without ;name or ;author lines. There does not >appear to be any way to ;kill it :-( >Just ";kill" is supposed to kill ALL your warriors, but somehow "Unknown >by Anonymous" is not affected. > That's good to know, you can kill all warriors because none has still aged, think if you had some warrior aging some hundreds. Two other little things about ;kill I noted that a double ;kill line kills only the first one mentioned and that ;kill seems to be case sensitive. >/Anders > -Beppe > >BTW, I agree that some sort of new pushoff would be nice, and the rotating >schedule idea sounds good. Sign me up. Who manages the archive? I launched the idea so sign me too; another one and we can start, others will add later, I hope. What do you mean for manage the archive ? From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: Re: This group makes prime time Date: 1995/10/05 Message-ID: <199510051105.MAA20230@iol-mail.iol.it>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >In a recent episode of The Simpsons, ... > [stuff removed] > rec.games.corewar > Bah... we are famous now. What's sure it's that the newgroup has gained a lot of lurkers, hi, and of -not-corewar-related- posting. Just hope we gain some new players. For all the newcomers; FAQs are at: http://www.stormking.com/~koth/corewar-faq.html give a look and enjoy. -Beppe Bezzi Gaudeamus igitur ... From: pk6811s@acad.drake.edu Subject: _Push Off_ (2/9/94 Reprint) Date: 1995/10/05 Message-ID: <1995Oct5.160430@acad.drake.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Here is a sample Push Off for those who missed them. I didn't retain copies, but did combine many of the Hint sections and posted them as pshff01.txt at ftp.csua.berkeley.edu in the pub/corewar/documents directory. Part of the problem I ran into was the expansion to multiple hills, and the need to cover them. The format just didn't seem flexible enough, and I didn't have time to keep up on them all. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _PUSH OFF_ A midweek review of Corewar February 9, 1994 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. The Standings: # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 46/ 37/ 17 SJ-4a J.Layland 154 108 2 37/ 26/ 37 Match Stick c w blue 149 86 3 46/ 44/ 10 Iron Gate 1.1 Wayne Sheppard 148 71 4 44/ 40/ 16 Blitzkrieg Mike Nonemacher 148 101 5 41/ 35/ 24 Winter Werewolf 3 W. Mintardjo 148 917 6 42/ 37/ 22 Christopher Steven Morrell 147 11 7 45/ 44/ 10 Medusa's v5.1 W. Mintardjo 146 111 8 34/ 27/ 39 NC decoy Wayne Sheppard 141 192 9 33/ 26/ 41 Killer instinct Anders Ivner 140 171 10 38/ 36/ 27 Genocide Mike Nonemacher 140 3 11 30/ 20/ 50 Cannonade P.Kline 140 180 12 28/ 17/ 54 test t6 P.Kline 140 1 13 41/ 44/ 14 test-tw Fredrik Ohrstrom 139 75 14 37/ 38/ 25 Clown v8.1 P.E.M & E.C 136 190 15 30/ 24/ 46 Imprimis 7 P.Kline 136 839 16 27/ 19/ 54 ttti nandor sieben 136 187 17 36/ 36/ 28 Double V1.1 P.E.M & E.C 135 8 18 27/ 19/ 54 Walk Between the Raindrop Mike Nonemacher 134 44 19 34/ 37/ 30 Keystone t13 P.Kline 131 446 20 25/ 22/ 53 test Mike Nonemacher 128 2 21 2/ 98/ 0 looking P.Kline 7 0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- II. The Basics: -Core War Archives, including many helpful articles, warrior source code, and reliable emulators, are available via anonymous FTP at soda.berkeley.edu in pub/corewar. -FAQ for this newsgroup is available via anonymous FTP at rtfm.mit.edu as pub/usenet/news.answers/games/corewar-faq.z ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- III. The Scoop: This week's standings show J. Layland's remarkable SJ-4a program on top of the Hill. Layland has combined a 3-line bomber and b-scanner into a very strong competitor. That and a 2-pass spl/dat core clear are putting the heat on some excellent warriors. S. Morrell has challenged us with a new vampire (the only one on KotH to my knowledge). "Throw your best anti-vamp against it" he says :-) Thought we killed those guys off for good, but no, they just wait for a full moon and rise up again. Then there is the mysterious Match Stick which when last published was a paper designed to overtake other paper as well as imps and stones. Somewhere in the last weeks Match Stick took a big jump toward the top of KotH and has stayed in the top 5 or so ever since. Any suggestions for the rest of us, CW? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IV. The Outlook: 4 35/ 28/ 37 Match Stick c w blue 141 1 5 39/ 34/ 27 Double V1.1 P.E.M & E.C 143 1 6 39/ 38/ 23 Christopher Steven Morrell 139 1 6 40/ 37/ 22 Six Counts of Genocide v2 Mike Nonemacher 144 1 7 38/ 39/ 24 Genocide Mike Nonemacher 136 1 9 27/ 20/ 53 Walk Between the Raindrop Mike Nonemacher 134 1 12 38/ 41/ 21 My wife is pregnant! Steven Morrell 136 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- V. The Quick Look: 19 14/ 39/ 47 Chaos v2! Gil Richard 89 1 20 17/ 45/ 38 Multibom Gil Richard 90 1 20 23/ 59/ 18 Smartbomb 4.1 Devin Kilminster 87 1 21 0/ 45/ 55 wipe-me Richard 55 0 21 5/ 61/ 34 ImpBuster Gil Richard 50 0 21 5/ 80/ 15 Smartbomber Gil Richard 29 0 21 7/ 88/ 5 The Full-Auto Hopsplat Gu Gil Richard 26 0 21 8/ 75/ 17 Clamp Gil Richard 40 0 21 12/ 81/ 7 Tank Mark Tuempfel 43 0 21 13/ 73/ 14 A Dwarf Gil Richard 53 0 21 13/ 85/ 2 xxx AMP 42 0 21 13/ 86/ 1 NO3 AMP 40 0 21 14/ 78/ 9 cascade 1 Steve Gunnell 49 0 21 29/ 33/ 38 Yop La Boum v2.2 P.E.M & E.C 124 0 21 30/ 52/ 18 Looks Like Lines to Me Steven Morrell 107 0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VI. The Hint: More and more fighters are going to a 2-pass spl/dat core-clear, filling the entire core with spl-zero then wiping it with dat's. Of the warriors on KotH: SJ-4a, Winter Werewolf 3, and Blitzkrieg all claim to be using a double core-clear (tho' maybe that's what S. Morrell means by "my sister-in-law is having twins" :-). And these are proving to be some very tough hombres. Here is one way to set up a spl/dat core-clear: db dat #1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Well, this is one of my first attempts to get something on the beginner hill... Any ideas on how to improve on it would be greatly appreciated (I'm sure there's tons :).. ;redcode-b ;name Jezebel v2.0 ;author A. Nevermind ;assert 1 i1 equ 20 ; bombing interval i2 equ 10 i3 equ 1 b1c dat 690 b2c dat 1400 l1 dat 100 l2 dat 100 l3 dat 100 org start b1 spl 0, <4 ; slow down b2 jmp 0 ; paralyze b3 dat 0 ; and kill start spl b2run, <1000 spl b3run, <2000 b1run add i1, l1 mov b1, @l1 jmn -2, l3 imp mov 0,1 -- -[ "It doesn't matter what I say, as long I sing with inflection."-J.Popper -[ Finger for PGP key | Mmmmmmmmmmmm... Doughhhhhnuts! ]- -["I'm told it [superstition] works whether you believe in it or not. " ]- -[ --N. Bohr ]- From: ccb8m@viper.cs.Virginia.EDU (Charles C. Bundy) Subject: Re: RedGen Source - Evolving Corewar Warriors Date: 1995/10/05 Message-ID: #1/1 references: <446v1r$6p0@hermes.cair.du.edu> <44c5n4$dhu@hermes.cair.du.edu> newsgroups: comp.ai.alife,rec.games.corewar In article <44c5n4$dhu@hermes.cair.du.edu> ruhl@phoebe.cair.du.edu (Robert A. Uhl) writes: >In article , >Erik Max Francis wrote: >> >>Ahem! There's a world of difference between shareware (or even >>freeware!) and public domain. > > But if the compiler company allows shareware, which costs, then what >would it have against PD, which is free, or freeware? PD does not >mean program modifiable, but modification of resources (with a Mac, a Public Domain does indeed mean "program modifiable" It means the author gives up all rights to a piece of work and that work is in the Public Domain. Freeware means "I retain copyright of the work with these exceptions ... one of which is no one may charge another for this work with the exception of duplication material fees" CONTRAST: A work which is in the public domain can be sold by a third party and they make a fortune and you have no legal recourse. Shareware means "Freely distribute, Use under restriction (usually time, often lack of features) Pay me if it is worth something to you or you want added value (IE docs, support, full features, etc)." Very similar to Freeware with the "distribution clause" but the author expects payment. Read the shareware clause carefully, if they are temporally based authors may take legal actions since time utilized is often easy to prove before a court. The reality is shareware authors don't have much chance in court even with temporal restrictions :(. Charles ccb8m@virginia.edu From: sieben@imap1.asu.edu Subject: Re: (no subject) Date: 1995/10/05 Message-ID: <44vpp9$8ai@news.asu.edu>#1/1 references: <44s4fv$m90@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar John K. W. (jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu) wrote: : Wow, Agony II finally bit the dust, at the ripe old age of 912. : Am I correct in assuming that it achieved some sort of honorary : record or something for the oldest death? No. There were many warriors above 1000. Nandor. From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: Re No Subject Date: 1995/10/05 Message-ID: <44vmsc$c7n@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <199510041539.QAA11422@iol-mail.iol.it> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Where can I get those Push Off things? I'd like to read more about Corewar history... I love knowing about the present stage, and extrapolating back to what brought things to where they are... that's always cool. :) -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu (Stefan Strack) Subject: NSFCWT - Rules for Round 1 Date: 1995/10/06 Message-ID: <9510070026.AA18315@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar **************************************************** * NSFCWT: Rules for round 1 * **************************************************** Submit one warrior that does well in both one-on-one combats and multi-warrior play. Your warrior will participate in two battles: 1) a round-robin involving all warriors including self-fights (like the standard hills) 2) a multi-warrior battle where all warriors fight at the same time (like the multi-warrior hills) At least 100 rounds are played for both round-robin and multi-warrior battles. The score for this round is calculated using the average of the two ranks; i.e. if your warrior finishes #1 in one battle, and #5 in the other, the average rank is 3. Use of the predefined constant WARRIORS is not allowed, since this would take the challenge out of this round. We will however not check for unique PIN numbers (hint, hint). Core size, max. processes, ICWS'94 dialect etc. are those of the redcode-94 and redcode-94m hills. Mail your warrior to Stefan.Strack@vanderbilt.edu by Friday, Oct. 13, 20:00 CST. You sign up for the entire NSFCWT by submitting your first round warrior; the tournament is limited to 36 players on a first come basis. Happy redcoding, Nandor & Stefan From: stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu (Stefan Strack) Subject: Re: newsletter Date: 1995/10/06 Message-ID: <9510061851.AA17895@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar I think it'd be great to revive something like Push Off/'94 Warrior. The hill coverage wouldn't need to be extensive, since both Tuc and Thos are posting hill standings on a weekly basis. The editor(s) would mainly need to get people to contribute articles. Hey, we'll even give you something to write about: Nandor and I are about to announce another tournament with weekly rounds (if you've been around core war long enough, you'll remember my double- elimination tourneys in 93 and Michael Constant's "no-elimination" tourney in 94). -Stefan From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: Re: newsletter Date: 1995/10/06 Message-ID: <199510061929.UAA02039@iol-mail.iol.it>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Myer R. Bremer wrote: >Greetings. > >Covering all the multiple hills would take too much effort. >I think the newsletter should concentrate on the hills with >the most volume. I look at all the hills from time to time >and it seems most of them are relatively static compared to >the 94 draft hill and the beginner's hill. Coverage of those >two should satisfy almost everybody. Although I'm clueless on >what's happening on the 94b hill, I believe coverage of that hill >will encourage newcomers. A little recognition goes a long >way . . . > I agree, most hills have no movement at all or very little compared to -94 and -b; we can cover mainly the -94 showing standings, new entries, main changes veteran's departure, and the beginners hill maybe sending one of main hill warriors, killing it soon, to check the general level, and hoping he scores to the top :-) Most important are hints and technical discussions, should be good to publish a warrior every week with author's comment; I published two short time ago, but there are a lot of unpublished warriors on the hill. >BTW. I've been generally unsatisfied with the code I'm generating >so I've decided not to submit anything until I come up with something >NEW AND EXCITING to thrash all of you. :) > Hope to see you soon. >M R Bremer > > -Beppe Bezzi From: Virginia Krenn Subject: Re: This group makes prime time Date: 1995/10/06 Message-ID: #1/1 references: <44ruv7$h7a@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> newsgroups: rec.org.mensa,alt.binaries.pictures.erotica,rec.arts.startrek.fandom,rec.games.corewar On 3 Oct 1995, Eric Postpischil wrote: > In a recent episode of The Simpsons, Bart asked a comic store proprietor > for some information about radioactiveman, whereupon the proprietor went > into the back room and typed "readnews" on a computer. The list of news > groups was, in addition to alt.comics.radioactiveman: > alt.binaries.pictures.erotica > rec.arts.startrek.fandom > rec.org.mensa > rec.games.corewar Those five newsgroups appeared on the screen; but, he *said* he was looking for alt.nerd.obsessive. By the way, he was an extremely unflattering caricature. Do any of you know of a Simpsons newsgroup or E-Mail address? From: bremermr@cartoon.ecn.purdue.edu (Myer R. Bremer) Subject: newsletter Date: 1995/10/06 Message-ID: <453i34$bm7@mozo.cc.purdue.edu>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Greetings. Covering all the multiple hills would take too much effort. I think the newsletter should concentrate on the hills with the most volume. I look at all the hills from time to time and it seems most of them are relatively static compared to the 94 draft hill and the beginner's hill. Coverage of those two should satisfy almost everybody. Although I'm clueless on what's happening on the 94b hill, I believe coverage of that hill will encourage newcomers. A little recognition goes a long way . . . BTW. I've been generally unsatisfied with the code I'm generating so I've decided not to submit anything until I come up with something NEW AND EXCITING to thrash all of you. :) M R Bremer From: md@goodnet.com (Mike Denton) Subject: How to Get Free Cable Premium TV .. LEGIT Date: 1995/10/07 Message-ID: #1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar First I want to say I am sorry that this has nothing to do with the topic of this group. You may see this message in other newsgroups, the reason is I am subscribed to those too so please don't flame me. I have been posting and reading to this group for a while. I just wanted to let you people out know there is a way to get Cable TV for FREE. I recieve this letter in the mail from a friend that had told me it works. I gave this to one of my friends and he had free cable in his house within 20 mins. I have not tried this method yet but may soon try if my cable goes up in price. If anyone would like a copy send the following to the address below. Address Envelope to: FreeStuff 9393 N. 90th St. Suite 102-289 Scottsdale, AZ 85258 Enclose in the envelope: Send... $1.00 U.S MONEY *** NO COINS *** NO CHECKS *** inside a sheet of carbon paper or construction paper, and send a *self-addressed*,*stamped* envelope to the address above. Thanxs, Just think if you pay 30$ + a month. 1$ will save you 359 + dollars a year. From: gmark@ripco.com (Gmark) Subject: Re: This group makes prime time Date: 1995/10/07 Message-ID: #1/1 references: <44ruv7$h7a@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> <44sjl5$2r5@CUBoulder.Colorado.EDU> <44te2m$nto@noc.usfca.edu> newsgroups: rec.org.mensa,alt.binaries.pictures.erotica,rec.arts.startrek.fandom,rec.games.corewar Nicholas M. Moffitt (nmoffitt@cs.usfca.edu) wrote: : Mitton Ken (mittonk@ucsu.colorado.edu) wrote: : : Erotica and StarTrek, I can understand... but CoreWar and MENSA? : : I can believe that some of the animators (maybe even Mr. Matt) could : : go for a little pseudo-virus programming, but a newsgroup devoted : : to a society for exceedingly high-IQ point people? A possible future : : storyline: Comic Store Owner Smartest Man in World? ;) : Perhaps you mean "Smuggest" : : MENSA is, and always has been, a joke. Whose punchline we will not explain to you, Nick. GM("With a Name Like 'Smugger', I've Got to be Good")S From: steiner@best.com (Michelle Anne Steiner) Subject: Re: This group makes prime time Date: 1995/10/07 Message-ID: #1/1 references: <44ruv7$h7a@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> <44sjl5$2r5@CUBoulder.Colorado.EDU> <44te2m$nto@noc.usfca.edu> <454rth$2tm@news.sas.ab.ca> <4564oc$1r8@news-rocq.inria.fr> newsgroups: rec.org.mensa,alt.binaries.pictures.erotica,rec.arts.startrek.fandom,rec.games.corewar In Article <4564oc$1r8@news-rocq.inria.fr>, Planar wrote: >>Nicholas M. Moffitt (nmoffitt@cs.usfca.edu) wrote: >>: MENSA is, and always has been, a joke. > >>From: jatzeck@fn1.freenet.edmonton.ab.ca () >>Oh, dear, another one who didn't pass the test.... > >>From: Reg Harbeck >>...where nerds, geeks, and eggheads get the last laugh... > >>From: gmark@ripco.com (Gmark) >>Whose punchline we will not explain to you, Nick. > >All of this cross-posted to a bunch of irrelevant newsgroups. And >not even one creative or humourous flame. IMHO, this shows clearly >that mensans can be as dense as anyone else. I've noticed that those who flame Mensa lack creativity and humor. They also don't recognize it, so we don't waste it in our replies to them. >Gentlemen, please kill this thread right now. What about us women? BTW, you could have helped kill it by not replying to it. Perhaps you should take your own advice. -- They say there are strangers, who threaten us In our immigrants and infidels They say there is strangeness, too dangerous In our theatres and bookstore shelves Those who know what's best for us - Must rise and save us from ourselves. -- "Witch Hunt" by Neil Peart --Michelle Anne Steiner (steiner@best.com) From: jatzeck@fn1.freenet.edmonton.ab.ca () Subject: Re: This group makes prime time Date: 1995/10/07 Message-ID: <454rth$2tm@news.sas.ab.ca>#1/1 references: <44ruv7$h7a@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> <44sjl5$2r5@CUBoulder.Colorado.EDU> <44te2m$nto@noc.usfca.edu> newsgroups: rec.org.mensa,alt.binaries.pictures.erotica,rec.arts.startrek.fandom,rec.games.corewar Nicholas M. Moffitt (nmoffitt@cs.usfca.edu) wrote: : Mitton Ken (mittonk@ucsu.colorado.edu) wrote: : : Erotica and StarTrek, I can understand... but CoreWar and MENSA? : : I can believe that some of the animators (maybe even Mr. Matt) could : : go for a little pseudo-virus programming, but a newsgroup devoted : : to a society for exceedingly high-IQ point people? A possible future : : storyline: Comic Store Owner Smartest Man in World? ;) : Perhaps you mean "Smuggest" : : MENSA is, and always has been, a joke. Oh, dear, another one who didn't pass the test.... -- ******************************************************************************* * * * Bernhard Michael Jatzeck email: jatzeck@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca * * * ******************************************************************************* From: Planar Subject: Re: This group makes prime time Date: 1995/10/07 Message-ID: <4564oc$1r8@news-rocq.inria.fr>#1/1 references: <44ruv7$h7a@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> <44sjl5$2r5@CUBoulder.Colorado.EDU> <44te2m$nto@noc.usfca.edu> <454rth$2tm@news.sas.ab.ca> newsgroups: rec.org.mensa,alt.binaries.pictures.erotica,rec.arts.startrek.fandom,rec.games.corewar >Nicholas M. Moffitt (nmoffitt@cs.usfca.edu) wrote: >: MENSA is, and always has been, a joke. >From: jatzeck@fn1.freenet.edmonton.ab.ca () >Oh, dear, another one who didn't pass the test.... >From: Reg Harbeck >...where nerds, geeks, and eggheads get the last laugh... >From: gmark@ripco.com (Gmark) >Whose punchline we will not explain to you, Nick. All of this cross-posted to a bunch of irrelevant newsgroups. And not even one creative or humourous flame. IMHO, this shows clearly that mensans can be as dense as anyone else. Gentlemen, please kill this thread right now. From: tuc@mars.superlink.net (Scott J. Ellentuch) Subject: Re: *CHANGES* - Stormking Hills Date: 1995/10/07 Message-ID: <455urs$jpl@earth.superlink.net>#1/1 references: <44l418$5na@valhalla.stormking.com> <44liq5$8ka@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <44m0iv$kmk@valhalla.stormking.com> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Scott J. Ellentuch (tuc@news.stormking.com) wrote: : John K. W. (jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu) wrote: : : > The following hills now fight for 250 rounds : : : > : : > Standard, ICWS and Multi 94 Expertimental : : > : : > the following hill has gone to 500 rounds : : : > : : > Multi 94 Draft : : > : : > If there are any commpents or question, please contact me. : : Are you gonna re-run all the old battles? It would seem that you'd have : : to, right? : : So, am I gonna get mail telling me what my new scores are? : No, they won't be re-run. As the first new warrior hits the hill : it will re-calculate from there. Just wanted to follow up on this and say that I have tofu on my face on this one. Yes, we did need to re-calculate the scores but they are fine now. Scott : -- : * --- --- |Scott J. Ellentuch, Pres | The Telecom Security Group * : * | | | |Comm. and Comp. Security | (Storm King family of Companies) * : * | |__|__ |Consultants and Engineers | P.O. Box 69, Newburgh, NY 12551 * From: dweezil@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu (Andrew S Mehlos) Subject: Scanners Date: 1995/10/08 Message-ID: <459i9q$ara@uwm.edu>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Is there a tutorial on scanners anywhere? I think I've got the general idea right, but it doesn't quite seem to work for me, I don't think..Take an address, CMP it to something (ie, cmp addr, #0...), if the value at the address isn't 0, then it should be a program (sort of, hypothetically, maybe).. -- -[ "Pfftkammmmreow...mrrrrrrrrrriow..mew..meeeeeowmeow.."-- My cat ]- -[ Finger for PGP key | Mmmmmmmmmmmm... Doughhhhhnuts! ]- -["I'm told it [superstition] works whether you believe in it or not. " ]- -[ --N. Bohr ]- From: akemi@netcom.com (David Boeren) Subject: Beginner needs help Date: 1995/10/08 Message-ID: #1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar I'm new to CoreWar, and I'm trying to find material that will help me understand how to write warriors. I've downloaded files from the documents directory at berkeley, but almost everything there is out of date. That is, it's all written for the 86 or possibly 88 standards. I'd like to get some good tutoritals written with the 94 standard in mind, and I'd also like to be able to find a decent warrior archive with lots of 94 warriors. Surely there must be an archive somewhere with some basic 94 warriors that demonstrate the techniques of paper, scissors, CMP-Scanning, an other common battle techniques! Second, can anyone recommend for me a good interactive Corewar simulator which conforms to the 94 standard? I basically want something that will let me step through programs in a simple and intuitive manner so that I can see how a warrior's code works. I have pmars 0.8.0, but I'm not really sure if I can call the CDB debugger all that intuituve. For one thing, you can't see core as you step, unless of course I'm missing something here. Anyway, any useful information for a beginner would be appreciated. Oh, one other question. Why aren't any of the Koth servers (apparently) using the maximum read/write distance? Has it been decided by the group overall that this was a "bad idea"? I would think that it encourages greater intellegence since a stationary warrior cannot bomb the entire core. Thanks! From: KOTH Tourney Server Subject: SKI-ICWS: Status - Standard 10/09/95 Date: 1995/10/09 Message-ID: <199510090400.AAA20321@valhalla.stormking.com>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Weekly Status See up to the second scores and the latest Core War information at : http://www.stormking.com/~koth *FAQ* is at http://www.stormking.com/~koth/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the StormKing Industries Standard KotH CoreWar Hill : Last battle concluded at : Sun Oct 8 21:08:20 EDT 1995 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 31/ 18/ 51 CAPS KEY IS STUCK AGAIN Steven Morrell 144 70 2 38/ 33/ 29 Giskard v0.5 Ken Mitton 143 42 3 41/ 40/ 19 Beholder's Eye V1.7 W. Mintardjo 142 148 4 42/ 43/ 15 Iron Gate Wayne Sheppard 141 198 5 39/ 38/ 23 Christopher Steven Morrell 141 69 6 31/ 22/ 47 Der Zweiter Blitzkrieg Mike Nonemacher 140 99 7 39/ 37/ 24 Miss Carefree Derek Ross 140 2 8 36/ 33/ 31 Keystone t21 P.Kline 139 91 9 34/ 29/ 37 Yop La Boum v2.1 P.E.M & E.C. 138 4 10 25/ 12/ 62 Cannonade P.Kline 138 104 11 39/ 41/ 20 Request v2.0 Brant D. Thomsen 137 40 12 25/ 16/ 58 Blue Funk 88 Steven Morrell 134 68 13 40/ 47/ 12 bigproba nandor sieben 133 92 14 25/ 17/ 57 jmp/add crasher Randy Graham 132 28 15 27/ 21/ 52 Test Wayne Sheppard 132 93 16 23/ 15/ 61 ttti nandor sieben 132 54 17 26/ 20/ 54 Hydra Stephen Linhart 131 178 18 22/ 14/ 63 Peace Mr. Jones 130 78 19 20/ 11/ 68 Evol Imp v5a Wilkinson 129 15 20 1/ 38/ 61 Exp Peter van Rossum 63 1 21 5/ 65/ 29 Swinia3C Rafal Smotrzyk 45 0 From: KOTH Tourney Server Subject: SKI-ICWS: Status - MultiWarrior 94 Date: 1995/10/09 Message-ID: <199510090400.AAA05749@valhalla.stormking.com>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Weekly Status See up to the second scores at http://www.stormking.com/~koth Check it out for the latest in Core War information *FAQ* is at http://www.stormking.com/~koth/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the StormKing Industries Multiwarrior 94 CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Sun Oct 8 21:53:25 EDT 1995 # Name Author Score Age 1 Die Hard P.Kline 5413 7 2 75% Cotton v3b Wilkinson 5413 4 3 Son of Imp Steven Morrell 5401 20 4 90% Cotton v5c Wilkinson 5383 2 5 Silkworm 1.1 Beppe Bezzi 5371 17 6 60% Cotton Wilkinson 5368 3 7 TimeScape (1.1) J. Pohjalainen 5315 65 8 Cotton v1.o J. K. Wilkinson 5309 1 9 Cotton v C1 Wilkinson 5297 6 10 test 2 P.Kline 5292 24 11 Stoned 2.0 A. Nevermind 3288 0 From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: Scanners Date: 1995/10/09 Message-ID: <459u70$ipn@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <459i9q$ara@uwm.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: Beginner needs help Date: 1995/10/09 Message-ID: <459u62$ipn@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >Second, can anyone recommend for me a good interactive Corewar simulator >which conforms to the 94 standard? I basically want something that will let >me step through programs in a simple and intuitive manner so that I can see >how a warrior's code works. I have pmars 0.8.0, but I'm not really sure >if I can call the CDB debugger all that intuituve. For one thing, you can't >see core as you step, unless of course I'm missing something here. > That was the only thing that I didn't like about pMARS... stepping was very slow, because it kept quadruple-redrawing the screen to do a single step... As for warrior info... the Stormking and Pizza web pages have links to corewar tutorials. I believe the one called "My First Corewar Book" was very well written... -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: KOTH Tourney Server Subject: SKI-ICWS: Status - ICWS Tournament Date: 1995/10/09 Message-ID: <199510090400.AAA19558@valhalla.stormking.com>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Weekly Status See up to the second scores at http://www.stormking.com/~koth Check it out for the latest in Core War information *FAQ* is at http://www.stormking.com/~koth/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the StormKing Industries Annual ICWS Tournament CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Fri Oct 6 19:18:45 EDT 1995 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 62/ 9/ 29 Cannonade Paul Kline 214 70 2 55/ 33/ 12 Miss Carefree Derek Ross 176 2 3 46/ 29/ 25 Giskard v0.5 Ken Mitton 163 43 4 50/ 41/ 9 Miss Carry Derek Ross 158 34 5 48/ 38/ 14 Old Tire Swing Randy Graham 157 27 6 48/ 44/ 8 Agony T Stefan Strack 152 71 7 43/ 35/ 21 stone matthew householder 150 82 8 45/ 42/ 13 DoubleStone v0.7 Christoph C. Birk 148 13 9 44/ 40/ 16 warrior 42 stefan roettger 147 83 10 44/ 42/ 14 Maya v1.6 Christoph C. Birk 145 44 11 42/ 41/ 17 WhirlWind-88 Randy Graham 142 7 12 43/ 44/ 13 Slaver v1.1i Christoph C. Birk 141 31 13 43/ 45/ 11 Illusion Randy Graham 141 29 14 42/ 50/ 7 xtc stefan roettger 134 75 15 36/ 45/ 18 scissors matthew householder 127 85 16 36/ 49/ 15 Cat v2.0 Tim Scheer 122 67 17 34/ 53/ 13 Smartbomb 4.0 Devin Kilminster 114 69 18 33/ 56/ 10 BigBomb v0.4b (300) Christoph C. Birk 110 3 19 25/ 63/ 12 test Christoph C. Birk 86 9 20 3/ 41/ 56 get names Anonymous 66 1 21 3/ 0/ 2 Miss Careless Derek Ross 11 24 From: "John K. W." Subject: Warrior Score Update? Date: 1995/10/10 Message-ID: <45e9vr$ki2@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Is there an operator command I can send to pizza or stormking in order to get an updated summary of a warrior's scores? -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: Magnus Paulsson Subject: Hint of the year Date: 1995/10/10 Message-ID: <45e2im$op4@newsy.ifm.liu.se>#1/1 references: newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Since not anyone except Wilkinson seems to have read my previous post, (maybee because of the crackpot heading "how to cheat") I give you all a repost of it. After the post Wilkinson has put tree wariors on the hill with something like this code in them and the same PIN numbers (acording to his previous post) that would give his wariors something like 3-5(I think) points advantage over everyone else. (which is a bit on a hill where scores go from 145-125) The more wariors he put on the hill the greater advantage he will get. Let's get rid of the PINS on the normal hills! /Magnus Paulsson (And I fixed the bug in the sample code below!) y91magpa@ida.liu.se (Magnus Paulsson) wrote: >Have a look at this warrior that I wrote when thinking of >the part of the score that you get from fighting yourself. > >;How to score 150 against your own wariors! >pin 111 >org check >check ldp.a #0,ptr > jmp ptr > dat 0,start >ptr jmp @0,loss ; make use of the asymetry of > dat 0,win ; one warrior losing and one winning! > dat 0,start > >loss stp.ab #0,#773 < stp.ab #843,#952 > ldp.ab #773,#0 > seq.ab loss,-1 ;If it's a friend you fight commit sucide! > jmp start > dat 0 >win stp.ab #0,#952 < stp.ab #843,#773 > ldp.ab #952,#0 > seq.ab loss,-1 > jmp start > dat 0 >start djn.f 0,<-1 > >Put something like this in your warior and it won't tie as >much against it self. >(I'm not sure that the score agains oneself counts on the hill) > >This could give you a point or so on the hill. >(I used this in myVamp 3.8 but then itscored a lot less than 3.7, so ????) >(At first I had a bug that made it fall of the hill, leaving the 3.7 >that I tried to kill of :-), that bug is still there) > >I haven't tested the idea of putting another warior on the hill with >the same PIN, but if you have a couple of warriors on the hill! > >Somehow this must be changed, at least on the one warior hills. > >/Magnus Paulsson From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: Hint of the year (Update) Date: 1995/10/10 Message-ID: <45e65t$hpv@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <45e2im$op4@newsy.ifm.liu.se> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Ok, well I went and looked at warrior submission scores. It turns out that I'm only getting from .5 to 2 points. The reason I'm not getting as much as I at first said is because I forgot to take into account the number of points that I WOULD have recieved had I not put the brother code into my warriors. Looking at Bevo III, for instance, I don't think it's score is currently being affected much by the brother code... -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: 88 -> 94 conversion utility? Date: 1995/10/10 Message-ID: <45e5gh$hfo@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <45cg67$e8q@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >: Well, I don't know of a vampire that can beat a good paper... :/ >Hmm, I thought I'd read that Scissors was supposed to beat Paper pretty well. >Maybe I just mis-interpreted something, I thought that Vampire was a type of >Scissors. Whatever. > Oh. Well, I did create a vamp-scissors once, but I never could get it to work well. Maybe I'll try it again. >: What do you mean by "convert", anyway? 88 warriors are fully 94 compatible... >OK. I wasn't sure if this was so. Anyway, by "convert" I guess I mostly >mean adding the opcode modifiers so it is more clear what the instruction >is supposed to do. I know all the old veterans can tell at a glance, but >for newcomers it's a pain to keep flipping around trying to figure out if >an instruction alters a certain field or not. It's honestly not a big >deal, I think I found out how to make PMARS output with all the modifiers >for me anyway. > Oh, gotcha. Well, a program to add the little modifiers in would be neat. Basically, if you run pMARS, and ask for a warrior listing, it will add those in. However, it takes all the labels out. Perhaps Nandor or whoever would be so kind as to make the minor code adaption... I suppose I could do it too... but it'd be easier for the authors... -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: 88 -> 94 conversion utility? Date: 1995/10/10 Message-ID: <45cg67$e8q@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: newsgroups: rec.games.corewar akemi@netcom.com (David Boeren) wrote: > >Anyway, if anyone knows of a utility like this, please let me know. I've >been trying to convert the old warriors in the beginner docs by hand and I >keep suspecting that I've somehow done it incorrectly because I've got a >paper over here that's beating the snot out of a vampire which according >to everything I've read should not be happening! > Well, I don't know of a vampire that can beat a good paper... :/ What do you mean by "convert", anyway? 88 warriors are fully 94 compatible... -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: akemi@netcom.com (David Boeren) Subject: Re: 88 -> 94 conversion utility? Date: 1995/10/10 Message-ID: #1/1 references: <45cg67$e8q@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar John K. W. (jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu) wrote: : Well, I don't know of a vampire that can beat a good paper... :/ Hmm, I thought I'd read that Scissors was supposed to beat Paper pretty well. Maybe I just mis-interpreted something, I thought that Vampire was a type of Scissors. Whatever. : What do you mean by "convert", anyway? 88 warriors are fully 94 compatible... OK. I wasn't sure if this was so. Anyway, by "convert" I guess I mostly mean adding the opcode modifiers so it is more clear what the instruction is supposed to do. I know all the old veterans can tell at a glance, but for newcomers it's a pain to keep flipping around trying to figure out if an instruction alters a certain field or not. It's honestly not a big deal, I think I found out how to make PMARS output with all the modifiers for me anyway. Still getting the hang of this, David Boeren From: "Vikram Ravindran" Subject: ICWS '94 compatible program? Date: 1995/10/11 Message-ID: <713F8D3B03@oak.lakefieldcs.lakefield.on.ca>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar I couldn't find this in the FAQ, but you've probably been asked this question zillions of times, but do you know of any MARS program that uses the ICWS '94 standard? Vikram Ravindran -- The opinions expressed in the preceding document may not necessarily be that of Lakefield College School, its students, staff, dogs, et c. From: cm4bcajs@bs47c.staffs.ac.uk (A.J.Smith) Subject: help. Date: 1995/10/11 Message-ID: <45gjj3$a1r@bs33n.staffs.ac.uk>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Could someone point me to the faq for corewar, or something, as I'd like to know more (I know nothing at the moment) about it.... From: neal@unicomp.net (Neal Woodall) Subject: IS there a Mac version of the Coreware program pMars? Date: 1995/10/11 Message-ID: #1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Hello .... I found a web page for the game of Corewars...sounds very interesting, but when I try to download a pMars program for the Mac, I get a message that the file was not found in its intended directory on the server machine. Can anyone tell me if there is a Mac version available? I would like to get started in this, but I don't know if there is software available for my machine. Can y'all help? Neal From: akemi@netcom.com (David Boeren) Subject: Re: IS there a Mac version of the Coreware program pMars? Date: 1995/10/11 Message-ID: #1/1 references: newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Neal Woodall (neal@unicomp.net) wrote: : I found a web page for the game of Corewars...sounds very interesting, but : when I try to download a pMars program for the Mac, I get a message that : the file was not found in its intended directory on the server machine. : Can anyone tell me if there is a Mac version available? I would like to : get started in this, but I don't know if there is software available for : my machine. You can get all versions from the ftp site at ftp.csua.berkley.edu in /pub/corewar. Mac versions are in there along with everything else. Good Luck! From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: ICWS '94 compatible program? Date: 1995/10/12 Message-ID: <45hu6u$b0m@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <713F8D3B03@oak.lakefieldcs.lakefield.on.ca> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Go to http://www.stormking.com/~koth You can link to the MARS from there. -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu (Stefan Strack) Subject: Re: ICWS '94 compatible program? Date: 1995/10/12 Message-ID: <9510121605.AA19940@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Vikram Ravindran wrote: >I couldn't find this in the FAQ, but you've probably been asked this >question zillions of times, but do you know of any MARS program that >uses the ICWS '94 standard? Sigh. Question 5 of the FAQ: >What is ICWS'94? Which simulators support ICWS'94? > > There is an ongoing discussion about future enhancements to the > Redcode language. A proposed new standard, dubbed ICWS'94, is > currently being evaluated. A major change is the addition of > "instruction modifiers" that allow instructions to modify A-field, > B-field or both. Also new is a post-increment indirect addressing mode > and unrestricted opcode and addressing mode combination ("no illegal > instructions"). ICWS'94 is backwards compatible; i.e. ICWS'88 warriors > will run correctly on an ICWS'94 system. Take a look at the ICWS'94 > draft > > for more information. You can try out the new standard by > submitting warriors to the '94 hills of the KotH servers. Two corewar > systems currently support ICWS'94, pMARS (many platforms) and Redcoder > (Mac), both available at ftp.csua.berkeley.edu. > See also: http://www.stormking.com/~koth/pmars.html -Stefan From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: Warrior Score Update? Date: 1995/10/12 Message-ID: <45hu59$b0m@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <45e9vr$ki2@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <45giah$g33@valhalla.stormking.com> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >: Is there an operator command I can send to pizza or stormking in order to >: get an updated summary of a warrior's scores? >Are you looking for something more than the weekly posting? You can get that >on demand by sendmail e-mail to koth@stormking.com with the body of >;scores >If you are looking for something like the message you get when you >actually battle, It is something I've promised Nandor for a while and >never did put in. I will work on it this weekend if its wanted No, not like the weekly posting. I want to be able to see my warrior's current score against all the other warriors that are on the hill. From your response, I'm guessing that can't currently be done? -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: devin vincent Subject: Re: help. Date: 1995/10/12 Message-ID: <45iots$97s@ufrima.imag.fr>#1/1 references: <45gjj3$a1r@bs33n.staffs.ac.uk> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar And could you send it to me when will get it please ! thanks ! From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: Re: [Query] MOV instruction's effects Date: 1995/10/12 Message-ID: <199510120820.JAA21630@iol-mail.iol.it>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar At 21.41 11/10/95 -0400, you wrote: > >What happens to the instruction after the MOV instruction is executed? >Does it advance to the memory location after the instruction, go to >the A-field of the instruction or go to the B-field of the instruction? > MOV xx,yy executes as any other non branch instruction, the control goes to the next instruction. To send control to a-field you can use jmp aa,bb (or jmz jmn djn all branching to a) to branch to b-field you need a construct likr this: jmp @0, bb this jumps to the address pointed by b-field of instruction zero cells away, i.e. your b-field >-- >Calvin Loh > > From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: Re: 88 -> 94 conversion utility? Date: 1995/10/12 Message-ID: <199510120820.JAA21632@iol-mail.iol.it>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar David Boeren wrote: >John K. W. (jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu) wrote: >: What do you mean by "convert", anyway? 88 warriors are fully 94 compatible... >OK. I wasn't sure if this was so. Anyway, by "convert" I guess I mostly >mean adding the opcode modifiers so it is more clear what the instruction >is supposed to do. I know all the old veterans can tell at a glance, but >for newcomers it's a pain to keep flipping around trying to figure out if >an instruction alters a certain field or not. It's honestly not a big >deal, I think I found out how to make PMARS output with all the modifiers >for me anyway. > In the file bundled with p-mars there is one telling how conversions work. I printed it and kept at hand till i learnt (it's still here :-) 94 without modifiers works exactly as 88, and when pmars converts tries to guess what the instruction means. The only neat thing is that mov #10, 20 converts to mov.ab #10,20 (moves values) while mov 10,20 converts to mov.i 10,20 (moves the instruction) Making some nonsense program to figure how modifiers works is a very good exercise. >Still getting the hang of this, > David Boeren > -Beppe Bezzi Gaudeamus igitur ... From: "Vikram Ravindran" Subject: Programming opcodes Date: 1995/10/13 Message-ID: <9DAE8A1A96@oak.lakefieldcs.lakefield.on.ca>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar An interesting idea I thought of to prevent people making complete re-implementations of a MARS because of the addition of a simple command was to be able to define opcodes relative to other opcodes. An example might be like this: define PCT A a.protect=1 end This is the definition for the PCT command, a command mentioned by A.K. Dewdney. This command will make the one protected address read-only until another program tries to write to it. Now that the "protect" flag for the given address a is on, any command involving changes to the array can check whether the flag is on, and if it is, to abort the command, i.e. define MOV A,B if b.protect=1 {b.protect=0;exit function} Or something like that. The reason this is a good idea is because many functions can be created, according to personal preference. Vikram Ravindran -- The opinions expressed in the preceding document may not necessarily be that of Lakefield College School or its students, staff, dogs, etc. From: mreddy@glam.ac.uk (Mike Reddy) Subject: Re: IS there a Mac version of the Coreware program pMars? Date: 1995/10/13 Message-ID: #1/1 references: newsgroups: rec.games.corewar In article , akemi@netcom.com (David Boeren) wrote: > You can get all versions from the ftp site at ftp.csua.berkley.edu in > /pub/corewar. Mac versions are in there along with everything else. > > Good Luck! If you are interested in evolving CoreWar warriors, a student of mine has developed an ALife application (called RedGen) which allows warriors to battle against each other and (hopefully) evolve. Though the software is far from comprehensive, it does allow the random generation and breeding by crossover of warriors which are then battled against each other. Source code for CodeWarrior (recommended for PowerPC) is available from: ftp://ftp.comp.glam.ac.uk/pub/staff/mreddy/ The actuall apps are not available due to confusion over the interpretation of the Code Warrior licencing agreement. Sorry. -- Email: mreddy@glam.ac.uk CU-Seeme: 193.63.130.40 (On Request) Web: http://www.comp.glam.ac.uk/pages/staff/mreddy/ Snail: J228, Dept. of Computer Studies, University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, Mid Glamorgan. CF37 1DL Wales, UK. +44 1443 482 240 Fax: +44 1443 482 715 From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: CMI Instruction (again) Date: 1995/10/13 Message-ID: <45mj4a$ncd@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <45jh58$pf2@griffin.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk> <45k6eh$sst@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <45mb1t$dsu@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >One of the things I think would be very useful would be knowing when part >of your processes have been covered with SPL 0. Unfortunaly you can't >compare a full SPL 0 with it because most people put something like <11 >on the end of it to that it messes up core more. > True, that would go a long way towards opening the door for self-repairing warriors... >I personally don't have a problem with the new op-code. As long as we a Yeah, mod.o or mul.o would behave logically like mod.f or mul.f...? That would make sense. -John- From: jklewis@stimpy.us.itd.umich.edu (John Kipling Lewis) Subject: Re: CMI Instruction (again) Date: 1995/10/13 Message-ID: <45mb1t$dsu@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu>#1/1 references: <45jh58$pf2@griffin.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk> <45k6eh$sst@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar One of the things I think would be very useful would be knowing when part of your processes have been covered with SPL 0. Unfortunaly you can't compare a full SPL 0 with it because most people put something like <11 on the end of it to that it messes up core more. I personally don't have a problem with the new op-code. As long as we a very clear in the way we describe how the opcode would work with oddities like MOD.O and MUL.O. My personal feeling is that they would revert to the most common usage of the command. What does 'MUL.I A,B' do anyway? John - John K. W. (jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu) wrote: : >I know this has been discussed on and off for a while in : >this newsgroup, but I don't remember a proper conclusion : >ever being made to the problem - there is no easy way to : >compare the opcodes (alone) of two instructions in core. : > : >So how about it? It could make programs a lot more : >interesting without some of the complexities of p-space... : > : > : >Opinions would be great. :) : What, exactly would CMI be used for? : I mean, for what possible reason could it be useful? : -- : / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ : | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | : \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: mconst@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (Michael Constant) Subject: Re: CMI Instruction (again) Date: 1995/10/13 Message-ID: <45kg7j$g10@agate.berkeley.edu>#1/1 references: <45jh58$pf2@griffin.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Timothy Chapman wrote: >I recall two main methods of solving the problem being >suggested - one involving new opcode modifiers (which I >think was rejected as creating more problems than it >solved), the other was to create a new opcode (CMI) which >would compare two opcodes in the same way as CMP compares >two instructions. > >So how about it? It could make programs a lot more >interesting without some of the complexities of p-space... Well, the problem with CMI is that it is kind of inconsistent: accessing opcodes should logically be done with a modifier, so that it applies to all the instructions instead of just one. For example, if you can compare two opcodes and skip if they're equal, why can't you compare them and skip if they're *not* equal (as with SNE)? Why can't you copy opcodes (as with MOV)? The entire point of modifiers is to avoid having to have duplicate forms of instructions, such as CMI and CMP. Can you imagine if we had CMA to compare A-fields, CMX to compare A- and B-fields but switch them, and so on? If the functionality of comparing and modifying opcodes is going to be provided, it ought to be through modifiers. However, the last time we discussed this, the consensus was that .O modifiers had two problems: * They make the language more complicated and don't add much functionality. * It's not quite clear what is meant by, for example, SLT.O or MUL.O. -- Michael Constant (mconst@soda.csua.berkeley.edu) From: akemi@netcom.com (David Boeren) Subject: Variable Clock Cycles? Date: 1995/10/14 Message-ID: #1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Has it ever been discussed whether or not it would be a "good" or "bad" idea to give MARS interpreters the ability to assign a different number of clock cycles to the execution of different opcode/modifier pairs? I'm trying to word that carefully because I'm not suggesting that the timings should be different all the time. Certainly it would take a TON of testing before determining what timings were fair anyway. But I thought that it might be an interesting modification. I was thinking that currently people tend to use the "extra" operand in opcodes like SPL to get a "free" core scramble, and I kind of think that's a little cheesy. If there were clock cycle penalties for using modifiers this could suddenly require some judgement to see if it was "worth it". It could even only apply to certain opcodes if you wished. Also, I though it may be interesting for some of the veterans to see how competition changed if for example there was a tournament held in which timings were modified so that one (or more) common strategies were more expensive than usual. And one more though: Some opcodes in the past have probably been voted down due to an unbalancing effect. ie - they were too powerful. With variable clock cycles, you can add an instruction like that and give it a very long execution time. This allows more diversity with warriors, as long as you take care to set the right timing value to counterbalance the extra power of that instruction. Maybe this has all been talked about, but I'd like to hear some comments from you on whether this would be interesting to anyone. From: bremermr@cartoon.ecn.purdue.edu (Myer R. Bremer) Subject: 94 draft hill Date: 1995/10/14 Message-ID: <45p7uk$hl8@mozo.cc.purdue.edu>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Greetings. I'm sure the pizza boys have noticed this, but if not--what's wrong with the scoring system on the '94 draft hill? Another thing: I'm placing a warrior on the '94b hill so I can follow it's progress. My version of the newsletter is going to have a greater emphasis on the beginner's hill to provide them some exposure and give pointers on how to develop better warriors. I remember when I first started, I always wondered why my warriors did well on the beginner's hill and then got totally thrased on the '94 draft hill. Perhaps it will bring more players to the next level. I noticed that of the 20 spots on the draft hill, there are well under 10 authors. We could use some fresh approaches. M R Bremer bremermr@ecn.purdue.edu From: jklewis@stimpy.us.itd.umich.edu (John Kipling Lewis) Subject: Re: Variable Clock Cycles? Date: 1995/10/14 Message-ID: <45oppb$8ee@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu>#1/1 references: newsgroups: rec.games.corewar I would like this more if we were programming for robots or remote control tanks. But corewars is simulating assembly programming and as such it fits better that each command has one execution. David Boeren (akemi@netcom.com) wrote: : Has it ever been discussed whether or not it would be a "good" or "bad" idea : to give MARS interpreters the ability to assign a different number of : clock cycles to the execution of different opcode/modifier pairs? : I'm trying to word that carefully because I'm not suggesting that the timings : should be different all the time. Certainly it would take a TON of testing : before determining what timings were fair anyway. But I thought that it : might be an interesting modification. I was thinking that currently people : tend to use the "extra" operand in opcodes like SPL to get a "free" core : scramble, and I kind of think that's a little cheesy. If there were clock : cycle penalties for using modifiers this could suddenly require some : judgement to see if it was "worth it". It could even only apply to : certain opcodes if you wished. : Also, I though it may be interesting for some of the veterans to see how : competition changed if for example there was a tournament held in which : timings were modified so that one (or more) common strategies were more : expensive than usual. : And one more though: Some opcodes in the past have probably been voted down : due to an unbalancing effect. ie - they were too powerful. With variable : clock cycles, you can add an instruction like that and give it a very long : execution time. This allows more diversity with warriors, as long as you : take care to set the right timing value to counterbalance the extra power : of that instruction. : Maybe this has all been talked about, but I'd like to hear some comments : from you on whether this would be interesting to anyone. From: jklewis@stimpy.us.itd.umich.edu (John Kipling Lewis) Subject: Re: CMI Instruction (again) Date: 1995/10/14 Message-ID: <45op1q$8ee@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu>#1/1 references: <45jh58$pf2@griffin.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk> <45k6eh$sst@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <45mb1t$dsu@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu> <45mj4a$ncd@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar That makes sense to me. John Lewis John K. W. (jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu) wrote: : >One of the things I think would be very useful would be knowing when part : >of your processes have been covered with SPL 0. Unfortunaly you can't : >compare a full SPL 0 with it because most people put something like <11 : >on the end of it to that it messes up core more. : > : True, that would go a long way towards opening the door for self-repairing : warriors... : >I personally don't have a problem with the new op-code. As long as we a : Yeah, mod.o or mul.o would behave logically like mod.f or mul.f...? : That would make sense. : -John- From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: newsletter Date: 1995/10/14 Message-ID: <199510141414.PAA11633@iol-mail.iol.it>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar The tournament has taken all our corewar time, but the argument is still cool. This week end I have some time, so I can start with first number of newsletter, next week Myer Bremer will begin rotation, anyone wanting to enter is welcome. Title: Core warrior is my idea, suggestions welcome, ASCII art very welcome. Arguments: -94 hill: Standings, new entries, veteran departures, other stuff. May be fine to keep an all times age standing, if anyone having a 94 warrior aged > 300/400 (I think top ten is enough) can send me his departure age and date I can save *lots* of time to make it. TIA -beginner hill: This hill will be taken care by Myer Bremer -other hills: little, unless something happens of some importance, like a new entry in the top or an old guy pushed off. -Hints: I think to republish one of my warriors, Marcia Trionfale or Tornado, Jack is too long :-) with a step by step comment, unless someone sends me something better (Iron Gate, Agony, Blue Funk, Die Hard or one of the many unpublished warriors of current 94 hill). Any other hint welcome. -Tournament: comments to results. Other ? -???? Hints, comments, help, welcome. I hope to post number one tomorrow evening, anyone with something to publish, or willing to join the staff can mail me or Myer Bremer From: tuc@news.stormking.com (Scott J. Ellentuch) Subject: Re: Warrior Score Update? Date: 1995/10/14 Message-ID: <45ohae$itk@valhalla.stormking.com>#1/1 references: <45e9vr$ki2@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar John K. W. (jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu) wrote: : Is there an operator command I can send to pizza or stormking in order to : get an updated summary of a warrior's scores? Can you give me a sample of what this would look like? I'm not really sure what your saying..... Tuc -- * --- --- |Scott J. Ellentuch, Pres | The Telecom Security Group * * | | | |Comm. and Comp. Security | (Storm King family of Companies) * * | |__|__ |Consultants and Engineers | P.O. Box 69, Newburgh, NY 12551 * From: agserm@aol.com (AGSerm) Subject: Re: help. Date: 1995/10/14 Message-ID: <45ohph$mni@newsbf02.news.aol.com>#1/1 references: <45gjj3$a1r@bs33n.staffs.ac.uk> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >Could someone point me to the faq for corewar, or something, as I'd like >to know more (I know nothing at the moment) about it.... The faq is posted here weekly (i believe), or if you're web-capable, you can go to: http://www.stormking.com/~koth/corewar-faq.html HTH, Ansel Greenwood Sermersheim From: pk6811s@acad.drake.edu Subject: In search of vamp-proof p-code Date: 1995/10/15 Message-ID: <1995Oct15.165307@acad.drake.edu>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar In the light of the many p-vampires clinging to the '94 Hill, here is a little different 'smart' code to give some relief: s1 equ 1022 s2 equ 0 wresult ldp.ab #presult,#wresult ; get result of last battle wstragy ldp.ab #pstragy,#wstragy ; get recorded strategy seq #s1,wstragy jmp str2 str1 jmz str2b,wresult ; if this one lost, go to str2 str1b stp.ab #s1,#pstragy ... str2 jmz str1b,wresult ; if this one lost, go to str1 str2b stp.ab #s2,#pstragy ... This is based on the fact that the p-vamp is really unlikely to overwrite your stored strategy with the specific number you are using. And if he does overwrite your number, you react the same way as you would in the very first battle. In other words, you don't need a separate check for first battle, you just need a really reliable program in that space. Like Die Hard :-) Paul Kline pk6811s@acad.drake.edu From: Peter Young Subject: Re: newbie question Date: 1995/10/15 Message-ID: <45rgvb$60@agate.berkeley.edu>#1/1 references: <45lf6o$2dp@nuscc.nus.sg> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar It should work, although whatever program you try to run will probably mess up (since most programs only expect their instructions to be run once per loop). Couple notes about the program though; spl 0,#1/1 references: <45e9vr$ki2@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <45giah$g33@valhalla.stormking.com> <45hu59$b0m@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar John K. W. (jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu) wrote: : No, not like the weekly posting. : I want to be able to see my warrior's current score against all the : other warriors that are on the hill. From your response, I'm guessing : that can't currently be done? Currently, no. BUT, I finally understand what is involved and its not too hard. WHAT IS HARD, is what I am about to ask.... Do people care one way or the other if EVERYONE IN THE WORLD can see how your warrior performed against everyone else. From the WEB site, I would have you display the hill scores, and the warriors would be hot linked to its scores (And maybe even the strategy). For email people, I haven't decided if I'll show EVERYONE against EVERYONE, or require a warrior name. If people DONT want everyone to see it, it would mean that the WEB part would be very difficult/impossible and the email would verify the warrior you request against your email address. I'll need more than 1/2 the people currently on my hills to reply before I implement this. Thanks, Tuc -- * --- --- |Scott J. Ellentuch, Pres | The Telecom Security Group * * | | | |Comm. and Comp. Security | (Storm King family of Companies) * * | |__|__ |Consultants and Engineers | P.O. Box 69, Newburgh, NY 12551 * From: lohwengk@iscs.nus.sg (Loh Weng Keong Calvin) Subject: Problems with beginner's hill? Date: 1995/10/16 Message-ID: <45t7j8$5k@nuscc.nus.sg>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar There seems to be a problem with the beginner's hill. I keep on getting strange results. -- Calvin Loh From: lohwengk@iscs.nus.sg (Loh Weng Keong Calvin) Subject: Re: newbie question Date: 1995/10/16 Message-ID: <45smrc$o85@nuscc.nus.sg>#1/1 references: <45lf6o$2dp@nuscc.nus.sg> <45rtku$t2s@portal.dx.net> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar mneumenth (user@portal.dx.net) wrote: : :In article <45lf6o$2dp@nuscc.nus.sg>, : :> jmp @place, place ^^^^^^^^ What does this do? : instead, with: : place EQU key+100 : This skips the dead space in your warrior, which oughta be padded with ^^^^^^^^^^ What is this? : nonsense DAT instructions, to slow down scanners and the like. I' kinda : surprised at how well this program is doing on the beginner hill, as : Possessors, as this is a GREAT two-line example of, usually don't do too : well. They sure are easy to make, though. My program never got on the beginner hill. -- Calvin Loh From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: Warrior Score Update? Date: 1995/10/16 Message-ID: <45samr$4on@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <45e9vr$ki2@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <45giah$g33@valhalla.stormking.com> <45hu59$b0m@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <45r4ms$jle@valhalla.stormking.com> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar tuc@news.stormking.com (Scott J. Ellentuch) wrote: >: No, not like the weekly posting. >: I want to be able to see my warrior's current score against all the >: other warriors that are on the hill. From your response, I'm guessing >: that can't currently be done? Well, I would rather everyone not be able to see my scores against every other warrior... Although I suppose it might be a helpful new addition in the warrior development process... It'd probably shorten the life span of warriors on the hill... :/ -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: lohwengk@iscs.nus.sg (Loh Weng Keong Calvin) Subject: [help] Analysis of Code Date: 1995/10/17 Message-ID: <45vdqc$hti@nuscc.nus.sg>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Please tell me if this piece of code works. TIA. ;redcode-b ;assert 8000 ;name WindMill3 ;author Calvin Loh ;strategy Scans for enemy code, then bombs them. start dat #1, #1 step1 dat #6, #4006 step2 dat #2004, #6004 bomb1 mov step1, *step1 mov step1, @step1 jmp scan2 bomb2 mov step2, *step2 mov step2, @step2 jmp launch scan1 cmp }step1, >step1 jmp bomb1 scan2 cmp }step2, }step2 jmp bomb2 launch djn scan1, #1988 clear mov start, >start end scan1 -- Calvin Loh From: graham@hal.mathcs.rhodes.edu (Randy Graham) Subject: Two weeks Date: 1995/10/17 Message-ID: <1995Oct17.191301.2960@rhodes>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Well, I just moved (Memphis to DC - long trip), and haven't checked news in a couple of weeks, and my account only keeps 5 days. So, could anyone who has posted anything interesting (warriors, suggestions, etc.) between 9/28 and 10-13 please repost or mail me? Sory to be a pain, but I know much has happened (including the tournament which I am going to try to get in to before the week is out), and I just want to keep up. Thanks. Randy From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: [query] Questions on some opcodes/operands Date: 1995/10/17 Message-ID: <461bj9$nlp@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <45ppld$4at@nuscc.nus.sg> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar lohwengk@iscs.nus.sg (Loh Weng Keong Calvin) wrote: >How do the "<", "{" and "}" operands work? >What are their effects and what do they affect? > The best way to see what opcodes do is to run pMARS and then (S)tep through the program excecution. (Barring reading the manual... :) -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: KOTH Tourney Server Subject: SKI-ICWS: Status - Multiwarrior Experimental 94 10/16/95 Date: 1995/10/17 Message-ID: <199510160400.AAA18648@valhalla.stormking.com>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Weekly Status See up to the second scores at http://www.stormking.com/~koth Check it out for the latest in Core War information *FAQ* is at http://www.stormking.com/~koth/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the StormKing Industries MultiWarrior Experimental 94 CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Fri Oct 13 12:25:26 EDT 1995 # Name Author Score Age 1 Lucky 13 Stefan Strack 8220 35 2 TimeScapeX (0.1) J. Pohjalainen 8143 33 3 jaded M R Bremer 7805 4 4 Paperone Beppe Bezzi 7428 18 5 life Nandor Sieben 7245 34 6 Illusion-94/55 Randy Graham 5726 12 7 lifedwarf Nandor Sieben 5429 10 8 Hidden M.C.Diskett Bullfrog 5163 3 9 Miss Understanding Derek Ross 5078 9 10 Shwing! T. H. Davies 5038 29 11 Miss Carry Derek Ross 4852 14 12 AB Scanner 2.9 Chris Hodson 4845 22 13 Whirlwind Bob Uhl 4368 20 14 Miss Careless Derek Ross 4301 2 15 Piggy 2 Bob Uhl 4191 8 16 Piggy 3 Bob Uhl 4140 6 17 Miss Treatment Derek Ross 3987 13 18 Enlightenment II Scott Manley 3864 1 19 Whirlwind 2 Bob Uhl 3768 21 20 MuDwarf G. Eadon 2607 23 21 Unknown Anonymous 2368 11 From: KOTH Tourney Server Subject: SKI-ICWS: Status - MultiWarrior 94 10/16/95 Date: 1995/10/17 Message-ID: <199510160400.AAA14539@valhalla.stormking.com>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Weekly Status See up to the second scores at http://www.stormking.com/~koth Check it out for the latest in Core War information *FAQ* is at http://www.stormking.com/~koth/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the StormKing Industries Multiwarrior 94 CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Fri Oct 13 13:14:43 EDT 1995 # Name Author Score Age 1 Son of Imp Steven Morrell 5693 26 2 Die Hard P.Kline 5693 13 3 Silkworm 1.1 Beppe Bezzi 5676 23 4 TESTI Maurizio Vittuari 5666 1 5 75% Cotton v3b Wilkinson 5656 10 6 90% Cotton v5c Wilkinson 5652 8 7 TJ Maurizio Vittuari 5627 2 8 60% Cotton Wilkinson 5613 9 9 TimeScape (1.1) J. Pohjalainen 5607 71 10 test 2 P.Kline 5574 30 11 Mythicon v1.2 G. Eadon 1817 0 From: "Andersen F. Scholl" Subject: evolution of warriors Date: 1995/10/17 Message-ID: <199510150130.VAA15546@fermi.kamsc.k12.mi.us>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar hello..... i'm new to corewar, and enjoying writing innefective warriors very much... there's one thing that's been kind of gnawing at my mind, and i was thinking that most likely some veterans would know whether this is true or not..... in all the documentation and tutorials and such that i've been reading, it has said numerous times that there are pretty much 3 different basic kinds of warriors, and they work within the guidelines of a paper/rock/scissors analogy.... and i was wondering if the evolution of successful warriors on the hill goes accordingly; that is, there becomes a high population of rocks, and seeing this, people write papers, wiping out most of the rocks until the hill is covered with papers, and then scissors come along, and then rocks?........ if this is a stupid question, i'm sorry for wasting bandwidth...... don't flame me unless you really want to i guess...... From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: What's happened at Pizza Date: 1995/10/17 Message-ID: <199510142028.VAA13813@iol-mail.iol.it>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar I submitted warrior to Pizza hill and I got back this stuff: > >Date: Sat, 14 Oct 1995 10:11:34 -0700 >From: Internet Pizza Server >To: bezzi@iol.it >Subject: 94 : Test 31.f challenge results > >Program "Test 31.f" (length 100) by "Beppe Bezzi" >(contact address "bezzi@iol.it"): >has challenged the ICWS '94 Draft hill. > >Program "Leprechaun on speed" (length 100) by "Anders Ivner" >(contact address "d91andiv@und.ida.liu.se"): >;strategy Quickscanner -> Leprechaun deluxe >Test 31.f wins: 0 >Leprechaun on speed wins: 1 >Ties: 0 > > [similar stuff for all warriors, always 1 match] >Your overall score: 119.047619 > >You have been pushed off the ICWS '94 Draft hill. >The current ICWS '94 Draft hill: > > # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age > 1 4205/3781/1071 Leprechaun on speed Anders Ivner 13686 16 > 2 3486/2886/2686 Torch t18 P.Kline 13143 220 >...... I don't know you but I DO NOT LIKE THAT Gimme back the old scoring system, I want to know how I scored against each single warrior and percentile scoring is much more readable. -Beppe From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: Warrior Score Update? Date: 1995/10/17 Message-ID: <461bgs$nlp@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <45e9vr$ki2@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <1995Oct17.083938@acad.drake.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar pk6811s@acad.drake.edu wrote: >To save space and time, the all-scores display could look like this: > > %Wins Against Opponent # > Program 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 > >I'm in favor. Oh... When I originally asked for the all-score update I was just thinking it would be done through mail, and that you would only see YOUR scores against the other warriors... but that'd work too. -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: Slowing down pmarsv.exe Date: 1995/10/17 Message-ID: <461bcq$nlp@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <45vaua$jca@blaze.cs.jhu.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >unfold, and study patterns of propagation? Barring that, are there any other >programs out there that have variable clock rates? If anyone has any >suggestions for me, I'd really appreciate the help. While I'm at it, any >general suggestions for learning Redcode are appreciated to. pMARS does have variable speeds. You can give it a command-line code, or, much easier, get PSHELL. However, even pMARS's slowest speed is sometimes way too fast for my tastes. I'd like more speeds too... -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: pk6811s@acad.drake.edu Subject: Re: Warrior Score Update? Date: 1995/10/17 Message-ID: <1995Oct17.083938@acad.drake.edu>#1/1 references: <45e9vr$ki2@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar To save space and time, the all-scores display could look like this: %Wins Against Opponent # Program 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 1 Phq . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Jack in the box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Die Hard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Father & Son . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 myVamp v3.7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Brain Vamp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Leprechaun on sp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 simple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Frontwards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Torch t18 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Armory - A5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Thermite 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Anti Die-Hard Be . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 SandBlast 1a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Leprechaun delux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Firestorm 08 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Cthulhu v7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Tornado 1.8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Test 31.d . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 testing(112) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I'm in favor. Paul Kline pk6811s@acad.drake.edu From: bremermr@cartoon.ecn.purdue.edu (Myer R. Bremer) Subject: Re: White Warrior... Date: 1995/10/18 Message-ID: <463s6c$6vr@mozo.cc.purdue.edu>#1/1 references: <463nrj$e8m@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar John. Don't feel too badly. The best I've done is 51 wins, 49 ties. Hope I can come up with something better. I know Paulsson must have something good, because it annihilated my replicator on the '94 draft hill. M R Bremer From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: Warrior Score Update? Date: 1995/10/18 Message-ID: <461j1n$sk3@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <199510172040.VAA10545@iol-mail.iol.it> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >For standard hills, apart I don't have warriors in Stormking's '88 hills, at >first I was for NO but, seen that everyone can submit one of my warriors (I >published all) and see how it does agains others, I'm for YES so keeping >warriors secret will be less an advantage than now. > >My vote is YES (2/70 of vote in favor) I was leaning against the idea of everyone seeing my scores until I read that argument by Beppe. Very persuasive point. I'm for it now... -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: Slowing down pmarsv.exe Date: 1995/10/18 Message-ID: <461itm$sk3@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <9510171959.AA22551@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >"pmarsv -v 703" runs pmars *really* slow. The first digit in the -v argument >controls the speed, "0" being the fastest (see pmars.doc for details). You >can also hit ">" or "<" during the simulation to speed up or slow down the >display. No... I've been using 7, and I'd like to slow the excecution down to 1/10th of that in many instances. (Watching a paper explode on the screen is the example that sticks out strongest in my mind.) -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: evolution of warriors Date: 1995/10/18 Message-ID: <461i8j$sk3@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <199510150130.VAA15546@fermi.kamsc.k12.mi.us> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >in all the documentation and tutorials and such that i've been reading, it >has said numerous times that there are pretty much 3 different basic kinds >of warriors, and they work within the guidelines of a paper/rock/scissors >analogy.... and i was wondering if the evolution of successful warriors on >the hill goes accordingly; that is, there becomes a high population of >rocks, and seeing this, people write papers, wiping out most of the rocks >until the hill is covered with papers, and then scissors come along, and >then rocks?........ > >if this is a stupid question, i'm sorry for wasting bandwidth...... don't >flame me unless you really want to i guess...... So far I have not witnessed a flame on this particular newsgroup. In all likelyhood this is due to the general civilized and refined nature of those who are interested in Corewars. Yes, actually, to some extent that still occurs. A few weeks ago, a very large ammount of stones were on the hill. Since that time, a few more paper-based warriors have made it on... Not a dramatic swing, but it does happen. -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: rossd@arbroath.win-uk.net (Derek Ross) Subject: Re: Warrior Score Update? Date: 1995/10/18 Message-ID: <266@arbroath.win-uk.net>#1/1 references: <45e9vr$ki2@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <45giah$g33@valhalla.stormking.com> <45hu59$b0m@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu><45r4ms$jle@valhalla.stormking.com> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar I'm in favour of putting current warrior scoring on the WWW as you suggest. I like Paul Kline's suggested layout for it too. Cheers Derek In article <45r4ms$jle@valhalla.stormking.com>, Scott J. Ellentuch (tuc@news.stormking.com) writes: >Do people care one way or the other if EVERYONE IN THE WORLD can see how >your warrior performed against everyone else. From the WEB site, I would >have you display the hill scores, and the warriors would be hot linked to its >scores (And maybe even the strategy). For email people, I haven't decided >if I'll show EVERYONE against EVERYONE, or require a warrior name. If people >DONT want everyone to see it, it would mean that the WEB part would be >very difficult/impossible and the email would verify the warrior you request >against your email address. > >I'll need more than 1/2 the people currently on my hills to reply before I >implement this. > > Thanks, Tuc From: pan0178@comune.bologna.it (MV) Subject: Re: Warrior Score Update? Date: 1995/10/19 Message-ID: <199510200005.UAA16803@valhalla.stormking.com>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >>For standard hills, apart I don't have warriors in Stormking's '88 hills, at >>first I was for NO but, seen that everyone can submit one of my warriors (I >>published all) and see how it does agains others, I'm for YES so keeping >>warriors secret will be less an advantage than now. >> >>My vote is YES (2/70 of vote in favor) > >I was leaning against the idea of everyone seeing my scores until I read >that argument by Beppe. Very persuasive point. I'm for it now... Me too! so my vote is simply YES! Maurizio Vittuari From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: Re: core warrior Date: 1995/10/19 Message-ID: <199510192056.VAA01929@iol-mail.iol.it>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Paul Kline wrote: >Beppe Bezzi writes: > >[great work on the newletter Beppe!] > Thanx :-) >[but please omit the special characters - they just don't convert] > :-( I'm trying to understand what's happened, I left setting I always use. (I use a freeware Eudora and I don't have the F. manual to read) I mailed it to myself and all was right; let me see what happens if published, excuse me for the test. ;--------------- # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 46/ 41/ 13 Frontwards Steven Morrell 150 173 2 37/ 28/ 35 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 146 226 3 44/ 41/ 15 Leprechaun on speed Anders Ivner 145 34 4 41/ 38/ 21 Armory - A5 Wilkinson 144 377 5 26/ 9/ 65 Die Hard P.Kline 143 12 6 38/ 33/ 29 Brain Vamp B.Bezzi, M.Paulsson 142 108 ;--------------- >>... >> 6 26/ 21/ 52 White warrior Nandor & Stefan 132 = >> 1 >> Not bad for something we have to beat 80% of times. > >80% ??? I'm not getting anywhere near that, and just one day left :-( > Me too :-( I score less than 200 (52/11/37) in 100 rounds , (testing with 1000 takes near half an hour and it's too much, I cannot complain of having a _too_fast_ machine :-) and I read everyone scoring 10/20 points more. Unles there is a lot of pretactics, I'm toasted this round. >Paul Kline >pk6811s@acad.drake.edu > -Beppe Bezzi From: stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu (Stefan Strack) Subject: NSFCWT - Rules for round 3 Date: 1995/10/19 Message-ID: <9510191923.AA23312@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar **************************************************** * NSFCWT: Rules for round 3 * **************************************************** Round 3 features "cooperative" battles in the form of a two-on-two round robin. Every player submits two warriors (or two copies of the same warrior) that are written to battle "side by side" against another team of two. The challenge is obviously to beat the other team without killing your partner. To make it more profitable to leave your partner alive, we are using the score formula: pts = W - S + 1 (W=(2+2)=4, S=Survivors) which awards 4,3,2,1 points for wins with 1,2,3,4 survivors. Using this formula, you get more points (6) if both your warriors survive than if only one survives (4). In detail: Survivors Combined points Team A Team B Team A Team B ------------------------------------------------------ 2 0 6 0 2 1 4 2 2 2 2 2 1 0 4 0 1 1 3 3 etc. You could use shared P-space for communication, but it would probably work even without. One idea would be to scatter a few flags in core that point to yourself (after adding a secret constant of course :), so your partner can find you and avoid bombing you. Another strategy would be to have one partner jump into the code of the other, thereby making certain they live or die together. But can probably come up with many other interesting strategies... The round-robin uses 100 rounds per two-on-two battle, parameters are those of the 94 hill. Mail submissions to Stefan.Strack@vanderbilt.edu by Friday, Oct. 27, 20:00 CST. As always, new players are welcome. Good luck, Nandor & Stefan From: bremermr@cartoon.ecn.purdue.edu (Myer R. Bremer) Subject: evolution of warriors Date: 1995/10/19 Message-ID: <466mlp$78m@mozo.cc.purdue.edu>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Greetings. When talking about the evolution of the hill when it comes to the paper, scissors, stone analogy, I suppose you would need to have those types of programs on the hill. I said it was difficult to see the evolution now--due to the fact that pspacers are not any of these three types solely. If there are many pspacers containing replicators, a flurry of scanners may or may not affect the rankings much. Of course that depends on effective switching and good components. Before pspace, there would have been a definite effect on paper products. I suppose the point is: you can see the evolution plain and simple in the old days. I can't see it now. Of course the changes on the hill regarding pspacers and non-pspacers can be followed easily enough. Next issue of Core_Warrior_ should be out Monday after the tournanment results. I'm going to get smoked :( M R Bremer bremermr@ecn.purdue.edu From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: evolution of warriors Date: 1995/10/19 Message-ID: <466fkr$d6u@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <199510181321.OAA18343@iol-mail.iol.it> <4647eu$ppc@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <465n1a$7rq@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >When an overabundance of scanners are on the hill, it was easier >to land a stone there, that's true. But now with all the pspace >warriors, it's difficult to see the evolution. And >don't merely think that KOtH is cyclical and the warriors just >keep coming back after a full cycle. I would say that the hill >in general has become much tougher even before all the pspace. Actually, the evolution of pspace (rock, paper, scissors style still fits) is evident. As an example, I present to you Armory. It was one of the first pspace warriors to maintain a nice stable score. It was almost kicked off when a barrage of pspacers invaded the hill... but slowly, single-strategy warriors began to return, helping Armory out... -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: pk6811s@acad.drake.edu Subject: Re: core warrior Date: 1995/10/19 Message-ID: <1995Oct19.120510@acad.drake.edu>#1/1 references: <199510161638.RAA28514@iol-mail.iol.it> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Beppe Bezzi writes: [great work on the newletter Beppe!] [but please omit the special characters - they just don't convert] >... > 6 26/ 21/ 52 White warrior Nandor & Stefan 132 = > 1 > Not bad for something we have to beat 80% of times. 80% ??? I'm not getting anywhere near that, and just one day left :-( Paul Kline pk6811s@acad.drake.edu From: agserm@aol.com (AGSerm) Subject: Re: which are the rules ? Date: 1995/10/19 Message-ID: <465t5v$4gv@newsbf02.news.aol.com>#1/1 references: <4650h9$gst@ufrima.imag.fr> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar In article <4650h9$gst@ufrima.imag.fr>, devin vincent writes: >I had just read an article about Corewar ! >I don't know how it works and which are the rules >Could someone send me some explains about it ? >thanks ! Well, what i'd do is go look at (on the Web) : http://www.stormking.com/~koth/ From there you can get a copy of pMars, the best (in my opinion) corewars program, and acess to a whole bunch of books about corewars, and other neat stuff. I don't have the FTP address off the top of my head, but if you can't use the web, just ask, and i'm sure somebody will be able to help you out. AGSerm@aol.com Ansel Greenwood Sermersheim (i hope that opinion about pMars doesn't start a flame war. If you agree, that's fine. If you disagree, that's fine too. I don't particularly care) From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: evolution of warriors Date: 1995/10/19 Message-ID: <4647eu$ppc@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <199510181321.OAA18343@iol-mail.iol.it> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >There is a sort of feedback; when number of one kind of warrior increase, scanners >for example, it's very difficult to put a repli= cator on the hill, while it's much >easier to put a stone. > >It's not a stupid question. Strategy and tactics are a part of the game not often >discussed in the newgroup. Hmmmm... I've saved almost all of my warrior submission initial result listings. I wonder if I could go back and get concrete evidence of watching this occur... Of course, I think my span of Corewars experience on the 94 hill is only about 3 or 4 months... -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: White Warrior... Date: 1995/10/19 Message-ID: <46476g$ppc@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <463nrj$e8m@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <463s6c$6vr@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar bremermr@cartoon.ecn.purdue.edu (Myer R. Bremer) wrote: >John. > >Don't feel too badly. The best I've done is 51 wins, 49 ties. >Hope I can come up with something better. I know Paulsson must >have something good, because it annihilated my replicator on the >'94 draft hill. > >M R Bremer Yay! I do feel better. Misery loves company and all that jazz... :) My best is something like 60/10/30... I was also able to score 50/0/50 with a totally different strategy. -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: rossd@arbroath.win-uk.net (Derek Ross) Subject: Re: evolution of warriors Date: 1995/10/19 Message-ID: <268@arbroath.win-uk.net>#1/1 references: <199510150130.VAA15546@fermi.kamsc.k12.mi.us> <461i8j$sk3@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu><461vh1$i5p@news.asu.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar In article <461vh1$i5p@news.asu.edu>, sieben@imap1.asu.edu (sieben@imap1.asu.edu) writes: >: So far I have not witnessed a flame on this particular newsgroup. In >: all likelyhood this is due to the general civilized and refined nature >: of those who are interested in Corewars. > >How interesting this is. Who would expect this in a newsgroup that has >the word WAR in its name. >Nandor. > > I also subscribe to sci.physics.fusion which one would imagine would be a scientific discussion group in which one could be kept informed of the state of hot and cold fusion in a calm and reasoned manner. Ha! No chance!! It's actually an armed camp divided between cold fusioneers and hot fusioneers. I've given up trying to contribute to it as you are just setting yourself up as a target for one side or the other. Any argument which can be twisted, will be twisted. Any fact that can be misinterpreted will be misinterpreted. Any insult which can be used will be used. However I still find it highly entertaining to read. Occasionally you even find a little bit of science in it. Anyway I've often been amused at the idea that in the 'co-operative' newsgroup of sci.physics.fusion, contributors are at each other's email throats, whereas in the 'competitive' newsgroup of rec.games.corewar, contributors are polite and helpful to each other. Real life IS better written (and funnier) than the average drama. Cheers Derek From: agserm@aol.com (AGSerm) Subject: Help on imp-rings! Date: 1995/10/20 Message-ID: <467jf1$1of@newsbf02.news.aol.com>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar here's a snippet of code: add.b #4000,imp-4050 mov imp, imp+4000 spl imp spl imp+4000 spl 0, #1/1 references: <199510181321.OAA18343@iol-mail.iol.it> <4647eu$ppc@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar The stone/scissors/paper analogy works somewhat like this: ideally, each type can beat the next one about 80% of the time. Then someone figures out how to give a type some protection against his enemy - like adding spirals to stones to tie paper. Paper loses points and starts falling off the Hill, and his enemy - scissors - starts suffering. So the search is on to make paper beat spirals to regain the original advantage. At the same time scissors authors turn their efforts against stone-imps, since paper opponents are too few. As a result, imp-gates and the 'DAT <2667,<5334' bomb are born(/reborn). Or someone works out a way to beat a specific kind of program, ala Antivamp, which got about 90% wins against the best vampires of its day. Vampires take a header off the Hill leaving a shortage of scissors, causing paper to rise and stones to fall. Then scissors authors regroup and come up with faster and stronger scanners and spl-bombers. In every cycle the warriors are improved over previous versions. Winter Werewolf, for example, was a terrific example of a fast scissors that could beat stone-spirals somewhat and clobber most paper. Today's equivalent is Torch, which bombs at twice the rate and kills spirals more effectively - even gate-crashing ones. The cycle is disrupted from time to time. Quick-scanners were successful at catching both stone-spirals and paper during launch. They also were good at catching one another. So they got lots of wins and few ties causing scores to rise and making it hard for traditional programs to compete. Once old programs were refitted with decoys the q-scanners started their long slide. (btw: I think vamping is the optimal thing to do with a q-scan find). People also work hard to combine types. Flash Paper was a stone-paper combination that had long success. Fly Paper was a scanner-paper that also did well. Then, just to keep things interesting, we change the rules :-) --------- Some interesting Die Hard results: Die Hard wins: 45 myZizzor wins: 166 Die Hard wins: 52 v10 wins: 127 Die Hard wins: 63 myVamp v3.7 wins: 115 Guess I'll hold off on issuing that challenge :-) (or dig out that version that reversed the score against myVamp :-) Paul Kline pk6811s@acad.drake.edu From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: Help on imp-rings! Date: 1995/10/20 Message-ID: <468g16$pae@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <467jf1$1of@newsbf02.news.aol.com> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar agserm@aol.com (AGSerm) wrote: > add.b #4000,imp-4050 > mov imp, imp+4000 > spl imp > spl imp+4000 > spl 0, dat imp mov imp, imp+4001 > >am i completely missing te concept of imp-rings? these are getting >tromped! Interesting... a two point ring... :) Well, that program is set up to KILL your imp ring. This would give it more of a chance to survive: mov.i imp, imp+4000 spl imp spl imp+4000 dat 0, 0 imp mov.i imp, imp+4001 Also, you should try to create a ring with more than two processes. -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: "John K. W." Subject: (no subject) Date: 1995/10/20 Message-ID: <468fms$pae@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Check out, ladies and gentlemen: (well, maybe just gentlemen...? :) I'm the oldest guy on the hill! Yay! Go Armory! Woo! Woo! Woo! Thermite 1.0 has been pushed off the ICWS '94 Draft hill. The current ICWS '94 Draft hill: # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 46/ 41/ 13 Frontwards Steven Morrell 151 174 2 44/ 41/ 15 Leprechaun on speed Anders Ivner 146 35 3 37/ 30/ 33 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 143 227 4 41/ 38/ 21 Armory - A5 Wilkinson 143 378 5 40/ 38/ 21 myVamp v3.7 Paulsson 142 207 6 41/ 42/ 17 Leprechaun deluxe Anders Ivner 141 144 7 37/ 34/ 28 Brain Vamp B.Bezzi, M.Paulsson 140 109 8 25/ 11/ 64 Die Hard P.Kline 140 13 9 36/ 34/ 30 Torch t18 P.Kline 139 239 10 35/ 33/ 32 Father & Son Maurizio Vittuari 138 97 11 41/ 45/ 14 Anti Die-Hard Bevo (3c) John Wilkinson 137 44 12 37/ 36/ 27 Firestorm 08 Beppe Bezzi 137 95 13 42/ 48/ 10 SandBlast 1a John K. Wilkinson 136 3 14 41/ 47/ 12 v10 Steven Morrell 135 1 15 36/ 37/ 27 Tornado 1.8 Beppe Bezzi 135 93 16 40/ 46/ 13 blackTN P.Kline 134 4 17 36/ 37/ 27 Phq Maurizio Vittuari 134 341 18 40/ 48/ 12 Anti-DieHard Bevo (3f) John Wilkinson 133 2 19 35/ 40/ 24 myZizzor Paulsson 131 7 20 27/ 25/ 48 simple M R Bremer 130 11 21 34/ 41/ 24 Thermite 1.0 Robert Macrae 128 802 -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: mreddy@glam.ac.uk (Mike Reddy) Subject: Evolving Core War Warriors: Mac/PPC Software Date: 1995/10/20 Message-ID: #1/1 newsgroups: comp.ai.alife,rec.games.corewar Having checked the Code Warrior licence, I am now glad to be able to offer to the public domain, the executables for Mac 68000 and PowerPC (and the sources for Code Warrior v6). These should be treated "as is" as not all the functions were finished. However, if you want a piece of software that can randomly generate, then breed warriors for Core War, you could not do worse than check out: ftp://ftp.comp.glam.ac.uk/pub/staff/mreddy/RedGen/ NOTE: The change of directory. ^^^^^^^^ The files are available in Macbinary SEA, hqx and gz versions Any questions to me, but don't expect a fully working system which can guarantee you a place on the KOTH. However, you will get the sort of evolution over time that has been discussed on the rec.games.corewar recently. You might want to look up a geneology program that RedGen uses to display evolution family trees. It is called Gene 4.0.3 and is available from Sumex (and mirrors). The code was developed as part of a final year project, entitled: "Evolution of competitive Core War warriors using Cross-over" by S.M. Jones, submitted to the Department of Computer Studies, University of Glamorgan, 1994 -- Email: mreddy@glam.ac.uk CU-Seeme: 193.63.130.40 (On Request) Web: http://www.comp.glam.ac.uk/pages/staff/mreddy/ Snail: J228, Dept. of Computer Studies, University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, Mid Glamorgan. CF37 1DL Wales, UK. +44 1443 482 240 Fax: +44 1443 482 715 From: morrell@jeeves.math.utah.edu (Steven C. Morrell) Subject: Re: White Warrior... Date: 1995/10/20 Message-ID: #1/1 references: <463nrj$e8m@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <463s6c$6vr@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar In article I writes: > I can get around 70/20/10, and I don't even use any specific quirks of > the program. I just concentrated on stunning the paper. Oops! I just ran 1586 rounds to verify how I was doing and only scored 64.9/23.5/11.6, or a score of 205.486. Boy, is egg on my face! Of course, none of us ever underestimate our scores because low scores means bad strategies. There MAY be bias in the other scores people are reporting. :) ObFlame: Redcoder! Steven -- Steven Morrell morrell@math.utah.edu From: user@portal.dx.net (mneumenth) Subject: Re: newbie question Date: 1995/10/21 Message-ID: <46bvjn$8q@portal.dx.net>#1/1 references: <45lf6o$2dp@nuscc.nus.sg> <45rtku$t2s@portal.dx.net> <45smrc$o85@nuscc.nus.sg> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar dead space in space that the other warrior cannot occupy, because of the minimum spacing rules, and when I was refering to how well your program was doing, I meant all the different attempts you made. Dead space tends to mess up scanners, and since your a possessor, try putting actual warriors in there, and hope you get to them. It's kinda a pain in the rear to use well. Mneumenth, corewar-playing cyborg dragon of Earth mneumenth@kernvalley.com From: bremermr@cartoon.ecn.purdue.edu (Myer R. Bremer) Subject: web page changes Date: 1995/10/21 Message-ID: <469vsq$avj@mozo.cc.purdue.edu>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Greetings. Would it be possible to add a link to the pizza/koth home page that would show the queue of warriors lined up for challenges? Something similar to the stormking page. I'm very impatient and sometimes I have the urge to mail warriors twice when I don't receive any mail back. I always think that I mailed it to the wrong place. Just a suggestion. M R Bremer From: pk6811s@acad.drake.edu Subject: Re: evolution of warriors Date: 1995/10/21 Message-ID: <1995Oct21.095918@acad.drake.edu>#1/1 references: <199510181321.OAA18343@iol-mail.iol.it> <4647eu$ppc@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <465n1a$7rq@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <466fkr$d6u@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar "John K. W." writes: >... > fits) is evident. As an example, I present to you Armory. > > It was one of the first pspace warriors to maintain a nice stable > score. It was almost kicked off when a barrage of pspacers invaded > the hill... but slowly, single-strategy warriors began to return, > helping Armory out... Solve the brainwash problem and pspacers will be back. Paul Kline pk6811s@acad.drake.edu From: ruhl@phoebe.cair.du.edu (Robert A. Uhl) Subject: Re: evolution of warriors Date: 1995/10/22 Message-ID: <46c6t9$9ft@hermes.cair.du.edu>#1/1 references: <199510181321.OAA18343@iol-mail.iol.it> <465n1a$7rq@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <466fkr$d6u@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <1995Oct21.095918@acad.drake.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar In article <1995Oct21.095918@acad.drake.edu>, wrote: > >Solve the brainwash problem and pspacers will be back. The brainwash problem has two solutions: kill the enemy before being brainwashed or have protected pspaces. I believe that pspace was interesting, but that it must be marked down as a failed experiment. More later (I must eat now). -- +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Bob Uhl | Spectre | `En touto nika' + | | U of D | PGG FR No. 42 | http://mercury.cair.du.edu/~ruhl/ | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ From: pk6811s@acad.drake.edu Subject: Re: Help on imp-rings! Date: 1995/10/22 Message-ID: <1995Oct22.110330@acad.drake.edu>#1/1 references: <467jf1$1of@newsbf02.news.aol.com> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar agserm@aol.com (AGSerm) writes: Your program launches a 2-point ring which is somewhat weaker than a 3-point ring. Both parts of a 2-point ring can be covered by a core-clear in about 8000 cycles (4000 locations apart times 2 cycles per location). A 3-point ring takes about 10668 cycles (5334 locations times 2). As was pointed out, you also 'gate' your own imp. And quite a few programs are doing some form of gating now, so imps have to try harder :-) -- Paul Kline pk6811s@acad.drake.edu From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: newbie question Date: 1995/10/22 Message-ID: <46c7v2$e0n@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <45lf6o$2dp@nuscc.nus.sg> <45rtku$t2s@portal.dx.net> <45smrc$o85@nuscc.nus.sg> <46bvjn$8q@portal.dx.net> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >to mess up scanners, and since your a possessor, try putting actual >warriors in there, and hope you get to them. It's kinda a pain in the >rear to use well. That brings up an interesting point... possesors could really benefit from a cmp.o (or whatever) operation... To prevent them from landing on spl statements, that were in all likelyhood just bombs... -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: evolution of warriors Date: 1995/10/22 Message-ID: <46c7r1$e0n@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <199510181321.OAA18343@iol-mail.iol.it> <4647eu$ppc@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <465n1a$7rq@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <466fkr$d6u@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <1995Oct21.095918@acad.drake.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >> It was one of the first pspace warriors to maintain a nice stable >> score. It was almost kicked off when a barrage of pspacers invaded >> the hill... but slowly, single-strategy warriors began to return, >> helping Armory out... > >Solve the brainwash problem and pspacers will be back. > >Paul Kline >pk6811s@acad.drake.edu I don't think that any of my programs are very susceptible to brainwashes. Well... actually, Armory is the MOST susceptible of the ones I've written, but that never seemed to hurt it too bad. Cthulhu, on the other hand, is highly brainwash resistant... but it never did all that great. I think Cthulhu just needs a little work, though. :) -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: Help on imp-rings! Date: 1995/10/22 Message-ID: <46e3be$hr6@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <467jf1$1of@newsbf02.news.aol.com> <468g16$pae@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <46cp3n$mtu@agate.berkeley.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar mconst@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (Michael Constant) wrote: >>agserm@aol.com (AGSerm) wrote: >Perhaps another thing that would help would be to realize that no matter >how you boot it, a single 2-point spiral can never survive :-) Briefly, > No, it does work. Check it out. The spiral isn't particularly efficient, but it DOES work just fine. -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: evolution of warriors Date: 1995/10/22 Message-ID: <46e32v$hr6@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <199510181321.OAA18343@iol-mail.iol.it> <465n1a$7rq@mozo.cc.purdue.edu> <466fkr$d6u@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <1995Oct21.095918@acad.drake.edu> <46c6t9$9ft@hermes.cair.du.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >>Solve the brainwash problem and pspacers will be back. > > The brainwash problem has two solutions: kill the enemy before being >brainwashed or have protected pspaces. > > I believe that pspace was interesting, but that it must be marked >down as a failed experiment. More later (I must eat now). Failed? I don't think so... Don't get rid of pspace! Armory's my most succesful warrior! :( Anyway, I don't think that a good pspacer with good components will ever lose big if it's well designed... -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: ruhl@phoebe.cair.du.edu (Robert A. Uhl) Subject: Re: evolution of warriors Date: 1995/10/23 Message-ID: <46f8h6$79d@hermes.cair.du.edu>#1/1 references: <199510181321.OAA18343@iol-mail.iol.it> <466fkr$d6u@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <1995Oct21.095918@acad.drake.edu> <46c6t9$9ft@hermes.cair.du.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar In article <46c6t9$9ft@hermes.cair.du.edu>, Robert A. Uhl wrote: > > I believe that pspace was interesting, but that it must be marked >down as a failed experiment. More later (I must eat now). And now, as promised in the aforewritten post, more! The problem with pspace is that it becomes too powerful. Instead of good warriors battling it out, we have a bunch of good components battling against a switching mechanism. Where's the challenge? Enough well-written components exist that it becomes a matter of modifying and adding a good switcher. Without new strategies we are sunk. But what new strategies are there? We have scanners, replicators, imps, vampires and one which I made, the piggyback. The piggyback just goes through core executing locations (splitting off, of course). The idea is that it will then run into a warrior and sit in top of it while it kills the original process. Oh yes, and the bombers. Scanners, bombers, replicators and bombers are basically the same thing. What new strategy exists that is different from them? I don't have much hope. OTOH, with luck someone will come up with a new one. Pspace hurts corewars in my opinion. -- +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Bob Uhl | Spectre | `En touto nika' + | | U of D | PGG FR No. 42 | http://mercury.cair.du.edu/~ruhl/ | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ From: mconst@OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Michael Constant) Subject: Re: Help on imp-rings! Date: 1995/10/23 Message-ID: <46h0e3$ji9@agate.berkeley.edu>#1/1 references: <467jf1$1of@newsbf02.news.aol.com> <468g16$pae@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <46cp3n$mtu@agate.berkeley.edu> <46e3be$hr6@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar John K. W. wrote: >mconst@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (Michael Constant) wrote: >>Perhaps another thing that would help would be to realize that no matter >>how you boot it, a single 2-point spiral can never survive :-) >> >No, it does work. Check it out. The spiral isn't particularly efficient, >but it DOES work just fine. Ok, we're differing on technicalities here. I don't think of the code you gave as a real imp-ring, because it doesn't have the property that each instruction is refreshed right before it is executed. My point was just that if you want a true 2-point spiral (where each instruction that executes was refreshed by the instruction before) you will have to have two, interlocked. -- Michael Constant (mconst@soda.csua.berkeley.edu) From: agserm@aol.com (AGSerm) Subject: Re: Help on imp-rings! Date: 1995/10/23 Message-ID: <46gfkv$l8r@newsbf02.news.aol.com>#1/1 references: <468g16$pae@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar In article <468g16$pae@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, "John K. W." writes: >Well, that program is set up to KILL your imp ring. That was my original idea, to roll over someone with the imp, and then kill it (and the opponent's processes) when it came back around. >This would give it more of a chance to survive: > > mov.i imp, imp+4000 > spl imp > spl imp+4000 > dat 0, 0 >imp mov.i imp, imp+4001 Yes, but wouldn't that just make you tie all the time? It would seem to me that some form of gate(is that the word?) would be needed if you're going to have any hope of stopping the enemy processes that get turned into imps by you're own code. >Also, you should try to create a ring with more than two processes. Yah, I got that now. Thanks for your input, AGS P.S. Thanks to everybody who answered my question. You've all helped me gat past a major stumbling block in my mind. I just couldn't visualize an imp-ring right in my head. From: phlatline@xphile.core.binghamton.edu@ Subject: CoreWar on OS/2? Date: 1995/10/23 Message-ID: <46eue8$plm@bingnet1.cc.binghamton.edu>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Has anyone done a curses or "vga" port of CoreWar for OS/2? --Dave -- David J. Graff phlatline@mhv.net From: graham@hal.mathcs.rhodes.edu (Randy Graham) Subject: Luv that Round 3 Date: 1995/10/24 Message-ID: <1995Oct24.150150.2977@rhodes>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Well, I've finally gotten a usable, always accessable net connection. It is painfully slow, and annoying to use, but it is there, and will last until I get a SLIP connection at home (maybe even an ISDN line - Bell Atlantic here). Anyway, because of this, I am finally able to get in the tournament (pretty slim chance of winning with every having a 2 round lead, but at least I can make an entry). So, while working on this parten thing for round 3, I decided I liked it and was wondering about the possibility of making it a regular hill. All entries would be two warriors per letter. Then each pair would fight every other pair on the hill. Scores would be figured on percantage won/lost, just like the regular hill. Then, add together the scores of each pair and rank according to that combined score (just like the tournament is doing). Battles might run longer, so the hill may need to be trimmed to 10 pairs. Is there any interest for this amongst the others here? Would enough other people like to make this a regular hill that we could convince Scott to try to implement it? Randy From: 00ncsummers@bsuvc.bsu.edu (El suen~o de razon produce monstros!) Subject: Re: Help on imp-rings! Date: 1995/10/24 Message-ID: <1995Oct24.144352.1@bsuvc.bsu.edu>#1/1 references: <468g16$pae@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <46gfkv$l8r@newsbf02.news.aol.com> <46hoho$8fq@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar In article <46hoho$8fq@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, "John K. W." writes: > agserm@aol.com (AGSerm) wrote: >>>Well, that program is set up to KILL your imp ring. >> >>That was my original idea, to roll over someone with the imp, and then >>kill it (and the opponent's processes) when it came back around. >> > Oh, well in THAT case, you know that the ring will not have made it around > the core in less than 8000 instructions. So, your gate should begin at that > time. Up until that time you should be doing something else useful... > bombing comes immediately to mind. :) > >>>This would give it more of a chance to survive: >> >>Yes, but wouldn't that just make you tie all the time? It would seem to me >>that some form of gate(is that the word?) would be needed if you're going >>to have any hope of stopping the enemy processes that get turned into imps >>by you're own code. > > Interesting idea. Turn your opponent into an imp, and then gate him. > I wrote a warrior that did that, and submitted it to the 88 hill a while > back. It never did well... but that doesn't mean it isn't possible. I wrote a warrior that did that, too. I even managed to write a core-clearing imp-gate. The problem is that those programs with thousands of proccess (Esp. paper) never get to the gate before time runs out. I tried clearing with JMP's with little success. There probally is a very good solution, but I haven't found it yet, and I've got others to write. -- Nathan Summers, Honors Student, BALL STATE UNIVERSITY "It's out of your jurisdiction, and, even if it weren't, we already have a government. It's a democracy. A TRUE democracy! And we don't need or want you, in your dictatorship, to tell us what we can or cannot do!" "Guards! Silence him!" "With pleasure, m'lord!" A button was pressed; the screen went blank. And with that act the country was plunged into a technological dark age. El suen~o de razon produce monstros! From: dweezil@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu (Andrew S Mehlos) Subject: djn streams Date: 1995/10/24 Message-ID: <46iqve$1a@uwm.edu>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar -- -[ "Pfftkammmmreow...mrrrrrrrrrriow..mew..meeeeeowmeow.."-- My cat ]- -[ Finger for PGP key | Mmmmmmmmmmmm... Doughhhhhnuts! ]- -["I'm told it [superstition] works whether you believe in it or not. " ]- -[ --N. Bohr ]- From: lohwengk@iscs.nus.sg (Loh Weng Keong Calvin) Subject: Re: Help on imp-rings! Date: 1995/10/25 Message-ID: <46kb6l$khb@nuscc.nus.sg>#1/1 references: <468g16$pae@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <46gfkv$l8r@newsbf02.news.aol.com> <46hoho$8fq@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar John K. W. (jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu) wrote: : Interesting idea. Turn your opponent into an imp, and then gate him. : I wrote a warrior that did that, and submitted it to the 88 hill a while : back. It never did well... but that doesn't mean it isn't possible. I have also done that, except on the beginner hill. To kill a single process imp, the gate needs to decrement every cycle, but your imps prevent that. So you will likely find your gate turning in an imp. Mine did when I finally tested it in WinCore. -- Calvin Loh From: akemi@netcom.com (David Boeren) Subject: Re: Luv that Round 3 Date: 1995/10/25 Message-ID: #1/1 references: <1995Oct24.150150.2977@rhodes> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Randy Graham (graham@hal.mathcs.rhodes.edu) wrote: : So, while working on this parten thing for round 3, I decided I liked : it and was wondering about the possibility of making it a regular : hill. All entries would be two warriors per letter. Then each pair : would fight every other pair on the hill. Scores would be figured on : percantage won/lost, just like the regular hill. Then, add together : the scores of each pair and rank according to that combined score : (just like the tournament is doing). Battles might run longer, so the : hill may need to be trimmed to 10 pairs. I like the partner idea, even though I haven't tried to write any partner warriors yet. But I did want to say that I think 10 pairs on the hill is not a good idea. People are already talking about how the addition of only a couple programs of one type make all the stones or papers fall off the hill. With only 10 slots this kind of problem is going to be much more severe, don't you think? From: stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu (Stefan Strack) Subject: Optimizing silk constants Date: 1995/10/25 Message-ID: <9510252333.AA25649@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Beppe Bezzi wrote: >I'm writing the second part of the hint about replicators, speaking of >spread and bombing constants; I made a few good paper warriors, but I have >no scientific method to find them. I just look at what happens when paper >explode, and I change something if I don't like it. > >_something_ and _I_don't_like_it_ are concepts really hard to explain :-) > >Does anyone know if there is a matemathical method, or if it's possible to >use a program like mopt to do the job, leaving at the programmer only the >fine tuning. mopt won't work, because it is designed to model stationary warriors only. I suppose you could write a mopt-like program for replicators; the problem is just to make it general enough, taking into account all possible replication mechanisms, bombs, etc.. A better way to optimize constants is to run your warrior with pmars and use cdb macros that change code sections and record the result. Suppose we want to optimize a slighly "un-optimized" version of T.Hsu's Ryooki: nxt_paper equ 100 ;chosen with room for improvement boot_paper spl 1 ,>4000 mov.i -1,#0 mov.i -1,#0 paper spl @paper,paper mov.i bomb ,>paper ; anti-imp mov.i bomb ,}800 ; anti-vampire jmn.f @copy ,{paper bomb dat <2667 ,<2667*2 and we want to find a better offset between copies than the "100" in the nxt_paper EQU. First we need to come up with some good ways to measure an even spread between paper bodies in core. Here's an approximation that cdb can easily provide: after a few thousand cycles, a paper with a good offset 1) has more processes 2) covers more core locations than a paper with a bad offset Now the idea is simply to run multiple rounds, systematically changing the silk offset at the beginning of each round, and having cdb report process number and number of covered core locations after 5000 cycles or so. This can all be automated with macros, so you can have pmars find optimal constants while you get coffee (jolt? :). Once you have a few candidate offsets, you should make sure they're working as you expect by looking at the core display. You can than go on to find optimal bombing constants for your set of optimal offsets in pretty much the same manner. As an example using Ryooki above: pmars -br 1000 -e ryooki.red 00000 SPL.B $ 1, > 4000 (cdb) 0,7 00000 SPL.B $ 1, > 4000 00001 MOV.I $ -1, # 0 00002 MOV.I $ -1, # 0 00003 SPL.B @ 0, < 100 00004 MOV.I } -1, > -1 00005 MOV.I $ 3, > -2 00006 MOV.I $ 2, } 800 00007 JMN.F @ -3, { -4 (cdb) calc i=99 99 This sets a variable "i" to our starting constant. (cdb)@ed 3~spl @0,, the command sequence is repeated with an offset value of 101: (cdb) 101,1058 1971 (cdb) The 101 offset results in a greater number of processes (1058) and more addresses written to (1971). If you want to run the whole thing automated, just inclose the command sequence in a loop (!!~...~!) and send the results to a file like so: (cdb) ca i=99 99 (cdb) write ryooki.opt Opening logfile (cdb) !!~@ed 3~spl @0, Subject: Re: evolution of warriors Date: 1995/10/26 Message-ID: <199510260948.KAA05951@iol-mail.iol.it>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Robert A. Uhl wrote: : The problem with pspace is that it becomes too powerful. Why you say so? It's a lot I don't see a p-spacer on top of the hill, and the first three locations are kept by standard warriors. : ....Instead of : good warriors battling it out, we have a bunch of good components : battling against a switching mechanism. Where's the challenge? The challenge is making a switching mechanism smart enough to use your best fit component against every enemy. The problem, is still open. The challenge is making a switching mechanism Brainwash resistent so as not to be crushed if something goes wrong. Even this problem is still open. : Enough well-written components exist that it becomes a matter of : modifying and adding a good switcher. That's right and wrong in the meantime. There is, IMO, a lot of space for improving components and even more for improving switchers. : Without new strategies we are : sunk. I play corewar from May of this year and I'm far from having tried all combinations of existing strategies. I also have a few new ideas to test and refine, and I think some old idea can be reproposed with success. What I don't have is time. We are not sunk for lack of strategies; chess and bridge, games far more complex than corewar, don't have many more strategies. : Pspace hurts corewars in my opinion. P-space is a tool that adds something to corewar. You can use it, if you like it, and you can not use use it if you don't like. : -- : +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ : | Bob Uhl | Spectre | `En touto nika' + | : | U of D | PGG FR No. 42 | http://mercury.cair.du.edu/~ruhl/ | : +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ -Beppe Bezzi Gaudeamus igitur ... From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: Re: Optimizing silk constants Date: 1995/10/26 Message-ID: <199510260948.KAA05945@iol-mail.iol.it>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Stefan Strack wrote: >Beppe Bezzi wrote: >>... >>Does anyone know if there is a matemathical method, or if it's possible to >>use a program like mopt to do the job, leaving at the programmer only the >>fine tuning. > >mopt won't work, because it is designed to model stationary warriors >only. I suppose you could write a mopt-like program for replicators; the >problem is just to make it general enough, taking into account all possible >replication mechanisms, bombs, etc.. A better way to optimize constants >is to run your warrior with pmars and use cdb macros that change code >sections and record the result. [discussion on macro, very good, omitted] >The above is more of an example on how to use cdb for your own optimization >needs as opposed to a fool-proof recipe for finding optimal silk constants, i.e. >you won't get around experimenting and writing your own cdb macros :) > Every time I ask Stefan for a macro problem he sorts out with something doing what I ask and a lot more. Pmars macro system is really a powerful tool. Stefan, if can find a little time beetween organizing the tournament, writing Agony 3 and doing your everyday work, can you write an hint for the newsletter, explaining the basic use of macros in pmars? I think a lot of persons may be interested in it. I know there are some in pmars.txt, but a few more could be useful. The invitation is for anyone else too, knowing well the macro language, of course. >-Stefan > -Beppe From: graham@hal.mathcs.rhodes.edu (Randy Graham) Subject: impsize.c Date: 1995/10/26 Message-ID: <1995Oct26.151224.2985@rhodes>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Here's a quick little hack of an old makeimp.c Given a starting, ending, and maximum imp size, this program will find the smallst imp for all coresizes. This is not commented, probably unclear, and may fail at times. But, it works for me. Apologies to Jay Han for messing up his code without permission. I needed it, and I thought others might want it. More tomorrow when I have time to explain. Take out the break from the if (n #include long i; int odd, std=94; int main (int argc, char *argv[]) { long m, p, r, c, n, x, q; if (argc == 1) { fprintf (stderr, "Syntax: %s \n", argv[0]); exit (-1); } if (argc < 3) exit (-1); sscanf (argv[1], "%ld", &p); sscanf (argv[2], "%ld", &m); sscanf (argv[3], "%ld", &q); for (x = p; x <= m; x++ ) { for (std = 1; std <= q; std++ ) { c=0; r = x % std; for (n=1; n Subject: Re: Is Pizza overloaded ? myZizzor Date: 1995/10/26 Message-ID: <46obm7$mrn@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <199510260755.IAA01477@bottom.ifm.liu.se> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Magnus Paulsson wrote: >> If you could do something like ";fight myZizzor" in your warrior, >> and have it just fight that one thing, so you could do a quick test? >> >> That'd be mega-niftoramic... > >Here, be my guest. >The only thing I changed was a imp bomb. Thanks! More things to beta-test against... Well, that's a start, but you're missing the whole point of my post. :) -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: jklewis@stimpy.us.itd.umich.edu (John K. Lewis) Subject: Re: Luv that Round 3 Date: 1995/10/26 Message-ID: <46o4f6$n68@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu>#1/1 references: <1995Oct24.150150.2977@rhodes> <46mlr5$ktn@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar A side benefit to a larger hill would be that the gap between the begginer hill and the regurlar hill would be smaller. John Lewis John K. W. (jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu) wrote: : akemi@netcom.com (David Boeren) wrote: : >I like the partner idea, even though I haven't tried to write any partner : >warriors yet. But I did want to say that I think 10 pairs on the hill is : >not a good idea. People are already talking about how the addition of : >only a couple programs of one type make all the stones or papers fall off : >the hill. With only 10 slots this kind of problem is going to be much : >more severe, don't you think? : > : Yep. It would... : In fact, I think it would be better to take the number of rounds down : to 200, and add five more slots on the Pizza Hill, just so that quick : hill changes couldn't throw warriors off. (I noticed recently that PHQ : went from 17 up to 1 in less than a day or two...) : -- : / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ : | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | : \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: Magnus Paulsson Subject: Re: Is Pizza overloaded ? myZizzor Date: 1995/10/26 Message-ID: <199510260755.IAA01477@bottom.ifm.liu.se>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar > If you could do something like ";fight myZizzor" in your warrior, > and have it just fight that one thing, so you could do a quick test? > > That'd be mega-niftoramic... > > -- > / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ > | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | > \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / Here, be my guest. The only thing I changed was a imp bomb. /Magnus (sorry, it's 9 bytes, not 8 as I wrote in the previous post) -------------------------------------------- ;redcode-94 ;name myZizzor ;author Paulsson ;strategy Cissors (or whatever way you spell it) ;startegy One pass -> coreclear. Tiny I'd say. ;strategy Let's se how hard Die Hard is this time :-) ;assert CORESIZE > 1 org start step equ 8 i for step dat 1,1 rof check dat 1,0 i for 40 dat 0,0 rof start p add.ab #step,#check+100 rep jmz.f p,@p ;scan mov.i b2,>p ;carpet jmz.b rep,check b2 spl #b3-p,b1-p+2 ;coreclear mov.i *p,>p djn.f -1, Subject: Re: Help request for Core Warrior Date: 1995/10/26 Message-ID: <46mm3b$ktn@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <199510251256.NAA28631@iol-mail.iol.it> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Beppe Bezzi wrote: >I'm writing the second part of the hint about replicators, speaking of >spread and bombing constants; I made a few good paper warriors, but I have >no scientific method to find them. I just look at what happens when paper >explode, and I change something if I don't like it. Papers are far and away the most difficult proggies to write... I've been working out the kinks of making an effective Cotton Die Hard, and it's amazing how a minor change can radically change that way your warrior behaves; sometimes predictably, sometimes not. >_something_ and _I_don't_like_it_ are concepts really hard to explain :-) One thing that's helpful to try, if your trying to not lose to scanners, is checking to see how quickly, and how spread out the first 30 or so nodes of paper are. >Does anyone know if there is a matemathical method, or if it's possible to >use a program like mopt to do the job, leaving at the programmer only the >fine tuning. I tried to reason out a good set of constants for one of my papers, and it worked great, until an opponent was introduced. :) -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: "John K. W." Subject: Re: Is Pizza overloaded ? Date: 1995/10/26 Message-ID: <46mm9m$ktn@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <199510251257.NAA28637@iol-mail.iol.it> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Beppe Bezzi wrote: >May not be better to go back at 100 rounds, as before, and get answers in >but half an hour. > >I'll trade a lot of speed with a bit of randomness. You know what would be super-great? :) If you could do something like ";fight myZizzor" in your warrior, and have it just fight that one thing, so you could do a quick test? That'd be mega-niftoramic... -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: lohwengk@iscs.nus.sg (Loh Weng Keong Calvin) Subject: Re: impsize.c Date: 1995/10/27 Message-ID: <46plpq$1d6@nuscc.nus.sg>#1/1 references: <1995Oct26.151224.2985@rhodes> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar I don't understand what it is supposed to do. Does it make an imp ring? TIA. -- Calvin Loh From: stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu (Stefan Strack) Subject: Re: NSFCWT - Rules for round 4 Date: 1995/10/27 Message-ID: <9510271842.AA26975@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Randy Graham wrote: >That is, if you aren't deleting duplicates, do you just sort in order >of appearance in the original list when duplicate numeric values come >up, or do you still have to group duplicates? > Since you only sort by A/B-values, "equal" instructions can be in any order. I.e. you can group identical instructions but you don't have to. -Stefan From: stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu (Stefan Strack) Subject: Re: NSFCWT - Rules for round 4 Date: 1995/10/27 Message-ID: <9510271514.AA26761@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Anders Ivner wrote: >I gather that the sort does not have to be stable? (Internal order >kept if equal) We have no way of telling whether you kept internal order, so, no, the sort doesn't have to be stable. >Also, how is the weighed average run time calcutaled? That is, >how are the weights calculated? input size? nr of unsorted pairs >in input? > Simpler: cycles1/avg1 + cycles2/avg2 + .. + cycles10/avg10 index= -------------------------------------------------- 10 where cyclesn is the # of cycles required to sort input set n, and avgn is the average of all programs for that set. An index of "1" is average per- formance, < 1 is better. -Stefan From: Anders Ivner Subject: Re: NSFCWT - Rules for round 4 Date: 1995/10/27 Message-ID: <9510271351.AA14951@su7-3.ida.liu.se>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar I gather that the sort does not have to be stable? (Internal order kept if equal) Also, how is the weighed average run time calcutaled? That is, how are the weights calculated? input size? nr of unsorted pairs in input? /Anders From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: Re: NSFCWT - Rules for round 4 Date: 1995/10/27 Message-ID: <199510271305.OAA20756@iol-mail.iol.it>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Stefan and Nandor wrote: >*********************************************** >* NSFCWT - Rules for round 4 * >*********************************************** > >[rules omitted] > >Break a leg, (crash your hard-drive?) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Ehi! Ski season is incoming and I need both mine, nothing better to say ;-) > Nandor & Stefan > -Beppe From: stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu (Stefan Strack) Subject: Re: impsize.c Date: 1995/10/27 Message-ID: <9510272152.AA27163@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar You might also want to try the cdb macro "imp-numbers" which lists all point/step combinations of the current core size: pmars -be -s 8192 imp.red Opening logfile (cdb) macro imp-numbers 8192,2 3,2731 5,3277 7,3511 9,3641 11,2979 13,3781 15,3823 17,4337 19,2587 21,3901 23,6055 25,7209 27,6675 29,565 31,7135 33,993 35,3979 39,3991 45,4005 47,1743 57,3593 67,3179 71,2423 75,2403 81,2225 83,987 89,2025 97,929 99,331 113,145 115,1211 135,1335 141,581 (cdb) q -Stefan From: graham@hal.mathcs.rhodes.edu (Randy Graham) Subject: Re: NSFCWT - Rules for round 4 Date: 1995/10/27 Message-ID: <1995Oct27.070424.2986@rhodes>#1/1 references: <9510270517.AA26593@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar EGAD!!! Wouldn't want to give us a challenge that is difficult or anything, now would you? I bet this one has a number of different methods used. Should be fun. Randy From: John K W Subject: (no subject) Date: 1995/10/27 Message-ID: <46riem$3qn@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar In light of the recent Pizza difficulties, would it be a good idea to move the 94-b Hill over to Stormking? Wouldn't that bring the mars-ing closer to an even match on the two servers? -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu (Stefan Strack) Subject: NSFCWT - Rules for round 4 Date: 1995/10/27 Message-ID: <9510270517.AA26593@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar *********************************************** * NSFCWT - Rules for round 4 * *********************************************** In round 4, you don't get to kill your opponent, you get to sort him :) This is a programming challenge, which involves writing a program (can't really call it a warrior) that sorts a block of instructions by A and B-field value; a special flag instruction tells your program whether to sort in ascending or descending order and whether to delete duplicate instructions or not. Any sorting algorithm (bubble-, insertion-, quick-sort, etc.) will do. Programs have to be correct (ie. sort 10 different data sets correctly) and are awarded points based on speed and size (faster and smaller is better). Input/Output Data starts at core location 4000. The first instruction is a flag instruction (see below) and *must not* be sorted. The actual data to be sorted is a block of consecutive instructions starting at 4001 and has a length of between 10 and 1000. The empty core instruction DAT.F $0,$0 is not part of the data set and can therefore be used to tell the extent of the data block. The sorted data block is written in place, starting at location 4001 without gaps. You can use any other place in core for temporary storage, etc., as long as the sorted data block ends with an empty core instruction. Flag instruction The instruction at location 4000 tells your program how to perform the sort. The B-field specifies the sort order, a "0" means increasing sort order (small values first); a non-zero value means decreasing sort order. A zero A-field means that duplicate instructions are not removed; a non-zero A-field means that instructions that are identical (opcode, modes and all) are removed during the sort, such that each instruction is unique. Sorting criteria Only A and B-field values are used for sorting. The B-field is sorted first; the A-field is only significant if several instructions with the same B-value exist. E.g. dat 0,2 is greater than dat 1,1. Termination Upon completion, your program has to commit suicide, i.e. execute a DAT instruction. Code/run time No restrictions on code length, instruction use or run time. Scoring Programs are given 10 data sets of varying length and "randomness"; only those that sort all 10 correctly are ranked based on 1) size, 2) weighed average run time. The overall rank is the mean of the size and time ranks. Examples Input 4000 dat 0,1 ;don't delete duplicates, order descending 4001 cmp 200,0 4002 slt #0,@0 4003 cmp 0,1 4004 slt #0,@0 4005 dat 0,0 ... Output 4000 dat 0,1 4001 cmp 0,1 4002 cmp 200,0 4003 slt #0,@0 4004 slt #0,@0 4005 dat 0,0 ... Input 4000 dat 1,0 ;delete duplicates, order ascending 4001 cmp 200,0 4002 slt #0,@0 4003 cmp 0,1 4004 slt #0,@0 4005 dat 0,0 ... Output 4000 dat 1,0 4001 slt #0,@0 4002 cmp 200,0 4003 cmp 0,1 4004 dat 0,0 ... Mail your sorters to Stefan.Strack@vanderbilt.edu by Friday, Nov. 3. Break a leg, (crash your hard-drive?) Nandor & Stefan From: graham@hal.mathcs.rhodes.edu (Randy Graham) Subject: Re: impsize.c Date: 1995/10/27 Message-ID: <1995Oct27.132955.2991@rhodes>#1/1 references: <1995Oct26.151224.2985@rhodes> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar OK, I cleaned it up some, gave better (?) variable names, and added some funtionality I needed. If anyone can use it, here is the latest impsize.c. Should compile as is with gcc. Don't know about others. I made it work on my machine, so I have no clue how portable (or usable for that matter) it will be. Remember, when reading this if you think my C is bad, I haven't used C in over 3 years, and I only used it for a year and a half when I did program with it. Again, apologies to Jay for messing up his good work, but I needed this for something I am working on, and tearing out a little of his code was easier than figuring it out on my own. Randy ----------------------------------------------------------------- #include #include int main (int argc, char *argv[]) { long end_sz, start_sz, work_sz, points, chk_pts, temp; long mod_chk, core_chk, flag, looper, addvar; char *show, *odds; char *smallest="s", *largest="l", *all="a"; long large_pts; if (argc == 1) { fprintf (stderr, "Syntax: %s [max pts [sla [o]]]\n", argv[0]); fprintf (stderr, " max pts defaults to 9 point imp\n"); fprintf (stderr, " s - show smallest size only (default)\n"); fprintf (stderr, " l - show largest size only (<= max)\n"); fprintf (stderr, " a - show all possible sizes\n"); fprintf (stderr, " o - exclude odd number coresizes\n"); exit (-1); } if (argc < 3) exit (-1); sscanf (argv[1], "%ld", &start_sz); sscanf (argv[2], "%ld", &end_sz); sscanf (argv[3], "%ld", &points); if (!points) { points=9; } else { /*not sure if this is necessary - I havent C'ed in a looong time*/ show = argv[4]; if (show) { odds = argv[5]; } else { show="s"; } } for (work_sz = start_sz; work_sz <= end_sz ; work_sz++ ) if (!(work_sz % 2 && odds)) { flag=0; large_pts=0; for (chk_pts = 1; chk_pts <= points; chk_pts++ ) { core_chk=0; mod_chk = work_sz % chk_pts; for (looper=1; looper0) { printf (" %ld is the largest imp with no more than %ld points for coresize %ld\n", large_pts, points, work_sz); flag=1; } if (!flag) { printf (" Couldn't find imp with no more than %ld points for coresize %ld\n", points, work_sz); } } return 0; } From: graham@hal.mathcs.rhodes.edu (Randy Graham) Subject: Round 3 entries Date: 1995/10/27 Message-ID: <1995Oct27.105851.2988@rhodes>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Well, I am having trouble with my connection today, so I am going to post these now while the line works. Following are my entries in round 3 of the tournament. Nothing outstanding, but they support each other well. I probably should seperate them more so scanners don't have too easy a time, but I got tired of tweaking after a while. Randy ----------------------------------------------------------------- ;redcode-94 ;name Aces ;kill Aces ;Author Randy Graham ;contact hp715!rgraham@peridot.spawar.navy.mil ;NSFCWT Round 3 ;assert 1 ;strategy spl/spl/perpetual dat core clear. First lays out flags ;strategy to tell Eights where to find it, then moves. Eventually ;strategy spl-bombs Eights then dat-bombs some but not all so Eights ;strategy stays alive. FLAGS equ 75 MULT equ 102 FLAG equ signal+(num*MULT) PTR equ 100 ADJ equ NNN ;amont partner needs to add to get site MOVETO equ (signal+ADJ-10) signal num for FLAGS mov.i #signal-(num*MULT)+num, FLAG rof moveme mov.i gate2, MOVETO mov.i gate, MOVETO+1 mov.i dat2, MOVETO+3 mov.i dat1, MOVETO+4 mov.i site2, MOVETO+5 mov.i site, MOVETO+6 spl.a MOVETO+8, <-100 mov.i sweeper, MOVETO+8 mov.i mover, MOVETO+9 mov.i swinger, MOVETO+10 gate2 dat.f #-210, 225 gate dat.f #-210, 225 dat2 dat.f <-15, <20 dat1 dat.f <-15, <20 site2 spl.a #-15, <16 site spl.a #-15, <14 sweeper spl.a #0, <-24 mover mov.i @swinger, >-8 swinger djn.b mover, {-4 fini end signal ----------------------------------------------------------------- ;redcode-94 ;name Eights ;kill Eights ;author Randy Graham ;contact hp715!rgraham@peridot.spawar.navy.mil ;NSFCWT Round 3 ;assert 1 ;strategy mod-5 stone that is partnered with Aces. OPT equ 2365 ;mod-5 bomber ADJ equ NNN ;make sure this matches Aces first dat.f 0, <2667 for 30 ;dummy lines to protect against single pass scanners dat.f first, <2667 rof for 40 dat.f 0, 0 rof compare mov.i #0, 0 begin jmz.b begin, {adder ;speed of light search for partner check mov.f *adder, compare ;now see if it is our signal OK seq.i compare, *adder failed jmp.a begin, <100 adder add.a first, moveto ;adjust our move to pointer adder2 add.a adder, moveto mov.i Subject: Pizza? Date: 1995/10/27 Message-ID: <46qphm$crb@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Um, Pizza's being weird again... I think the backlog of Corewars battles may have fried it's brain. :) It's been 18 hours since I sent my last warrior, and about 8 hours since I last recieved mail from Pizza. (I recieved some battles for someone -elses- warrior stamped midnight.) However, this conflicts with the fact that shortly after I sent my last warrior, it replied that it compiled correctly, and said there were two warriors waiting to run. Did it take 10 hours to run? If so, this is not good... :/ -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: Re: Is Pizza overloaded ? Date: 1995/10/27 Message-ID: <199510271517.QAA22164@iol-mail.iol.it>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Here is my last Hill Submission ----- Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 06:40:24 -0700 From: Internet Pizza Server To: bezzi@iol.it Subject: '94 Hill Submission Your corewar program has compiled successfully and will be entered into the ICWS '94 Draft tournament. Including your program, there are 12 programs waiting to run. ----- ^^^^^^^ No chance to get the answer till this evening at 3/4 of an hour each battle. May be the problem is that we have 4 little used hills at Stormking and two, -94 and -b with 95% total load, at Pizza. Moving one of these two at Stormking, that's fast as Pizza is, in exchange for a cuople of its, we may balance the load. -Beppe Bezzi Gaudeamus igitur ... From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: koth Date: 1995/10/28 Message-ID: <199510281253.NAA31899@iol-mail.iol.it>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar ;redcode-94 quiet ;name Qtest04 ;author Beppe Bezzi ;strategy Qscan -> Tornado bomber ;strategy searching best qscan attack ;assert CORESIZE == 8000 ;kill Qtest org start qstep equ 6 ;5 - 8 qrounds equ 6 ;10 bigst equ 99 qst equ qstart -(4*bigst) qstart equ start+100 step equ 95 count equ 530 away equ 3456 start ;'94 scan s1 for 5 sne.x qst+4*bigst*s1, qst+4*bigst*s1+bigst*1 ;check two locations seq.x qst+4*bigst*s1+bigst*2, qst+4*bigst*s1+bigst*3 mov.ab #qst+4*bigst*s1-found, found ;they differ so set pointer rof ; jmn which, found ;if we have something, get it s2 for 5 sne.x qst+4*bigst*(s2+5), qst+4*bigst*(s2+5)+bigst*1 seq.x qst+4*bigst*(s2+5)+bigst*2, qst+4*bigst*(s2+5)+bigst*3 mov.ab #qst+4*bigst*(s2+5)-found-bigst, found rof ; jmn which, found ;if we have something, get it s3 for 5 sne.x qst+4*bigst*(s3+10), qst+4*bigst*(s3+10)+bigst*1 seq.x qst+4*bigst*(s3+10)+bigst*2, qst+4*bigst*(s3+10)+bigst*3 mov.ab #qst+4*bigst*(s3+10)-found-bigst, found rof ; jmn which, found ;if we have something, get it s4 for 4 sne.x qst+4*bigst*(s4+15), qst+4*bigst*(s4+15)+bigst*1 seq.x qst+4*bigst*(s4+15)+bigst*2, qst+4*bigst*(s4+15)+bigst*3 mov.ab #qst+4*bigst*(s4+15)-found-bigst, found rof found jmz.b warr ,#0 ;skip attack if qscan found nothing ; add #bigst, -1 ;increment pointer till we get the which jmz.f -1, @found ;right place ;break qattack ;found.b punta il bersaglio ; mov bombj, @found ; mov bombs, gate djmp djn.f clr, {-step-bombm-1 wip dat <-2666,<2667 bombs spl #wip-gate, #wip-gate+1 bombm mov step, 1 ;bombj jmp -1, 0 ;break qbomb dat #qstep, #qstep qincr dat #3*qstep,#3*qstep end From: stst@vuse.vanderbilt.edu (Stefan Strack) Subject: Core War Frequently Asked Questions (rec.games.corewar FAQ) Date: 1995/10/28 Message-ID: newsgroups: rec.games.corewar,rec.answers,news.answers Archive-name: games/corewar-faq Last-Modified: 95/10/12 Version: 3.6 These are the Frequently Asked Questions (and answers) from the Usenet newsgroup rec.games.corewar. A plain text version of this document is posted every two weeks. The hypertext version is available as _________________________________________________________________ Table of Contents 1. What is Core War 2. Is it Core War or Core Wars? 3. Where can I find more information about Core War? 4. Core War has changed since Dewdney's articles. Where do I get a copy of the current instruction set? 5. What is ICWS'94? Which simulators support ICWS'94? 6. What is the ICWS? 7. What is TCWN? 8. How do I join? 9. What is the EBS? 10. Where are the Core War archives? 11. Where can I find a Core War system for ...? 12. I do not have FTP. How do I get all this great stuff? 13. I do not have access to Usenet. How do I post and receive news? 14. Are there any Core War related WWW sites? 15. When is the next tournament? 16. What is KotH? How do I enter? 17. Is it DAT 0, 0 or DAT #0, #0? How do I compare to core? 18. How does SLT (Skip if Less Than) work? 19. What is the difference between in-register and in-memory evaluation? 20. What does (expression or term of your choice) mean? 21. Other questions? _________________________________________________________________ What is Core War? Core War is a game played by two or more programs (and vicariously by their authors) written in an assembly language called Redcode and run in a virtual computer called MARS (for Memory Array Redcode Simulator). The object of the game is to cause all processes of the opposing program to terminate, leaving your program in sole posession of the machine. There are Core War systems available for most computer platforms. Redcode has been standardized by the ICWS, and is therefore transportable between all standard Core War systems. [ToC] _________________________________________________________________ Is it "Core War" or "Core Wars"? Both terms are used. Early references were to Core War. Later references seem to use Core Wars. I prefer "Core War" to refer to the game in general, "core wars" to refer to more than one specific battle. [ToC] _________________________________________________________________ Where can I find more information about Core War? Core War was first described in the Core War Guidelines of March, 1984 by D. G. Jones and A. K. Dewdney of the Department of Computer Science at The University of Western Ontario (Canada). Dewdney wrote several "Computer Recreations" articles in Scientific American which discussed Core War, starting with the May 1984 article. Those articles are contained in two anthologies: Author: Dewdney, A. K. Title: The Armchair Universe: An Exploration of Computer Worlds Published: New York: W. H. Freeman (c) 1988 ISBN: 0-7167-1939-8 Library of Congress Call Number: QA76.6 .D517 1988 Author: Dewdney, A. K. Title: The Magic Machine: A Handbook of Computer Sorcery Published: New York: W. H. Freeman (c) 1990 ISBN: 0-7167-2125-2 (Hardcover), 0-7167-2144-9 (Paperback) Library of Congress Call Number: QA76.6 .D5173 1990 A.K. Dewdney's articles are still the most readable introduction to Core War, even though the Redcode dialect described in there is no longer current. [ToC] _________________________________________________________________ Core War has changed since Dewdney's articles. Where do I get a copy of the current instruction set? A draft of the official standard (ICWS'88) is available as . This document is formatted awkwardly and contains ambiguous statements. For a more approachable intro to Redcode, take a look at Mark Durham's tutorial, and . Steven Morrell (morrell@math.utah.edu) is preparing a more practically oriented Redcode tutorial that discusses different warrior classes with lots of example code. Mail him for a preliminary version. Michael Constant (mconst@csua.berkeley.edu) is reportedly working on a beginner's introduction. [ToC] _________________________________________________________________ What is ICWS'94? Which simulators support ICWS'94? There is an ongoing discussion about future enhancements to the Redcode language. A proposed new standard, dubbed ICWS'94, is currently being evaluated. A major change is the addition of "instruction modifiers" that allow instructions to modify A-field, B-field or both. Also new is a post-increment indirect addressing mode and unrestricted opcode and addressing mode combination ("no illegal instructions"). ICWS'94 is backwards compatible; i.e. ICWS'88 warriors will run correctly on an ICWS'94 system. Take a look at the ICWS'94 draft for more information. You can try out the new standard by submitting warriors to the '94 hills of the KotH servers. Two corewar systems currently support ICWS'94, pMARS (many platforms) and Redcoder (Mac), both available at ftp.csua.berkeley.edu. [ToC] _________________________________________________________________ What is the ICWS? About one year after Core War first appeared in Sci-Am, the "International Core War Society" (ICWS) was established. Since that time, the ICWS has been responsible for the creation and maintenance of Core War standards and the running of Core War tournaments. There have been six annual tournaments and two standards (ICWS'86 and ICWS'88). [ToC] _________________________________________________________________ What is TCWN? Since March of 1987, "The Core War Newsletter" (TCWN) has been the official newsletter of the ICWS. It is published quarterly and recent issues are also available as Encapsulated PostScript files. [ToC] _________________________________________________________________ How do I join? For more information about joining the ICWS (which includes a subscription to TCWN), or to contribute an article, review, cartoon, letter, joke, rumor, etc. to TCWN, please contact: Jon Newman 13824 NE 87th Street Redmond, WA 98052-1959 email: jonn@microsoft.com (Note: Microsoft has NO affiliation with Core War. Jon Newman just happens to work there, and we want to keep it that way!) Current annual dues are $15.00 in US currency. [ToC] _________________________________________________________________ What is the EBS? The Electronic Branch Section (EBS) of the ICWS is a group of Core War enthusiasts with access to electronic mail. There are no fees associated with being a member of the EBS, and members do reap some of the benefits of full ICWS membership without the expense. For instance, the ten best warriors submitted to the EBS tournament are entered into the annual ICWS tournament. All EBS business is conducted in the rec.games.corewar newsgroup. The current goal of the EBS is to be at the forefront of Core War by writing and implementing new standards and test suites. [ToC] _________________________________________________________________ Where are the Core War archives? Many documents such as the guidelines and the ICWS standards along with previous tournament Redcode entries and complete Core War systems are available via anonymous ftp from (128.32.149.19) in the /pub/corewar directories. Also, most of past rec.games.corewar postings (including Redcode source listings) are archived there. Jon Blow (blojo@csua.berkeley.edu) is the archive administrator. When uploading to /pub/corewar/incoming, ask Jon to move your upload to the appropriate directory and announce it on the net. Much of what is available on soda is also available on the German archive at iraun1.ira.uka.de (129.13.10.90) in the /pub/x11/corewars directory. The plain text version of this FAQ is automatically archived by news.answers. [ToC] _________________________________________________________________ Where can I find a Core War system for . . . ? Core War systems are available via anonymous ftp from ftp.csua.berkeley.edu in the /pub/corewar/systems directory. Currently, there are UNIX, IBM PC-compatible, Macintosh, and Amiga Core War systems available there. It is a good idea to check for program updates first. CAUTION! There are many, many Core War systems available which are NOT ICWS'88 (or even ICWS'86) compatible available at various archive sites other than ftp.csua.berkeley.edu. Generally, the older the program - the less likely it will be ICWS compatible. Reviews of Core War systems would be greatly appreciated in the newsgroup and in the newsletter. Below is a not necessarily complete or up-to-date list of what's available at ftp.csua.berkeley.edu: MADgic41.lzh - corewar for the Amiga, v4.1 MAD4041.lzh - older version? MAD50B.lha - corewar for the Amiga, beta version 5.0 Redcoder-21.hqx - corewar for the Mac, supports ICWS'88 and '94 (without extensions) core-11.hqx - corewar for the Mac core-wars-simulator.hqx - same as core-11.hqx? corewar_unix_x11.tar.Z - corewar for UNIX/X-windows, ICWS'86 but not ICWS'88 compatible koth31.tar.Z - corewar for UNIX/X-windows. This program ran the former KotH server at intel.com koth.shar.Z - older version kothpc.zip - port of older version of KotH to the PC deluxe20c.tar.Z - corewar for UNIX (broken X-windows or curses) and PC mars.tar.Z - corewar for UNIX, likely not ICWS'88 compatible icons.zip - corewar icons for MS-Windows macrored.zip - a redcode macro-preprocessor (PC) c88v49.zip - PC corewar, textmode display mars88.zip - PC corewar, graphics mode display corwp302.zip - PC corewar, textmode display, slowish mercury2.zip - PC corewar written in assembly, fast! mtourn11.zip - tournament scheduler for mercury (req. 4DOS) pmars08s.zip - portable system, ICWS'88 and '94, runs on UNIX, PC, Mac, Amiga. C source archive pmars08s.tar.Z - same as above pmars08.zip - PC executables with graphics display, req 386+ macpmars02.sit.hqx - pMARS executable for Mac (port of version 0.2) buggy, no display MacpMARS1.99a.cpt.hqx - port of v0.8 for the Mac, with display and debugger MacpMARS1.0s.cpt.hqx - C source (MPW, ThinkC) for Mac frontend ApMARS03.lha - pMARS executable for Amiga (port of version 0.3.1) wincor11.zip - MS-Windows system, shareware ($15) [ToC] _________________________________________________________________ I do not have FTP. How do I get all this great stuff? There is an ftp email server at ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com. Send email with a subject and body text of "help" (without the quotes) for more information on its usage. If you don't have access to the net at all, send me a 3.5 '' diskette in a self-addressed disk mailer with postage and I will mail it back with an image of the Core War archives in PC format. My address is at the end of this post. [ToC] _________________________________________________________________ I do not have access to Usenet. How do I post and receive news? To receive rec.games.corewar articles by email, join the COREWAR-L list run on the Stormking.Com list processor. To join, send the message SUB COREWAR-L FirstName LastName to listproc@stormking.com. You can send mail to corewar-l@stormking.com to post even if you are not a member of the list. Responsible for the listserver is Scott J. Ellentuch (tuc@stormking.com). Another server that allows you to post (but not receive) articles is available. Email your post to rec-games-corewar@cs.utexas.edu and it will be automatically posted for you. [ToC] _________________________________________________________________ Are there any Core War related WWW sites? You bet. Each of the two KotH sites sport a world-wide web server. Stormking's Core War page is ; pizza's is . A third WWW site is in Koeln, Germany: . Last but not least, Stephen Beitzel's "Unofficial Core War Page" is . All site are in varying stages of construction, so it would be futile to list here what they have to offer. [ToC] _________________________________________________________________ When is the next tournament? The ICWS holds an annual tournament. Traditionally, the deadline for entering is the 15th of December. The EBS usually holds a preliminary tournament around the 15th of November and sends the top finishers on to the ICWS tournament. Informal double-elimination and other types of tournaments are held frequently among readers of the newsgroup; watch there for announcements or contact me. [ToC] _________________________________________________________________ What is KotH? How do I enter? King Of The Hill (KotH) is an ongoing Core War tournament available to anyone with email. You enter by submitting via email a Redcode program (warrior) with special comment lines. You will receive a reply indicating how well your program did against the current top programs "on the hill". There are two styles of KotH tournaments, "classical" and "multi-warrior". The "classical" KotH is a one-on-one tournament, that is your warrior will play 100 battles against each of the 20 other programs currently on the Hill. You receive 3 points for each win and 1 point for each tie. (The existing programs do not replay each other, but their previous battles are recalled.) All scores are updated to reflect your battles and all 21 programs are ranked from high to low. If you are number 21 you are pushed off the Hill, if you are higher than 21 someone else is pushed off. In "multi-warrior" KotH, all warriors on the hill fight each other at the same time. Score calculation is a bit more complex than for the one-on-one tournament. Briefly, points are awarded based on how many warriors survive until the end of a round. A warrior that survives by itself gets more points than a warrior that survives together with other warriors. Points are calculated from the formula (W*W-1)/S, where W is the total number of warriors and S the number of surviving warriors. The pMARS documentation has more information on multi-warrior scoring. The idea for an email-based Core War server came from David Lee. The original KotH was developed and run by William Shubert at Intel starting in 1991, and discontinued after almost three years of service. Currently, KotHs based on Bill's UNIX scripts but offering a wider variety of hills are are running at two sites: "koth@stormking.com" is maintained by Scott J. Ellentuch (tuc@stormking.com) and "pizza@ecst.csuchico.edu" by Thomas H. Davies (sd@ecst.csuchico.edu). Up until May '95, the two sites provided overlapping services, i.e. the some of the hill types were offered by both "pizza" and "stormking". To conserve resources, the different hill types are now divided up among the sites. The way you submit warriors to both KotHs is pretty much the same. Therefore, the entry rules described below apply to both "pizza" and "stormking" unless otherwise noted. Entry rules for King of the Hill Corewar: 1) Write a corewar program. KotH is fully ICWS '88 compatible, EXCEPT that a comma (",") is required between two arguments. 2) Put a line starting with ";redcode" (or ";redcode-94, etc., see below) at the top of your program. This MUST be the first line. Anything before it will be lost. If you wish to receive mail on every new entrant, use ";redcode verbose". Otherwise you will only receive mail if a challenger makes it onto the hill. Use ";redcode quiet" if you wish to receive mail only when you get shoved off the hill. (Also, see 5 below). Additionally, adding ";name " and ";author " will be helpful in the performance reports. Do NOT have a line beginning with ";address" in your code; this will confuse the mail daemon and you won't get mail back. In addition, it would be nice if you have lines beginning with ";strategy" that describe the algorithm you use. There are currently seven separate hills you can select by starting your program with ;redcode-b, ;redcode-94, ;redcode-94x, ;redcode, ;redcode-icws, ;redcode-94m or ;redcode-94xm. The former three run at "pizza", the latter four at "stormking". More information on these hills is listed below. 3) Mail this file to koth@stormking.com or pizza@ecst.csuchico.edu. "Pizza" requires a subject of "koth" (use the -s flag on most mailers). 4) Within a few minutes you should get mail back telling you whether your program assembled correctly or not. If it did assemble correctly, sit back and wait; if not, make the change required and re-submit. 5) In an hour or so you should get more mail telling you how your program performed against the current top 20 (or 10) programs. If no news arrives during that time, don't worry; entries are put in a queue and run through the tournament one at a time. A backlog may develop. Be patient. If your program makes it onto the hill, you will get mail every time a new program makes it onto the hill. If this is too much mail, you can use ";redcode[-??] quiet" when you first mail in your program; then you will only get mail when you make it on the top 20 list or when you are knocked off. Using ";redcode[-??] verbose" will give you even more mail; here you get mail every time a new challenger arrives, even if they don't make it onto the top 20 list. Often programmers want to try out slight variations in their programs. If you already have a program named "foo V1.0" on the hill, adding the line ";kill foo" to a new program will automatically bump foo 1.0 off the hill. Just ";kill" will remove all of your programs when you submit the new one. The server kills programs by assigning an impossibly low score; it may therefore take another successful challenge before a killed program is actually removed from the hill. SAMPLE ENTRY: ;redcode ;name Dwarf ;author A. K. Dewdney ;strategy Throw DAT bombs around memory, hitting every 4th memory cell. ;strategy This program was presented in the first Corewar article. bomb DAT #0 dwarf ADD #4, bomb MOV bomb, @bomb JMP dwarf END dwarf ; Programs start at the first line unless ; an "END start" pseudo-op appears to indicate ; the first logical instruction. Also, nothing ; after the END instruction will be assembled. Here are the Specs for the various hills: ICWS'88 Standard Hill Specs: (Accessed with ";redcode", available at "stormking") hillsize: 20 warriors rounds: 100 coresize: 8000 max. processes: 8000 duration: after 80,000 cycles, a tie is declared. max. entry length: 100 minimum distance: 100 instruction set: ICWS '88 ICWS Annual Tournament Hill Specs: (Accessed with ";redcode-icws", available at "stormking") hillsize: 20 warriors rounds: 100 coresize: 8192 instructions max. processes: 8000 per program duration: After 100,000 cycles, a tie is declared. max. entry length: 300 minimum distance: 300 instruction set: ICWS '88 ICWS'94 Draft Hill Specs: (Accessed with ";redcode-94", available at "pizza") hillsize: 20 warriors rounds: 100 coresize: 8000 max. processes: 8000 duration: after 80,000 cycles, a tie is declared. max. entry length: 100 minimum distance: 100 instruction set: extended ICWS '94 Draft ICWS'94 Beginner's Hill Specs: (Accessed with ";redcode-b", available at "pizza") hillsize: 20 warriors rounds: 100 coresize: 8000 max. processes: 8000 duration: after 80,000 cycles, a tie is declared. max. entry length: 100 minimum distance: 100 instruction set: extended ICWS '94 Draft max. age: after 100 successful challenges, warriors are retired. ICWS'94 Experimental (Big) Hill Specs: (Accessed with ";redcode-94x", available at "pizza") hillsize: 20 warriors rounds: 100 coresize: 55440 max. processes: 10000 duration: after 500,000 cycles, a tie is declared. max. entry length: 200 minimum distance: 200 instruction set: extended ICWS '94 Draft ICWS'94 Draft Multi-Warrior Hill Specs: (Accessed with ";redcode-94m", available at "stormking") hillsize: 10 warriors rounds: 200 coresize: 8000 max. processes: 8000 duration: after 80,000 cycles, a tie is declared. max. entry length: 100 minimum distance: 100 instruction set: extended ICWS '94 Draft ICWS'94 Experimental (Big) Multi-Warrior Hill Specs: (Accessed with ";redcode-94xm", available at "stormking") hillsize: 20 warriors rounds: 100 coresize: 55440 max. processes: 10000 duration: after 500,000 cycles, a tie is declared. max. entry length: 200 minimum distance: 200 instruction set: extended ICWS '94 Draft If you just want to get a status report without actually challenging the hills, send email with ";status" as the message body (and don't forget "Subject: koth" for "pizza"). If you send mail to "pizza" with "Subject: koth help" you will receive instructions that may be more up to date than those contained in this document. At stormking, a message body with ";help" will return brief instructions. If you submit code containing a ";test" line, your warrior will be assembled but not actually pitted against the warriors on the hill. All hills run portable MARS (pMARS) version 0.8, a platform-independent corewar system available at ftp.csua.berkeley.edu. The '94 and '94x hills allow three experimental opcodes and addressing modes currently not covered in the ICWS'94 draft document: SEQ - Skip if EQual (synonym for CMP) SNE - Skip if Not Equal NOP - (No OPeration) * - indirect using A-field as pointer { - predecrement indirect using A-field } - postincrement indirect using A-field [ToC] _________________________________________________________________ Is it DAT 0, 0 or DAT #0, #0? How do I compare to core? Core is initialized to DAT 0, 0. This is an "illegal" instruction under ICWS'88 rules and strictly compliant assemblers (such as KotH or pmars -8) will not let you write a DAT 0, 0 instruction - only DAT #0, #0. So this begs the question, how to compare something to see if it is empty core. The answer is, most likely the instruction before your first instruction and the instruction after your last instruction are both DAT 0, 0. You can use them, or any other likely unmodified instructions, for comparison. Note that under ICWS'94, DAT 0, 0 is a legal instruction. [ToC] _________________________________________________________________ How does SLT (Skip if Less Than) work? SLT gives some people trouble because of the way modular arithmetic works. It is important to note that all negative numbers are converted to positive numbers before a battles begins. Example: (-1) becomes (M - 1) where M is the memory size. Once you realize that all numbers are treated as positive, it is clear what is meant by "less than". It should also be clear that no number is less than zero. [ToC] _________________________________________________________________ What is the difference between in-register and in-memory evaluation? These terms refer to the way instruction operands are evaluated. The '88 Redcode standard ICWS'88 is unclear about whether a simulator should "buffer" the result of A-operand evaluation before the B-operand is evaluated. Simulators that do buffer are said to use in-register evaluation, those that don't, in-memory evaluation. ICWS'94 clears this confusion by mandating in-register evaluation. Instructions that execute differently under these two forms of evaluation are MOV, ADD, SUB, MUL, DIV and MOD where the effective address of the A-operand is modified by evaluation of the B-operand. This is best illustrated by an example: L1 mov L2, mov.i #0,impsize Bootstrapping Strategy of copying the active portion of the program away from the initial location, leaving a decoy behind and making the relocated program as small as possible. B-Scanners Scanners which only recognize non-zero B-fields. example add #10,scan scan jmz example,10 C Measure of speed, equal to one location per cycle. Speed of light. CMP-Scanner A Scanner which uses a CMP instruction to look for opponents. example add step,scan scan cmp 10,30 jmp attack jmp example step dat #20,#20 Color Property of bombs making them visible to scanners, causing them to attack useless locations, thus slowing them down. example dat #100 Core-Clear code that sequentially overwrites core with DAT instructions; usually the last part of a program. Decoys Bogus or unused instructions meant to slow down Scanners. Typically, DATs with non-zero B-fields. DJN-Stream (also DJN-Train) Using a DJN command to rapidly decrement core locations. example ... ... djn example,<4000 Dwarf the prototypical small bomber. Gate-busting (also gate-crashing) technique to "interweave" a decrement-resistant imp-spiral (e.g. MOV 0, 2668) with a standard one to overrun imp-gates. Hybrids warriors that combine two or more of the basic strategies, either in sequence (e.g. stone->paper) or in parallel (e.g. imp/stone). Imp Program which only uses the MOV instruction. example MOV 0, 1 or example MOV 0, 2 MOV 0, 2 Imp-Gate A location in core which is bombed or decremented continuously so that an Imp can not pass. Also used to describe the program-code which maintains the gate. example ... ... SPL 0, mov.i #0,impsize Mirror see reflection. On-axis/off-axis On-axis scanners compare two locations M/2 apart, where M is the memory size. Off-axis scanners use some other separation. Optimal Constants (also optima-type constants) Bomb or scan increments chosen to cover core most effectively, i.e. leaving gaps of uniform size. Programs to calculate optimal constants and lists of optimal numbers are available at ftp.csua.berkeley.edu. Paper A Paper-like program. One which replicates itself many times. Part of the Scissors (beats) Paper (beats) Stone (beats Scissors) analogy. Pit-Trapper (also Slaver, Vampire). A program which enslaves another. Usually accomplished by bombing with JMPs to a SPL 0 pit with an optional core-clear routine. Quick Scan 2c scan of a set group of core locations with bombing if anything is found. Both of the following codes snips scan 16 locations and check for a find. If anything is found, it is attacked, otherwise 16 more locations are scanned. Example: start s1 for 8 ;'88 scan cmp start+100*s1, start+100*s1+4000 ;check two locations mov #start+100*s1-found, found ;they differ so set pointer rof jmn attack, found ;if we have something, get it s2 for 8 cmp start+100*(s2+6), start+100*(s2+6)+4000 mov #start+100*(s2+6)-found, found rof found jmz moveme, #0 ;skip attack if qscan found nothing attack cmp @found, start-1 ;does found points to empty space? add #4000, found ;no, so point to correct location mov start-1, @found ;move a bomb moveme jmp 0, 0 In ICWS'94, the quick scan code is more compact because of the SNE opcode: start ;'94 scan s1 for 4 sne start+400*s1, start+400*s1+100 ;check two locations seq start+400*s1+200, start+400*s1+300 ;check two locations mov #start+400*s1-found, found ;they differ so set pointer rof jmn which, found ;if we have something, get it s2 for 4 sne start+400*(s2+4), start+400*(s2+4)+100 seq start+400*(s2+4)+200, start+400*(s2+4)+300 mov #start+400*(s2+4)-found-100, found rof found jmz moveme, #0 ;skip attack if qscan found nothing add #100, -1 ;increment pointer till we get the which jmn -1, @found ;right place mov start-1, @found ;move a bomb moveme jmp 0, 0 Reflection Copy of a program or program part, positioned to make the active program invisible to a CMP-scanner. Replicator Generic for Paper. A program which makes many copies of itself, each copy also making copies. Self-Splitting Strategy of amplifying the number of processes executing a piece of code. example SPL 0 loop ADD #10, example MOV example, @example JMP loop Scanner A program which searches through core for an opponent rather than bombing blindly. Scissors A program designed to beat replicators, usually a (B-field scanning) vampire. Part of the Paper-Scissors-Stone analogy. Self-Repair Ability of a program to fix it's own code after attack. Silk A replicator which splits off a process to each new copy before actually copying the code. This allows it to replicate extremely quickly. This technique is only possible under the '94 draft, because it requires post-increment indirect addressing. Example: spl 1 mov.i -1, 0 spl 1 ;generate 6 consecutive processes silk spl 3620, #0 ;split to new copy mov.i >-1, }-1 ;copy self to new location mov.i bomb, >2000 ;linear bombing mov.i bomb, }2042 ;A-indirect bombing for anti-vamp jmp silk, {silk ;reset source pointer, make new copy bomb dat.f >2667, >5334 ;anti-imp bomb Slaver see Pit-Trapper. Stealth Property of programs, or program parts, which are invisible to scanners, accomplished by using zero B-fields and reflections. Stone A Stone-like program designed to be a small bomber. Part of the Paper-Scissors-Stone analogy. Stun A type of bomb which makes the opponent multiply useless processes, thus slowing it down. Example is referred to as a spl-jmp bomb. example spl 0 jmp -1 Two-Pass Core-Clear (also spl/dat Core-Clear) core clear that fills core first with SPL instructions, then with DATs. This is very effective in killing paper and certain imp-spiral variations. Vampire see Pit-Trapper. Vector Launch one of several means to start an imp-spiral running. As fast as Binary Launch, but requiring much less code. See also JMP/ADD Launch and Binary Launch. This example is one form of a Vector Launch: impsize equ 2667 example spl 1 ; extend by adding more spl 1's spl 1 djn.a @imp,#0 ; jmp @ a series of pointers dat #0,imp+(3*impsize) dat #0,imp+(2*impsize) dat #0,imp+(1*impsize) dat #0,imp+(0*impsize) imp mov.i #0,impsize [ToC] _________________________________________________________________ Other questions? Just ask in the rec.games.corewar newsgroup or contact me (address below). If you are shy, check out the Core War archives first to see if your question has been answered before. [ToC] _________________________________________________________________ Credits Additions, corrections, etc. to this document are solicited. Thanks in particular to the following people who have contributed major portions of this document: Paul Kline, Randy Graham. Mark Durham wrote the first version of the FAQ. The rec.games.corewar FAQ is Copyright 1995 and maintained by: Stefan Strack, PhD stst@vuse.vanderbilt.edu Dept. Molecular Physiol. and Biophysics stst@idnsun.gpct.vanderbilt.edu Rm. 762, MRB-1 stracks@vuctrvax.bitnet Vanderbilt Univ. Medical Center Voice: +615-322-4389 Nashville, TN 37232-6600, USA FAX: +615-322-7236 _________________________________________________________________ $Id: corewar-faq.html,v 3.6 1995/10/12 22:44:37 stst Exp stst $ From: Planar Subject: [beginner] Imp Craze 91.43 Date: 1995/10/28 Message-ID: <46tusd$pbo@news-rocq.inria.fr> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Introduction. ------------- Old-timers need not read this article. This is intended for beginners who, like me, have a hard time understanding all the subtleties of the warriors that get posted in this newsgroup. This is essentially an account on how I managed to get my first warrior on the beginner hill. If you still read this, feel free to correct any mistakes I make. Most basic warriors are easy to understand in principle, but with a lot if intricate details in the implementation. The imp spiral is the exception: based on a very clever idea, its implementations are not too hard to understand. That's why it's a good start for a beginner. Imp spirals. ------------ I started with the FAQ sections on launching imp-spirals: binary launch, spl-add launch and vector launch. The vector launch is the first one I could make sense of. If you're a beginner, I suggest that you look up the code in the FAQ and work out the precise execution order of all the instructions, how they get pushed into the process queue, etc. (This is exercise 1. I suggest using cdb. It's never too early to learn cdb.) Then choose a size for your imp spiral. The number of points of a spiral must not have a common factor with coresize. For coresize = 8000, this means you can choose any number except multiples of 2 or 5. This is a table of imp sizes with the corresponding step size: 3,2667 7,1143 9, 889 11,5091 13,3077 17,2353 19,7579 21, 381 23,2087 27,2963 29,6069 31,3871 33,1697 37,4973 39,6359 41,1561 43,3907 47,2383 49,2449 51,3451 53,2717 57,5193 59,4339 61,3541 63, 127 67,7403 69,6029 71,3831 73,6137 77,3013 79,1519 81,6321 83,6747 87,2023 89, 809 91,5011 93,3957 97,6433 99,5899 Using a huge spiral size is interesting because it makes scanners do useless work: one turn of your spiral will modify a lot of core locations, only one of which is vulnerable to attack. This is exactly what I did with Imp Craze. A simple vector launch will use 9 instructions to build up the processes, so the vector can be 91 instructions. A 91-process spiral can have up to 91 points. But a 91-process 91-point spiral is a ring. It is too easy to kill: if one process gets killed, the entire ring will collapse. I chose 43 points as a middle ground, and here is Imp Craze 91.43 as submitted to the beginner hill: ;redcode-b ;name Imp Craze 91.43 ;author Planar ;strategy imp spiral: vector-launched, 43-point, 91-process ;assert CORESIZE==8000 threads equ 91 step equ 3907 org start start spl 1, <-1000 mov.i -1, #1 spl 1, <-2000 spl 1, <-1500 mov.i -1, #1 spl 1, <-2500 spl 1, <-3000 djn.a @vector, #1 imp mov.i #1, step i for threads dat #0, #imp+(threads-i)*step rof vector equ imp+threads end You can convert it into Imp Craze 91.x by changing the "step" to the step size corresponding to x processes. As a second exercise for beginners, I suggest building a 180-process launcher by using T. Hsu's method of storing two pointers in each vector element. You'll find an example of this in the code for juliet storm (see the second issue of Core Warrior). Notice that having a huge launching code that takes a lot of time (about 100 cycles) to work is not such a bad thing. As soon as 43 processes are launched, the imp spiral will live, even if the launcher is clobbered by the enemy. As a third exercise, try other values (bigger and smaller than 43) and see how they fare against various opponents. Scanners are especially hard on Imp Craze. Notice that, if you use too small a value, then Imp Craze will not cover the whole core because the spiral advances too slowly, and you lose some victories against the warriors that have few processes (such warriors will die when overrun by a spiral). A fourth exercise would be to think about what happens when two spirals of different sizes fight each other. And do some experiments, of course. Tactical considerations. ------------------------ The beginner hill currently contains (the classification is approximative): 6 stones (juliet storm, Mythicon, Weasel, Skimmer, Banzaiv1.2, Banzaiv1.3) 5 scanners (Hint Test, Heatseek2, Searching, 1stscanner, PlinyScan) 2 vampires (Web, Eradu) 1 paper (Paper6) 3 imps (Impfinity v1, Cyclone, Imp Craze 91.43) 1 paper-stone combination (P_Banzai) 1 mysterious program (Test-Fc) The stones are generally coupled with spirals (and spirals with stones) and the scanners and vampires often use a core-clear. My first attempts at getting on the hill were with a vampire. Not a good idea. To get on the hill, the best tactic is to find out what the trend is, and get one step ahead: write the natural predator of what is currently the majority on the hill: papers kill stones stones kill scanners and vampires (aka scissors) scanners and vampires kill papers imps tie a lot, especially against papers. With all the stones currently on the hill, a paper should do well (as Paper6 shows) especially if vampire-resistant. You could also write a stone to feed on the scanners and vampires (this would help Paper6 get closer to juliet storm). Of course, if everybody starts submitting huge spirals to the hill, it will become a good idea to work on an imp-killer. Imp Craze results. ------------------ opponent W / L / T (Imp Craze wins / loses / ties) juliet storm 0 / 59 / 191 Heatseek2 85 / 117 / 48 ShadowImp 0 / 10 / 240 Test-Fc 60 / 123 / 67 Web 75 / 171 / 4 Weasel 60 / 77 / 113 Cyclone 28 / 25 / 197 Obvious 168 / 32 / 50 Mythicon v1.1a 127 / 66 / 57 Eradu 102 / 49 / 99 Skimmer 110 / 68 / 72 Cotton-DH 8a 0 / 26 / 224 PlinyScan 176 / 26 / 48 DeathWalker 24 / 13 / 213 Banzai0.2 219 / 17 / 14 Enlightenment II 115 / 10 / 125 Apple attack 84 / 73 / 93 Mokkori v0.2 1 / 72 / 177 Chunky 2 80 / 6 / 164 Imp Craze 91.43 5 / 5 / 240 Impfinity v1 1 / 27 / 222 Recon v2.5 149 / 89 / 12 1stscanner 35 / 90 / 125 Bomber 186 / 23 / 41 PaIR 0 / 1 / 249 Eradu v1.01 107 / 48 / 95 Ferret 49 / 47 / 154 Scanner 202 / 11 / 37 Searching 46 / 97 / 107 Paper6 0 / 68 / 182 Banzaiv1.2 26 / 52 / 172 Banzaiv1.3 4 / 43 / 203 P_Banzai 0 / 10 / 240 References. ----------- The FAQ is at You'll find back issues of Core Warrior, and a library of warriors, at -- Planar From: mconst@OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Michael Constant) Subject: Re: NSFCWT - Rules for round 4 Date: 1995/10/28 Message-ID: <46se0h$n11@agate.berkeley.edu>#1/1 references: <9510270517.AA26593@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname> <1995Oct27.070424.2986@rhodes> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Randy Graham wrote: >EGAD!!! Wouldn't want to give us a challenge that is difficult or >anything, now would you? Actually, I think it's a great tournament problem. The difficulty seems to be on par with my prime-number challenge. Perhaps I'll actually get an entry submitted for this round! :-) From: mpn@ifm.liu.se (Magnus Paulsson) Subject: Round 4 rules Date: 1995/10/29 Message-ID: <199510291944.UAA06268@ifm.liu.se>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar > A zero A-field means that duplicate instructions are not removed; a > non-zero A-field means that instructions that are identical (opcode, ^^^^^^^^^ > modes and all) are removed during the sort, such that each instruction is ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > unique. Are you sure? This makes it a "bit" more difficult. It means that it's not enough to sort the data and then look for duplicates in neighbouring locations! Will you realy check it? I mean supply data sets like: ... spl 0,0 dat 0,0 spl 0,0 ... /Magnus Paulsson (Make more papers for the 94'hill, myZizzor likes them ;-) From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: Re: NSFCWT - Rules for round 4 Date: 1995/10/29 Message-ID: <199510291210.NAA08764@iol-mail.iol.it>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Michael Constant wrote: >Randy Graham wrote: >>EGAD!!! Wouldn't want to give us a challenge that is difficult or >>anything, now would you? > >Actually, I think it's a great tournament problem. The difficulty seems >to be on par with my prime-number challenge. Perhaps I'll actually get an >entry submitted for this round! :-) > May be I'm the only one but I don't like it too much. It's a redcode exercise, not a warrior; corewar is making a program to go to battle with others programs and their authors. One can choose not to submit a warrior that is technically the best, but to try to outwit his, human, opponents submitting something unexpected. Now we have a difficult problem to solve, nothing more. I don't want to search my dusty assembler books for a quick sorting algorithm and try to implement it in a restricted instruction set like redcode is; I want blood (virtual, of course) and human opponents to fight against. I tried to write something, and I'll do something till friday, but every time I begin working, I quickly revert to writing some battle code; trying to crush Armory or Torch is more fun, for me, that sorting numbers. Jack an Tornado have sort of a 'soul', sort programs don't. Romantic ? Yes I'm. -Beppe From: estrathm@bu.edu (Eric Strathmeyer) Subject: ;assert command? Date: 1995/10/29 Message-ID: <46up5h$luq@news.bu.edu>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Whenever I send a program to a KotH server, it tells me that I need to have a line in my program that says ";assert". I have looked through all the FAQs I have, and I can't find an explaination. Could someone please explain it to me. From: John K W Subject: Re: koth Date: 1995/10/29 Message-ID: <46ul79$4cr@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <199510281253.NAA31899@iol-mail.iol.it> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Beppe Bezzi wrote: >;redcode-94 quiet >;name Qtest04 >;author Beppe Bezzi Was that an accident? Or did you mean to post that warrior? -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu (Stefan Strack) Subject: NSFCWT - round 3 results Date: 1995/10/30 Message-ID: <9510301948.AA28955@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Results for round 3 of NSFCWT are in. The challenge was to submit a *pair* of warriors that would work together to kill other pairs of warriors. The score formula was modified to reward partnership, i.e. you received more points if you left your team mate alife. Real communication between warriors in a team was apparently difficult to implement effectively, since only two players chose that strategy (Randy Graham's Aces/Eights and, passively, Anders Scholl's Claudia/Lestat). Most players in this round submitted partners that were simply unable to kill each other (like papers) achieving some sort of cheap cooperativity. It's possible that redcode simply can't support effective cooperativity, or maybe it's just a matter of tweaking the score formula some more. Anyways, here the scores: S/P Warrior #1 by G. Eadon scores 3304 Die Hard by P.Kline scores 2916 Marcia Trionfale 1.3 by Beppe Bezzi scores 2608 Tican by John Wilkinson scores 2308 theMystery2.0 1 by Paulsson scores 2175 Not Expecting Too Much 1 by Karl Lewin scores 2161 theMystery2.0 2 by Paulsson scores 2148 Not Expecting Too Much 2 by Karl Lewin scores 2139 Aces by Randy Graham scores 2136 Juliet Storm+Spiral by John Wilkinson scores 2130 test 1 by Steven Morrell scores 2129 test 2 by Steven Morrell scores 2101 Jack in the box by Beppe Bezzi scores 1981 Twins 2 by Maurizio Vittuari scores 1969 Twins 1 by Maurizio Vittuari scores 1969 Eights by Randy Graham scores 1937 kwclear 2 by Anders Ivner scores 1788 kwclear 1 by Anders Ivner scores 1683 lewis 1 by John Lewis scores 1115 blackTN by P.Kline scores 1102 lewis 2 by John Lewis scores 1016 Claudia incarnation0.3 by anders scholl scores 952 2IR 2 by Calvin Loh scores 694 2IR 1 by Calvin Loh scores 684 Lestat Incarnation0.2 by anders scholl scores 579 S/P Warrior #2 by G. Eadon scores 380 Combined scores: Beppe Bezzi 4589 John Wilkinson 4438 Magnus Paulsson 4323 Karl Lewin 4300 Steven Morrell 4230 Randy Graham 4073 Paul Kline 4018 Maurizio Vittuari 3938 Greg Eadon 3684 Anders Ivner 3471 John Lewis 2131 Anders Scholl 1531 Calvin Loh 1378 Overall scores so far: Name pts for round 1 2 3 __________________________________________ Beppe Bezzi 7 7 13 M R Bremer 7 4 - G. Eadon 1.5 2 5 Randy Graham - - 8 Anders Ivner 5.5 8 4 P.Kline 7.5 9 7 Karl Lewin - - 10 John Lewis - - 3 Calvin Loh - - 1 Steven Morrell 5 10 9 Paulsson 7.5 11 11 Derek Ross 3.5 3 - Anders Scholl - 1 2 Maurizio Vittuari 6.5 5 6 John K. Wilkinson 4 6 12 Magnus Paulsson still leads with 29.5 points, followed by Beppe Bezzi with 27, and Steven Morrell and Paul Kline with 24 and 23.5 points, respectively. Concerning the score calculations for the upcoming round 4. The weighed average time is calculated as posted earlier. In addition, we will use a size index, as opposed to simply ranking by the number of instructions: index = size/avgsize The overall rank is then determined by the average of the speed and size indices - the smaller the better. This favors programs that trade a huge speed increase for a small increase in size, or an extremely compact size for a moderate slowdown. Thanks for playing, Nandor & Stefan From: Randy Graham Subject: Re: djn.x behavior Date: 1995/10/30 Message-ID: <199510302023.OAA06347@hal.mathcs.rhodes.edu>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar > Yes, djn.x falls back to djn.f, just as jmz.x falls back to jmz.f. Think > of it this way: .X, ie. crosswise A to B, B to A comparison, move, arithmetic > makes sense for opcodes with A and B-address, but not those that have an > A-pointer and a B-address (=branch instructions), because the modifier has > no influence on the A-pointer. > > If djn.x behaved like you wished, then it would be logical for > jmp.x -3,ptr > to scramble the 'ptr' address as well, a mov.x for free. Too powerful IMO. OK, makes sense. I want it otherwise, but that's just because it is more powerful :) Can't argue with the fallback, I just wasn't sure. Call me greedy... Thanks > -Stefan Randy From: stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu (Stefan Strack) Subject: Re: djn.x behavior Date: 1995/10/30 Message-ID: <9510302013.AA28964@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Yes, djn.x falls back to djn.f, just as jmz.x falls back to jmz.f. Think of it this way: .X, ie. crosswise A to B, B to A comparison, move, arithmetic makes sense for opcodes with A and B-address, but not those that have an A-pointer and a B-address (=branch instructions), because the modifier has no influence on the A-pointer. If djn.x behaved like you wished, then it would be logical for jmp.x -3,ptr to scramble the 'ptr' address as well, a mov.x for free. Too powerful IMO. -Stefan From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: Core warrior n. 3 Date: 1995/10/30 Message-ID: <199510302126.WAA27563@iol-mail.iol.it> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar .xX$$x. .x$$$$$$$x. d$$$$$$$$$$$ ,$$$$$$$P' `P' , . $$$$$$P' ' .d b $$$$$P b ,$$x ,$$x ,$$x ,$$b $$. Y$$$$' `$. $$$$$$. $$$$$$ $$P~d$. d$$$b d d$$$ `$$$$ ,$$ $$$$$$$b $$$P `$ $$$b.$$b `Y$$$d$d$$$' . . a . a a .aa . a `$$$ ,$$$,$$' `$$$ $$$' ' $$P$XX$' `$$$$$$$$$ .dP' `$'$ `$'$ , $''$ `$'$ `Y$b ,d$$$P `$b,d$P' `$$. `$$. , `$$P $$$' Y $. $ $ $ Y..P $ `$$$$$$$' $$$P' `$$b `$$$P `P `$' `Y'k. $. $. $. $$' $. Issue 3 30/10/95 ______________________________________________________________________________ Core_Warrior_ is a weekly newsletter promoting the game of corewar. Emphasis is placed on the most active hills--currently the '94 draft hill and the beginner hill. Coverage will follow where ever the action is. If you have no clue what I'm talking about then check out these five-star internet locals for more information: FAQs are available by anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu as pub/usenet/news.answers/games/corewar-faq.Z FTP site is: ftp.csua.berkeley.edu /pub/corewar Web pages are at: http://www.stormking.com/~koth http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~pizza/koth ______________________________________________________________________________ Hi people, this week I'm back again to write Core warrior for you. As suggested by Myers, very many wrote complaint letter about his number, asking me to write again :-) and here I'm. Just kidding. Anyone wanting to join the staff is welcome as anyone with hints suggestions and warriors to publish. _____________________________________________________________________________ Tournament Time (details at http://www.stormking.com/~koth/nsfcwt.html) Results for round 3 of NSFCWT are in. The challenge was to submit a *pair* of warriors that would work together to kill other pairs of warriors. The score formula was modified to reward partnership, i.e. you received more points if you left your team mate alife. Real communication between warriors in a team was apparently difficult to implement effectively, since only two players chose that strategy (Randy Graham's Aces/Eights and, passively, Anders Scholl's Claudia/Lestat). Most players in this round submitted partners that were simply unable to kill each other (like papers) achieving some sort of cheap cooperativity. It's possible that redcode simply can't support effective cooperativity, or maybe it's just a matter of tweaking the score formula some more. Anyways, here the scores: S/P Warrior #1 by G. Eadon scores 3304 Die Hard by P.Kline scores 2916 Marcia Trionfale 1.3 by Beppe Bezzi scores 2608 Tican by John Wilkinson scores 2308 theMystery2.0 1 by Paulsson scores 2175 Not Expecting Too Much 1 by Karl Lewin scores 2161 theMystery2.0 2 by Paulsson scores 2148 Not Expecting Too Much 2 by Karl Lewin scores 2139 Aces by Randy Graham scores 2136 Juliet Storm+Spiral by John Wilkinson scores 2130 test 1 by Steven Morrell scores 2129 test 2 by Steven Morrell scores 2101 Jack in the box by Beppe Bezzi scores 1981 Twins 2 by Maurizio Vittuari scores 1969 Twins 1 by Maurizio Vittuari scores 1969 Eights by Randy Graham scores 1937 kwclear 2 by Anders Ivner scores 1788 kwclear 1 by Anders Ivner scores 1683 lewis 1 by John Lewis scores 1115 blackTN by P.Kline scores 1102 lewis 2 by John Lewis scores 1016 Claudia incarnation0.3 by anders scholl scores 952 2IR 2 by Calvin Loh scores 694 2IR 1 by Calvin Loh scores 684 Lestat Incarnation0.2 by anders scholl scores 579 S/P Warrior #2 by G. Eadon scores 380 Combined scores: Beppe Bezzi 4589 John Wilkinson 4438 Magnus Paulsson 4323 Karl Lewin 4300 Steven Morrell 4230 Randy Graham 4073 Paul Kline 4018 Maurizio Vittuari 3938 Greg Eadon 3684 Anders Ivner 3471 John Lewis 2131 Anders Scholl 1531 Calvin Loh 1378 Overall scores so far: Name pts for round 1 2 3 Tot. ____________________________________________________ Paulsson 7.5 11 11 29.5 Beppe Bezzi 7 7 13 27 Steven Morrell 5 10 9 24 P.Kline 7.5 9 7 23.5 John K. Wilkinson 4 6 12 22 Anders Ivner 5.5 8 4 17.5 Maurizio Vittuari 6.5 5 6 17.5 M R Bremer 7 4 - 11 Karl Lewin - - 10 10 G. Eadon 1.5 2 5 8.5 Randy Graham - - 8 8 Derek Ross 3.5 3 - 6.5 John Lewis - - 3 3 Anders Scholl - 1 2 3 Calvin Loh - - 1 1 Magnus Paulsson still leads with 29.5 points, followed by Beppe Bezzi with 27, and Steven Morrell and Paul Kline with 24 and 23.5 points, respectively. Thanks for playing, Nandor & Stefan ---------- Standings are still very open with 5 players in but 7.5 points. Welcome to Karl Levin, Randy Graham, John Lewis and Calvin Loh, joining the tournament this round. I should not comment this round but I can see the winner, let's hear his first impressions: "thank you, thank you, has been very, very hard, but I did it" :-))) _____________________________________________________________________________ 94 Hill - Standings # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 40/ 29/ 31 Torch t18 P.Kline 150 319 2 44/ 42/ 14 Leprechaun on speed Anders Ivner 146 115 3 41/ 37/ 22 Porch Swing + Randy Graham 145 20 4 35/ 27/ 38 Phq Maurizio Vittuari 143 421 5 35/ 26/ 39 Father & Son Maurizio Vittuari 143 22 6 38/ 34/ 28 myVamp v3.7 Paulsson 141 287 7 32/ 23/ 45 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 141 307 8 41/ 42/ 17 Frontwards Steven Morrell 140 254 9 29/ 19/ 52 test r 02 Beppe Bezzi 139 35 10 35/ 31/ 35 Armory - A5 Wilkinson 139 458 11 31/ 25/ 44 .Brain Vamp. B.Bezzi, M.Paulsson 137 21 12 41/ 46/ 13 Anti Die-Hard Bevo (3c) John Wilkinson 136 124 13 26/ 16/ 58 Tican John Wilkinson 136 13 14 40/ 44/ 16 Leprechaun deluxe Anders Ivner 135 224 15 21/ 7/ 73 Chugging Along Karl Lewin 135 4 16 34/ 33/ 33 Tornado 1.8 Beppe Bezzi 134 173 17 31/ 37/ 32 myZizzor Paulsson 125 50 18 17/ 15/ 68 Cotton-DH c John K. Wilkinson 118 2 19 15/ 15/ 71 Cotton-DH c John K. Wilkinson 114 1 20 30/ 46/ 24 Lurker 1.1 Kurt Franke 113 3 Also this week we have standard non-p warriors in great majority (15/5) on the hill and keeping the top four positions. Randy Graham showed down with its new Porch Swing+, climbing high; a few paper warriors have entered the lower part of the hill. A few kills of test warriors have increased the top/bottom rate, now at 32.7% A quiet week, the tournament is keeping busy most redcoders. _____________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's new 1 44/ 40/ 16 Porch Swing + Randy Graham 148 1 Welcome back Randy !! 10 32/ 31/ 37 Father & Son Maurizio Vittuari 134 1 11 28/ 23/ 49 test r 02 Beppe Bezzi 132 1 13 31/ 29/ 40 .Brain Vamp. B.Bezzi, M.Paulsson 132 1 14 22/ 9/ 69 Chugging Along Karl Lewin 136 1 19 22/ 18/ 60 Tican John Wilkinson 127 1 18 17/ 18/ 65 Cotton-DH c John K. Wilkinson 116 1 18 30/ 50/ 21 Lurker 1.1 Kurt Franke 110 1 19 15/ 15/ 71 Cotton-DH c John K. Wilkinson 114 1 Worth noting new Porch Swing +, not dominating like this summer, but always a dangerous guy. ____________________________________________________________________________ __________ 94 - What's no more 21 2/ 1/ 2 Brain Vamp B.Bezzi, M.Paulsson 7 137 21 1/ 2/ 2 Firestorm 08 Beppe Bezzi 6 114 21 36/ 51/ 13 SandBlast 1a John K. Wilkinson 121 55 21 37/ 47/ 16 blackTN P.Kline 126 43 21 16/ 11/ 73 Die Hard P.Kline 121 13 Very little, in my weeks warriors age without risks :-) A couple of warriors have been killed by their author, to be replaced by new versions or others warriors. Other losses include Sandblast, Black TN and Die Hard. _____________________________________________________________________________ What's old 10 35/ 31/ 35 Armory - A5 Wilkinson 139 458 4 35/ 27/ 38 Phq Maurizio Vittuari 143 421 1 40/ 29/ 31 Torch t18 P.Kline 150 319 7 32/ 23/ 45 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 141 307 6 38/ 34/ 28 myVamp v3.7 Paulsson 141 287 8 41/ 42/ 17 Frontwards Steven Morrell 140 254 14 40/ 44/ 16 Leprechaun deluxe Anders Ivner 135 224 Armory is now the leader, with some advantage on Phq and a good one on the trio: Torch, Jack in the Box, both over 300, and myVamp. Two new entries in the more than 200 old, Frontwards and Leprechaun deluxe. All the group seems to be in good health. _____________________________________________________________________________ HALL OF FAME * means the warrior is still running; > score isn't exact Pos Name Author Age Strategy 1 Iron Gate 1.5 Wayne Sheppard 926 CMP scanner 2 Agony II Stefan Strack 912 CMP scanner 3 Blue Funk Steven Morrell 869 Stone/ imp 4 Thermite 1.0 Robert Macrae 802 Qscan -> bomber 5 Blue Funk 3 Steven Morrell 766 Stone/ imp 6 HeremScimitar A.Ivner,P.Kline 666 Bomber 7 B-Panama X Steven Morrell 518 Stone/ replicator 8 Armory - A5 Wilkinson 458 * P-warrior 9 Phq Maurizio Vittuari 421 * Qscan -> replicator 10 NC 94 Wayne Sheppard 387 Stone/ imp 11 Cannonade P.Kline >378 Stone/ imp 12 Torch t17 P.Kline 378 Bomber 13 Lucky 3 Stefan Strack >350 Stone/ imp 14 Request v2.0 Brant D. Thomsen 347 Qvamp -> vampire 15 Dragon Spear c w blue 346 ? 16 juliet storm M R Bremer 333 Stone/ imp 17 TimeScape (1.0) J. Pohjalainen 322 Replicator 18 Rave 4.1 Stefan Strack 320 CMP scanner 19 Torch t18 P.Kline 319 * Bomber 20 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 307 * P-warrior Phq enters the top 10, Torch t18 and Jack in the box enter in the bottom, Christopher and Aeka leave the top 20 _____________________________________________________________________________ Beginner's Hill standings # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 53/ 8/ 39 juliet storm M R Bremer 197 41 2 39/ 9/ 52 paper01o Beppe Bezzi 169 1 3 37/ 15/ 49 Paper8 G. Eadon 159 3 4 43/ 32/ 25 Lurker 1.1 Kurt Franke 155 2 5 42/ 34/ 24 Test-Fc G. Eadon 149 27 6 41/ 41/ 18 Hint Test M R Bremer 142 21 7 43/ 44/ 13 Heatseek2 Phil Whineray 141 19 8 23/ 8/ 69 Impfinity v1 Planar 138 16 9 39/ 40/ 21 Searching Kurt Franke 137 8 10 40/ 46/ 14 Web Gareth Thomas 133 42 11 38/ 44/ 18 Mythicon v1.1a G. Eadon 132 100 12 35/ 40/ 25 1stscanner Kurt Franke 130 14 13 25/ 23/ 53 Cyclone Scott Manley 126 29 14 36/ 53/ 10 Skimmer Gareth Thomas 119 68 15 29/ 39/ 32 Weasel Kurt Franke 119 33 16 29/ 41/ 30 Banzaiv1.3 Calvin Loh 118 5 17 21/ 29/ 50 P_Banzai Calvin Loh 113 4 18 20/ 27/ 53 Imp Craze 91.43 Planar 113 17 19 29/ 47/ 24 Banzaiv1.2 Calvin Loh 112 6 20 32/ 54/ 15 PlinyScan G. Eadon 110 23 Sorry for the submission of paper01o, a warrior that entered the -94 hill too. I did it to get standings and to compare results with 94 hill's. In -94 hill paper01o scored 126, entering near position 15. Its code is discussed in the hint, with notes on how to make a similar warrior. If anyone wants results of paper01o againts others beginner's or -94 hill warriors, mail me. Is worth noting paper01o won all single matches on -b hill, (1/0/249 against Paper8 and Impfinity), but the one against PlinyScan (82/113/55 for it) Against juliet storm, scored but 22/0/228, having very little anti imp. _____________________________________________________________________________ The hint Replicators (part 2) Hi, happy to see you again. Last time we spoke of basic replicator concepts, now I'll try to speak of some advanced topics. To begin let's give a look at another replicating engine, the best one in my opinion, first introduced by Jippo Pohjalainen in its warrior Timescape. We report slightly simplified, the way it has been proposed as White warrior by Nandor and Stefan in the tournament. warrior spl 1, <-200 mov.i -1, 0 ;this block generates 6 processes spl 1, <-300 tim2 spl @tim2, }TSTEP tim2a mov.i }tim2, >tim2 cel2 spl @cel2, }CSTEP ;these four lines are the main body cel2a mov.i }cel2, >cel2 ;here you can insert some bombing line ncl2a mov.i {cel2, NSTEP All you know, having read part 1, how the first four lines work, they split away and copy the warrior body where the processes are going to execute, is worth noting that the lines cel2, cel2a don't copy the warrior from the beginning but copy two blank lines in the bottom, after ncl2. Line ncl2a copies again the warrior, fron cel2 to ncl2+2, backward because of the pre decrements and last line jumps to the beginning of this copy resetting the pointer. The main advantage of this structure is that all the code is executed but once, to be left as a decoy to foul scanners; this is a great advantage compared with the older structure of the first hint. Another advantage is that the warrior will continue to work, slowed, even if wounded by a bomb in its last two lines. This guy was the harder thing to kill before Paul Kline created Die Hard. With this structure have been made some others replicators of success, worth mention are Nobody special by Mike Nonemacher and Marcia Trionfale by...me. Now we have a solid structure to work on, to make it deadlier we can add some other form of attack than overwriting our opponent. The original Timescape has this single bombing line inserted after cel2a: mov.i <-FSTEP,{FSTEP how it works, remember we have some processes working in papallel: every process takes the cell -FSTEP away, decrements its b-field, take the cell pointed by and moves it in the position pointed by the decremented a-field of the cell FSTEP cells away. Simple? NO! :-) OK. From the beginning: dat 0,0 -FSTEP dat 0,0 ;will became dat 0,-1 ... mov.i <-FSTEP,{FSTEP ;here we are ... begin mov bomb, nearme ... [enemy code] ;Our enemy is here, we are lucky :-) end jmp begin dat 0,0 FSTEP dat 0,0 ;will became dat -1,0 Now 1st process takes the cell -FSTEP and decrements its b-field, takes the cell pointed by the decremented b-field (in the example the cell before) and moves it; where? It takes the cell FSTEP and decrements its a-field thake the cell pointed by it, here he hits. Missed, don't worry we have process 2 taking cell -FSTEP-2 and moving it at FSTEP-2 and so on till we have processes executing the bombing line. At the end the enemy is no more, in the example at least. Bombing is useful not only to get rid of our enemy but also to get rid of ourself ... yes, enemy scanners have the bad use to cover our poor replicators with carpets of spl 0 and similar nasty things. Those bombs don't kill, but cause us to generate unuseful processes slowing down our spread. If we bomb with dat our old copies, that have a chance to be infected, we can reduce this effect; should happen we hit a good copy don't worry, we are so many that we can withstand a few losses. Others warriors use different kind of bombs, more useful to kill our enemies, the drawback is that we have to carry the bomb with us. The bombing line will beacme: mov bomb, or { or } now the first bomb laid down will become the pointer for the following carpet. Most used bomb is the anti imp bomb dat <-2666, <2667 this bomb is very good at killing 3 points imp ring, otherwise difficult to kill by replicators. Another bomb I used with some success, in Jack in the box, is this simple one: dat 1, 1 This bomb is targeted against djn streams and forward clears, two forms of attack often used by paper enemies. The effect on streams is to make the process go ot of the loop, wasting time; the effect on forward clears is deadly, look at a simple forward clear gate dat 100, 1000 ;the clear is running 1000 cells away .... clr mov bomb, >gate ;what's bomb don't matter, sure nothing with jmp clr ;a b-field of 1 If we hit gate with a dat 1,1 the clear will begin running inside itself, till it reaches clr line and self destructs, very effective and very funny :-) Like the bombing/scanning step for stones and scanners the spread constants can make the difference beetween a good and a bad warrior. You have to choose them so as to assure a good spread of the copies in the core. Corestep.c by Jay Han and Mopt by Stefan Strack, available at the FTP site, can give you a starting point, but for replicators the job is, far more complex because they change their constants in the spread process; let me explain with an example, same structure 4 parallel processes: a spl @0, 100 b mov }-1, >-1 c mov {d, 1000 First time lines a-b are executed they splits and copy 100 locations away but, when lines c-d copy them the value of b-field is 104, and so on. I don't know any mathematical method or optimization program to find best values and I look at what happens using pmarsv. If I notice that modules don't spread well I change something and so on, art more than science. In the replicator I'm working at now I use a step modulo 200 for first constant (anything beetween 100 and 400 is good) a mod 20/40 for second one and ... my nose :-) for the last one. Stefan Strack suggested a method using Pmars macros to automatize, in part at least, the search; here is what he says: ---------- A better way to optimize constants is to run your warrior with pmars and use cdb macros that change code sections and record the result. Suppose we want to optimize a slighly "un-optimized" version of T.Hsu's Ryooki: nxt_paper equ 100 ;chosen with room for improvement boot_paper spl 1 ,>4000 mov.i -1,#0 mov.i -1,#0 paper spl @paper,paper mov.i bomb ,>paper ; anti-imp mov.i bomb ,}800 ; anti-vampire jmn.f @copy ,{paper bomb dat <2667 ,<2667*2 and we want to find a better offset between copies than the "100" in the nxt_paper EQU. First we need to come up with some good ways to measure an even spread between paper bodies in core. Here's an approximation that cdb can easily provide: after a few thousand cycles, a paper with a good offset 1) has more processes 2) covers more core locations than a paper with a bad offset Now the idea is simply to run multiple rounds, systematically changing the silk offset at the beginning of each round, and having cdb report process number and number of covered core locations after 5000 cycles or so. This can all be automated with macros, so you can have pmars find optimal constants while you get coffee (jolt? :). Once you have a few candidate offsets, you should make sure they're working as you expect by looking at the core display. You can than go on to find optimal bombing constants for your set of optimal offsets in pretty much the same manner. As an example using Ryooki above: pmars -br 1000 -e ryooki.red 00000 SPL.B $ 1, > 4000 (cdb) 0,7 00000 SPL.B $ 1, > 4000 00001 MOV.I $ -1, # 0 00002 MOV.I $ -1, # 0 00003 SPL.B @ 0, < 100 00004 MOV.I } -1, > -1 00005 MOV.I $ 3, > -2 00006 MOV.I $ 2, } 800 00007 JMN.F @ -3, { -4 (cdb) calc i=99 99 This sets a variable "i" to our starting constant. (cdb)@ed 3~spl @0,, the command sequence is repeated with an offset value of 101: (cdb) 101,1058 1971 (cdb) The 101 offset results in a greater number of processes (1058) and more addresses written to (1971). If you want to run the whole thing automated, just inclose the command sequence in a loop (!!~...~!) and send the results to a file like so: (cdb) ca i=99 99 (cdb) write ryooki.opt Opening logfile (cdb) !!~&ed 3~spl @0, Subject: Re: Tourney Rounds as hills? Date: 1995/10/30 Message-ID: #1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar > sorting problem would become a hill? Are we going to see a hill > giving us actual programming problems rather than warrior fights > ("useful" vs. "entertaining")? > > But seriously, I was wondering if you could tell us if you have an hm. actually, i think that would be quite interesting and fun, if there was a viable way to moniter it without a whole lot of human grunt work... From: graham@hal.mathcs.rhodes.edu (Randy Graham) Subject: djn.x behavior Date: 1995/10/30 Message-ID: <1995Oct30.101251.2997@rhodes>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar While working on Porch Swing + (PS+), I wanted to change up the coreclear and the bomb/scan loop routine. I thought about using djn.x to really scramble core, but it didn't work like I expected it to. So, I am posting here to ask if I misunderstand, or if there is a problem in pMars. Suppose I have the code snippet: org code djn_2 dat.f 5, 10 djn_1 dat.f 52, 1 djn_ptr dat.f 0, 0 code djn.x 0, <-1 other ... do something here When running, I expected after the first time that core would now look like: djn_2 dat.f 5, 10 djn_1 dat.f 0, 51 djn_ptr dat.f 0, -1 code djn.x 0, <-1 other ... do something here and after the second time to look like: djn_2 dat.f 9, 4 djn_1 dat.f 0, 51 djn_ptr dat.f 0, -2 code djn.x 0, <-1 other ... do something here That is, I expected each djn to decrement the djn_ptr, then decrement a- and b-fields of djn_1 and djn_2 in turn, and write them back out, swapping the a and b-fields. This is not what happened in my tests, so I am curious as to what should be happening. Does djn.x fall back to djn.f? Does the .x modifieron the djn say decrement the b-field and the a-field instead of the .f behavior of decrement the a-field and the b-field (in other words, only semantically different)? Am I making sense? I don't have a copy of the draft right now, so I can't just look it up. Any help would be appreciated. Randy From: graham@hal.mathcs.rhodes.edu (Randy Graham) Subject: Tourney Rounds as hills? Date: 1995/10/30 Message-ID: <1995Oct30.133847.3002@rhodes>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Stefan, I just was thinking about your comment thatone of the purposes of the tournament was to test out new hill ideas. So I wondered if the sorting problem would become a hill? Are we going to see a hill giving us actual programming problems rather than warrior fights ("useful" vs. "entertaining")? But seriously, I was wondering if you could tell us if you have an automated way to check results or if you are going to have to check them "by hand?" Randy From: graham@hal.mathcs.rhodes.edu (Randy Graham) Subject: Re: NSFCWT - Rules for round 4 Date: 1995/10/30 Message-ID: <1995Oct30.133555.3001@rhodes>#1/1 references: <9510270517.AA26593@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Michael Constant (mconst@OCF.Berkeley.EDU) wrote: : Randy Graham wrote: : >EGAD!!! Wouldn't want to give us a challenge that is difficult or : >anything, now would you? : Actually, I think it's a great tournament problem. The difficulty seems : to be on par with my prime-number challenge. Perhaps I'll actually get an : entry submitted for this round! :-) What is your prime-number challenge (I long ago started playing around with doing things other than making warriors). Randy From: graham@hal.mathcs.rhodes.edu (Randy Graham) Subject: Re: NSFCWT - Rules for round 4 Date: 1995/10/30 Message-ID: <1995Oct30.133408.3000@rhodes>#1/1 references: <199510291210.NAA08764@iol-mail.iol.it> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Beppe Bezzi (bezzi@iol.it) wrote: : Michael Constant wrote: : >Randy Graham wrote: : >>EGAD!!! Wouldn't want to give us a challenge that is difficult or : >>anything, now would you? : > : >Actually, I think it's a great tournament problem. The difficulty seems : >to be on par with my prime-number challenge. Perhaps I'll actually get an : >entry submitted for this round! :-) (As an aside, I want to say here that I agree with Michael - I was just responding the way I did to indicate my belief of the degree of defficulty for this round). : May be I'm the only one but I don't like it too much. : It's a redcode exercise, not a warrior; corewar is making a program to go to : battle with others programs and their authors. That is exactly why I like it so much. The current hill is getting tougher and tougher to get on. Not that I don't like that, but I get tired of optimizing and tweaking, and testing all the time to go against an unknown. I like CoreWar so much in part because it is a test of programming skills. This round shows this in a way that is more measurable than what the hills test. To me, I don't really see this round as much different from round 2. Of course, there you were trying to defeat a known opponent. Here, you are trying to do the same thing everyone else is in less space and time. Expressed in words, it sounds different, but in terms of the competition, I think it is about the same. : One can choose not to submit a warrior that is technically the best, but to : try to outwit his, human, opponents submitting something unexpected. Now we : have a difficult problem to solve, nothing more. Oh yes, it is a whole lot more. One of the key requirements in making a better warrior is optimization. If you don't learn how to optimize code, you aren't going to win this round. And my programming experience in the past has always been that once you learn to optimize one snippet one way, you start getting ideas of how to optimize other snippets of code in similar ways. : I don't want to search my dusty assembler books for a quick sorting : algorithm and try to implement it in a restricted instruction set like : redcode is; I want blood (virtual, of course) and human opponents to fight : against. I guess then that if I were to buy Knuth's "Sorting and Searching," I would be getting a bit carried away? :) (for those who don't know, Knuth's books tend to be amongst the tops in their categories). : I tried to write something, and I'll do something till friday, but every : time I begin working, I quickly revert to writing some battle code; trying : to crush Armory or Torch is more fun, for me, that sorting numbers. Trying to write a better program than others is what I like most. Here I have a chance to prove I am one of the best (maybe). : Jack an Tornado have sort of a 'soul', sort programs don't. Sure they do, but they have the soul of real-life paper pusher rather than a real-life warrior. : Romantic ? Yes I'm. : -Beppe Randy From: graham@hal.mathcs.rhodes.edu (Randy Graham) Subject: Re: Round 4 rules Date: 1995/10/30 Message-ID: <1995Oct30.131910.2999@rhodes>#1/1 references: <9510292318.AA28276@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Stefan Strack (stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu) wrote: : Magnus Paulsson wrote: [details of deleting duplicates removed] : >Are you sure? This makes it a "bit" more difficult. Isn't that what makes programming fun? : Yes, a little extra challenge. Please don't ask that we change the rules : now; I already received the first sorter. Yes, don't change the rules now. I have my delete routine working. I did it first since I figured it was the easy part. Took a couple of hours of writing and testing, but I have it working. Now, I just have to figure out how to get the stinking data sorted. : -Stefan Randy From: graham@hal.mathcs.rhodes.edu (Randy Graham) Subject: Pizza Date: 1995/10/30 Message-ID: <1995Oct30.105109.2998@rhodes>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar I was just out browsing the pizza web page, and decided to look in on the 94x hill. What I found was a hill with one test warrior, and 19 empty slots. Has there been a problem recently with Pizza that would make it forget the 94x hill? Just checking. Randy From: "Andersen F. Scholl" Subject: corewarrior #2 Date: 1995/10/30 Message-ID: <199510302326.SAA16952@fermi.kamsc.k12.mi.us>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar ...the list server never got core warrior #2 to me.... would anyone mind posting it again?... thanks a lot.... From: lohwengk@iscs.nus.sg (Loh Weng Keong Calvin) Subject: Re: djn.x behavior Date: 1995/10/31 Message-ID: <47454b$t1r@nuscc.nus.sg>#1/1 references: <1995Oct30.101251.2997@rhodes> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Randy Graham (graham@hal.mathcs.rhodes.edu) wrote: : Suppose I have the code snippet: : org code : djn_2 dat.f 5, 10 : djn_1 dat.f 52, 1 : djn_ptr dat.f 0, 0 : code djn.x 0, <-1 : other ... do something here : That is, I expected each djn to decrement the djn_ptr, then decrement : a- and b-fields of djn_1 and djn_2 in turn, and write them back out, : swapping the a and b-fields. This is not what happened in my tests, : so I am curious as to what should be happening. Does djn.x fall back : to djn.f? Does the .x modifieron the djn say decrement the b-field : and the a-field instead of the .f behavior of decrement the a-field : and the b-field (in other words, only semantically different)? Am I : making sense? I don't have a copy of the draft right now, so I can't : just look it up. Any help would be appreciated. Is this what you got after the first time? djn_1 dat.f 51, 1 -- Calvin Loh From: 00ncsummers@bsuvc.bsu.edu (El suen~o de razon produce monstros!) Subject: PMars 0.8 for VMS finished Date: 1995/10/31 Message-ID: <1995Oct31.141618.1@bsuvc.bsu.edu>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar This is the official announcement that my port of pMars for VMS systems is now available from ftp.csua.berkeley.edu. There is the source code (pvms08.zip) and a binary for VAX systems (no AXP binary available. :( ) (pvms08-binary-VAX.zip). Both require the source code distribution (pmars08s.zip) to run. -- Nathan Summers, Honors Student, BALL STATE UNIVERSITY "It's out of your jurisdiction, and, even if it weren't, we already have a government. It's a democracy. A TRUE democracy! And we don't need or want you, in your dictatorship, to tell us what we can or cannot do!" "Guards! Silence him!" "With pleasure, m'lord!" A button was pressed; the screen went blank. And with that act the country was plunged into a technological dark age. El suen~o de razon produce monstros! From: stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu (Stefan Strack) Subject: Re: NSFCWT - round 3 results Date: 1995/10/31 Message-ID: <9511010117.AA29730@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Derek, I never received your entries. Try again and I'll rerun them. I don't seem to get through to you at arbroath.win-uk.net, so there seems to be a genuine delivery problem. Upload your submissions to ftp://ftp.csua.berkeley.edu/pub/corewar/incoming if all else fails. -Stefan From: Planar Subject: Re: corewarrior #2 Date: 1995/10/31 Message-ID: <475a3c$448@news-rocq.inria.fr>#1/1 references: <199510302326.SAA16952@fermi.kamsc.k12.mi.us> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar In article <199510302326.SAA16952@fermi.kamsc.k12.mi.us>, "Andersen F. Scholl" writes: >...the list server never got core warrior #2 to me.... >would anyone mind posting it again?... >thanks a lot.... You'll find all :-) the back issues of Core Warrior on my Web page: http://pauillac.inria.fr/~doligez/corewar/ You'll also find some warriors there, mostly collected from this newsgroup over the last few years. -- Planar From: agserm@aol.com (AGSerm) Subject: Re: Help on imp-rings! Date: 1995/10/31 Message-ID: <475nhm$cr5@newsbf02.news.aol.com>#1/1 references: <1995Oct24.144352.1@bsuvc.bsu.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar 00ncsummers@bsuvc.bsu.edu (El suen~o de razon produce monstros!) writes: >> Interesting idea. Turn your opponent into an imp, and then gate him. >> I wrote a warrior that did that, and submitted it to the 88 hill a while >> back. It never did well... but that doesn't mean it isn't possible. > >I wrote a warrior that did that, too. I even managed to write a >core-clearing >imp-gate. The problem is that those programs with thousands of proccess >(Esp. >paper) never get to the gate before time runs out. I tried clearing with >JMP's What would clearing with JMP's do, exactly? >with little success. There probally is a very good solution, but I haven't >found it yet, and I've got others to write. TIA, Ansel Greenwood Sermersheim From: graham@hal.mathcs.rhodes.edu (Randy Graham) Subject: Help with Round 4 Date: 1995/10/31 Message-ID: <1995Oct31.090503.3008@rhodes> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar OK, for those of you entering the tournament that haven't made your test data yet, here is the collection I am using for the sorting problem. Note this covers the four cases that will surely be covered: Sorting an already ordered list, sorting a list already sorted in reverse order, sorting a list of identical items, and sorting a list of random data. All of these have the a-field with #1. I recommend running them with an a-field of 0 for no deletes, and an a-field of 2 or -1 to make sure your routine works for all non-zero values. Same with the b-field - use 0 and non-zero values to test. I also threw in a test case of almost identical data, with only one item different. I don't know if this will be used or not, but it is a good general case which may catch some problems in your sorter. I am still working on the sort, so I can't give any help there. But on the already sorted list, I can delete duplicates, close gaps, and put the end-of data marker in under 200 rounds. I think this can be improved, and I am working on it, but this should give everyone an target on this data. These test data sets were written as runnable warriors, so you can use pShell to start this warrior at 4000 (per the rules) and it will run until your sorter finishes. If done right, consort should win every round, so make sure this happens or your sorter is not written correctly. Randy ----------------------------------------------------------------- ;redcode-94 ;name Consort ;kill Consort ;author Randy Graham ;contact graham@mathcs.rhodes.edu ;NSFCWT round 4 ;assert 1 ;strategy data for consortium ;strategy Data already in order flagline jmp.a #1, 2 ;a=1 to delete, b=1 for descending dat.f 3, 3 spl.b #3, <3 dat.f 3, 3 spl.a #2, <3 mov.i 1, *2 djn.b 1, >1 spl.a 0, <1 jmp.a 0, 0 slt.f >0, *0 jmp.a 0, 0 end flagline ----------------------------------------------------------------- ;redcode-94 ;name Consort ;kill Consort ;author Randy Graham ;contact graham@mathcs.rhodes.edu ;NSFCWT round 4 ;assert 1 ;strategy data for consortium ;strategy data in reverse order flagline jmp.a #1, 0 ;a=1 to delete, b=1 for descending dat.f 3, 3 spl.b #3, <3 dat.f 3, 3 spl.a #2, <3 mov.i 1, *2 djn.b 1, >1 spl.a 0, <1 jmp.a 0, 0 slt.f >0, *0 jmp.a 0, 0 end flagline ----------------------------------------------------------------- ;redcode-94 ;name Consort ;kill Consort ;author Randy Graham ;contact graham@mathcs.rhodes.edu ;NSFCWT round 4 ;assert 1 ;strategy data for consortium ;strategy data identical flagline jmp.a #1, 0 ;a=1 to delete, b=1 for descending dat.f 3, 3 dat.f 3, 3 dat.f 3, 3 dat.f 3, 3 dat.f 3, 3 dat.f 3, 3 dat.f 3, 3 dat.f 3, 3 dat.f 3, 3 dat.f 3, 3 dat.f 3, 3 dat.f 3, 3 end flagline ----------------------------------------------------------------- ;redcode-94 ;name Consort ;kill Consort ;author Randy Graham ;contact graham@mathcs.rhodes.edu ;NSFCWT round 4 ;assert 1 ;strategy data for consortium ;strategy random data flagline jmp.a #1, 2 ;a=1 to delete, b=1 for descending jmp.a 0, 0 spl.b #3, <3 slt.f >0, *0 dat.f 3, 3 mov.i 1, *2 spl.a 0, <1 dat.f 3, 3 spl.a #2, <3 jmp.a 0, 0 djn.b 1, >1 end flagline ----------------------------------------------------------------- ;redcode-94 ;name Consort ;kill Consort ;author Randy Graham ;contact graham@mathcs.rhodes.edu ;NSFCWT round 4 ;assert 1 ;strategy data for consortium ;strategy only one data item differs flagline jmp.a #1, 2 ;a=1 to delete, b=1 for descending dat.f 3, 3 dat.f 3, 3 dat.f 3, 3 dat.f 3, 3 spl.b #3, <4 dat.f 3, 3 dat.f 3, 3 dat.f 3, 3 dat.f 3, 3 dat.f 3, 3 dat.f 3, 3 end flagline From: John K W Subject: (no subject) Date: 1995/10/31 Message-ID: <474aqk$41n@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar I would just like to say that I like "Corewarrior." Keep up the good work. (Everybody can use a little complimenting, right? :) -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: Magnus Paulsson Subject: Re: Round 4 rules Date: 1995/10/31 Message-ID: <199510310944.KAA02670@bottom.ifm.liu.se>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Randy Graham wrote: > Stefan Strack (stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu) wrote: > : Magnus Paulsson wrote: > [details of deleting duplicates removed] > : >Are you sure? This makes it a "bit" more difficult. > Isn't that what makes programming fun? Not when you think you're ready and are just making the last tests, otherwise it was a good challenge (I've sent my contribution). (Have you ever thought programming was fun? It isn't! :-) > : Yes, a little extra challenge. Please don't ask that we change the rules > : now; I already received the first sorter. > Yes, don't change the rules now. I have my delete routine working. I > did it first since I figured it was the easy part. Took a couple of > hours of writing and testing, but I have it working. Now, I just have > to figure out how to get the stinking data sorted. I also thought it would be the easy part, I left it untill last so could get my theeth into something realy difficult. > : -Stefan > > Randy > /Magnus Paulsson From: John K W Subject: Re: djn.x behavior Date: 1995/10/31 Message-ID: <4741he$qlh@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>#1/1 references: <1995Oct30.101251.2997@rhodes> <473ogq$d04@portal.dx.net> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar user@portal.dx.net (mneumenth) wrote: >I'm afraid that DJN.X is DJN.F, but That's because nobody thought that >DJN.X would serve a purpose. Hay, pMARS team, it's modification time... > >Mneumenth Auralight >mneumenth@kernvalley.com > Well... I dunno. DJN.X, as described, would be AWFULLY powerful... I mean, practically as good as a bomb, and all... hmm... it should be considered, though. -- / John K. Wilkinson - jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu \ | "I don't have the power because I've got the monkeys. I've got | \ the power because I'll set the monkeys LOOSE." -Dave Foley / From: stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu (Stefan Strack) Subject: NSFCWT - round 3 score update Date: 1995/10/31 Message-ID: <9510312315.AA29657@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar I was reminded that I didn't run previous warriors from players that didn't send anything for round 3. Since we said we would use the provious round's submission by default, I reran Derek Ross' Mr Speculative and Myer Bremer's Futility: Mr Speculative by Derek Ross scores 2564 Futility by M R Bremer scores 3213 I simply inserted their fractional scores into the rank list for round 3, because I don't want to rerun everything: Name pts for round 1 2 3 __________________________________________ Beppe Bezzi 7 7 13 M R Bremer 7 4 3.6 G. Eadon 1.5 2 5 Randy Graham - - 8 Anders Ivner 5.5 8 4 P.Kline 7.5 9 7 Karl Lewin - - 10 John Lewis - - 3 Calvin Loh - - 1 Steven Morrell 5 10 9 Paulsson 7.5 11 11 Derek Ross 3.5 3 3.3 Anders Scholl - 1 2 Maurizio Vittuari 6.5 5 6 John K. Wilkinson 4 6 12 In the future, let us know if you can't make the deadline for a round and would like an old warrior run. The "use warrior from last round" default is not going to work very well after round 4 :-) Derek Ross, my nameserver doesn't find your domain, all my email has been bouncing. Can you send me an IP number or some alternate address? -Stefan From: stst@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu (Stefan Strack) Subject: Re: round 4 / Core warrior hint Date: 1995/10/31 Message-ID: <9510311922.AA29453@idnsun.gpct.Vanderbilt.Edu.noname>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Beppe Bezzi asked: >In scoring for warrior lenght you count instruction at start or at execution >end. >Or better: if I use empty cells as pointers for sorting, defined by EQUs >they are counted or not. > Length is simply the value reported after assembly: Program "sorter" (length 563) by "Beppe Bezzi" ORG START START SPL.A @ 0, # 300 ... -Stefan From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: Core warrior n. 3 Date: 1995/10/31 Message-ID: <199510311247.NAA02209@iol-mail.iol.it>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar I just forgot it in the posting. Should anyone be interested in results of the hint warrior -paper01o- on 94 or beginners hill, mail me. If I get some request I'll post them to the newsgroup, if but few I'll mail to the one asking. -Beppe From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: Re: NSFCWT - Rules for round 4 Date: 1995/10/31 Message-ID: <199510311247.NAA02206@iol-mail.iol.it> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Randy Graham wrote: >Beppe Bezzi (bezzi@iol.it) wrote: >: Michael Constant wrote: >: >Randy Graham wrote: >: >>EGAD!!! Wouldn't want to give us a challenge that is difficult or >: >>anything, now would you? >: > >: >Actually, I think it's a great tournament problem. The difficulty seems >: >to be on par with my prime-number challenge. Perhaps I'll actually get an >: >entry submitted for this round! :-) >(As an aside, I want to say here that I agree with Michael - I was >just responding the way I did to indicate my belief of the degree of >defficulty for this round). > I agree with that, it's a difficult technical problem, something that prof. Stefan :-) could propose to its students in a university exam on assembly language. BTW what does EGAD means ? >: May be I'm the only one but I don't like it too much. > >: It's a redcode exercise, not a warrior; corewar is making a program to go to >: battle with others programs and their authors. >That is exactly why I like it so much. The current hill is getting >tougher and tougher to get on. Not that I don't like that, but I get >tired of optimizing and tweaking, and testing all the time to go >against an unknown. I like the hill so tough, and I like making something that will go against something unknown, if not imediatly, sure in future. I like the tradeoff beetween scoring high now and trying to forecast hill changes to live longer. > I like CoreWar so much in part because it is a >test of programming skills. This round shows this in a way that is >more measurable than what the hills test. To me, I don't really see >this round as much different from round 2. Of course, there you were >trying to defeat a known opponent. Here, you are trying to do the >same thing everyone else is in less space and time. Expressed in >words, it sounds different, but in terms of the competition, I think >it is about the same. I agree with that. In fact I scored better in round 1 and 3 (human opponents) than in round 2 (and sure what I'm going to score in 4) Against White I got soon tired of testing against it; I like more searching something new that refining till the top something I have. > >: One can choose not to submit a warrior that is technically the best, but to >: try to outwit his, human, opponents submitting something unexpected. Now we >: have a difficult problem to solve, nothing more. >Oh yes, it is a whole lot more. One of the key requirements in making >a better warrior is optimization. If you don't learn how to optimize >code, you aren't going to win this round. And my programming >experience in the past has always been that once you learn to optimize >one snippet one way, you start getting ideas of how to optimize other >snippets of code in similar ways. > Yes technical skill in important; one cannot make a successful warrior without a sound rdcoding skill, but redcoding skill is not, IMO, everything in this game. Marcia Trionfale, for example, was buggy, and not a little bug, but she was the right warrior in that moment, a sort of a new warrior, a very heavy bombing paper, and she had her success on the hill. I fixed the bug, I put her with an old version of Tornado and a switcher I was testing here is Jack; he's far from optimal, but works well enough to be in the top ten position from his birth to his age of more than 300; now I'm not working on Jack 2 I'm working on something else, _I_ think is more fun searching new ways than working (damn my poor english :-) on the same bit of code to reach the top, and in fact I have never been on top of the hill but once for little time. >: I tried to write something, and I'll do something till friday, but every >: time I begin working, I quickly revert to writing some battle code; trying >: to crush Armory or Torch is more fun, for me, that sorting numbers. >Trying to write a better program than others is what I like most. >Here I have a chance to prove I am one of the best (maybe). > This is your opinion, Randy, and that's mine. Many persons agree with you, a few with me. You enjoy this round, I don't, but it's good this round is because many enjoy it. Maybe in another round, or another tournament, I'll have to beat _you_ in a face to face, last blood, fight; this will be most fun for me. I can win or lose, but sure I'll enjoy it more that trying to scalp a line from my sorter. >: Jack an Tornado have sort of a 'soul', sort programs don't. >Sure they do, but they have the soul of real-life paper pusher rather >than a real-life warrior. I work every day with paper pushers, corewar is a game, let me play with _warriors_. > >: Romantic ? Yes I'm. > >: -Beppe > >Randy > > -Beppe P.S. Sorry for long and maybe unrelated posting, I just wished to express my opinion and I think I have nothing else to add. Discussing personal tastes may be fun but not on a public forum. I'm not alway sure of my english so I want to say I have _nothing_ against anyone, Randy or others, that likes this round and _nothing_ against a round so many people like; just I don't like it too much. B. From: Kurt Franke Subject: Re: Sorts Date: 1995/10/31 Message-ID: <47689e$e0o@larry.rice.edu>#1/1 references: <199510291210.NAA08764@iol-mail.iol.it> <1995Oct31.094726@acad.drake.edu> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar >Anybody remember the old Fibonaci sort in the pre-disk days? It took >over all your tape drives, read forward and backward on tapes without >any apparent sense, and finally copied the sorted file onto a designated >tape. > >(Of course I've only _heard_ about it :-) > >Paul Kline >pk6811s@acad.drake.edu I think that is polyphase merge-sort. Instead of having a separate merge cycle, it just reverses the role of a tape when there is nothing left to merge on it (changes it to the ouput tape). Of course, I have only _read_ about it.. - Kurt From: graham@hal.mathcs.rhodes.edu (Randy Graham) Subject: More on .X behavior Date: 1995/10/31 Message-ID: <1995Oct31.135933.3010@rhodes>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Working on the round 4 sorter thing, I came up with a great way to save code space using .X modifiers. Unfortunately, it didn't work. Suppose you have the following line: slt.b *-7, @-7 and you wanted to reverse the a- and b-fields: slt.b @-7, *-7 I thought this could be done with a mov.x testline, testline Unfortunately for me, this only moves the a- and b-numbers. That is, the modes don't go with them. I looked this up in the draft (had so many questions recently, I finally had to break down and get another copy of the '94 draft), and this is what it is supposed to do. I was just curious about the rational behind making it only switch the a- and b-numbers rather than the complete a- and b-fields (number and modifier). Randy From: graham@hal.mathcs.rhodes.edu (Randy Graham) Subject: Re: Sorts Date: 1995/10/31 Message-ID: <1995Oct31.130037.3009@rhodes>#1/1 references: <199510291210.NAA08764@iol-mail.iol.it> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar pk6811s@acad.drake.edu wrote: : bubble-sort - small, fast for nearly-ordered arrays, slow if out-of-order Similar is insertion. Find the largest, move it to position one, find next largest, move to position 2, etc. For some arrays, this can improve the performance considerably, and it is almost as easy to write. : quick-sort - medium size, very fast even when array is very out-of-order Not familiar with this way of doing it. You forgot to mention that for sorted or almost sorted arrays, it slows down quite a bit. : split-merge - large size, very fast Probably the most difficult to implement of these listed, but is a consistent performer. Almost identical times regardless of array order. : The bubble-sort will usually be the fasted against very small arrays. Yes, almost makes it tempting to put a check in and run a bubble if the array is less than, say, 100 elements, and a different one otherwise. I doubt we'll have many arrays that size though (but could be), so it might not produce enough of a speed benefit to offset the code size penalty. : Many variations and innovations have been investigated, there are ways to : protect each kind of sort against worst-case situations. However : with respect to Round 4, where size is penalized, it will be interesting : to see what can be done. But size is just another weight in the scoring. Putting in multiple sorts and using different ones based on the array can give a huge performance increase (I'm doing this based on what I expect the data to be). : Anybody remember the old Fibonaci sort in the pre-disk days? It took Never heard of it. Be interesting to track it down. : Paul Kline : pk6811s@acad.drake.edu Randy From: sd@ecst.csuchico.edu (Gubznf U. Qnivrf) Subject: Re: Pizza Date: 1995/10/31 Message-ID: <475rat$nnq@charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu>#1/1 references: <1995Oct30.105109.2998@rhodes> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Randy Graham wrote: >I was just out browsing the pizza web page, and decided to look in on >the 94x hill. What I found was a hill with one test warrior, and 19 >empty slots. Has there been a problem recently with Pizza that would >make it forget the 94x hill? Just checking. > >Randy I have been working on implementing the 5*50 hill. Unfortunately, I've been a little side-tracked lately, but it should be done very soon. Thanks for noticing. :) Thomas From: bremermr@cartoon.ecn.purdue.edu (Myer R. Bremer) Subject: Core_Warrior_ #2 Date: 1995/10/31 Message-ID: <475oh4$cck@mozo.cc.purdue.edu>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Greetings. If you didn't receive a copy of the Core_Warrior_, just send me mail. I know someone wanted #2. And where was that link to all the copies so far? Clueless. M R Bremer bremermr@ecn.purdue.edu From: agserm@aol.com (AGSerm) Subject: [query] use of DAT Date: 1995/10/31 Message-ID: <475ouv$d89@newsbf02.news.aol.com>#1/1 newsgroups: rec.games.corewar lohwengk@iscs.nus.sg (Loh Weng Keong Calvin) writes: >I remember seeing DAT <0, <0 in one of the documents in the corewar >archives. Can someone tell me what this does? >I am curious, because I want to try something like: >dat <0, <0 >jmp x, <-1 >to mess up the b field pointed to by the dat instruction. if what youre trying to do is bomb the whole space, use a core-clear: spl 0,1 mov 1,<-1 >TIA. You're very welcome. HTH, Ansel Grenwood Sermersheim From: pk6811s@acad.drake.edu Subject: Sorts Date: 1995/10/31 Message-ID: <1995Oct31.094726@acad.drake.edu>#1/1 references: <199510291210.NAA08764@iol-mail.iol.it> newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Beppe Bezzi writes: > > May be I'm the only one but I don't like it too much. > Maybe you could submit a little double-bubble sort, small but slow, and that will give me a chance to make up some points :-) For those with no programming training or just skipped the SORT problems :-), here are some of the usual sort-types: bubble-sort - small, fast for nearly-ordered arrays, slow if out-of-order read through the array, swapping out-of-order pairs (N and N+1) repeat until no swaps are made double-bubble version makes one forward pass followed by one backward which is better if some elements are really far out of place quick-sort - medium size, very fast even when array is very out-of-order read through the array, swapping out-of-order pairs (N and N+M) repeat until no swaps are made reduce M and if it is not zero, start over split-merge - large size, very fast split-phase: read through the array, looking for short sections that are in order, write them alternately to arrays M1 and M2 (section-1 -> M1, section-2 -> M2, section-3 -> M1...) merge-phase: merge the 1st two sections from M1 and M2 into the array merge the 2nd two sections from M1 and M2 into the array continue until all sections are written back into the array repeat split-merge process until all the elements are merged in order The bubble-sort will usually be the fasted against very small arrays. Quick-sort and split-merge performance usually depends on how whether it is more efficient to swap elements or to copy them. It takes three instructions to swap two elements, only one to move an element, but split-merge has to copy the whole array even if only one element is out of order. Split-merge is definitely preferred if the array is too large for memory, but variations on quick-sort exist there too. Commercial sort routines are highly advanced, take advantage of disk block and cylinder sizes, and are nearly always kept secret. Many variations and innovations have been investigated, there are ways to protect each kind of sort against worst-case situations. However with respect to Round 4, where size is penalized, it will be interesting to see what can be done. Anybody remember the old Fibonaci sort in the pre-disk days? It took over all your tape drives, read forward and backward on tapes without any apparent sense, and finally copied the sorted file onto a designated tape. (Of course I've only _heard_ about it :-) Paul Kline pk6811s@acad.drake.edu