From: kimm@behappy.net Subject: ..iPent150mhz 16e/1.6g/16x/es16 sys$695 !!! Date: 1997/08/01 Message-ID: <33e24fe1.0@news.net999.com>#1/1 >> I have (2) iPent150 Workstations.Must Sell $695 USea!!!! << (Special With This AD Only !!!) Served for 2-weeks as our in-house Beta-Test Stations !!! Professionally cared for.. Looks and runs like brand new !!! iPent150 Workstation Spec: Intel iPentium 150mhz (CPU upgradable to 200mhz). BCMsq-Intel TritonVX Pentium MB w256k Syn Burst Cache!! On-Board Dual Enhanced EIDE Channels,(2)w/16550a &(1)ECP/EPP !! 16mb FAST EDO Ram (Up-to 128-MB max !!) 1.6 GiG WesternDigital EIDE Hard Drive (mode 4) 8ms !!! 1.44 Teac Floppy drive. 1mb Trident T9680 64 bit PCI Video Card!! w/MPEG Full Motion/Full Screen CDi Movie Playback !!! 16x Speed Toshiba Cdrom Drive PRO-ESS-16 Audio Card !! NEW Modular MidTwr Case w230ps.!! CPU-Power Turbo Cooler!! (FREE)Logitech Mouse Included.!!! Windows 95 (rel.2) Pre-Installed.. Windows Office (97) Pre-installed.. All Highest-Quality Components!!! Professional Built, & Tested! Ready to SCREAM !!!!! Includes special foam box for safe shipping..=) All systems comes with (1) year Manufacturers parts warranty ! **No Monitor,No Keyboard...** MainBoard Specs.... (1) IBM/Cyrix/intel/AMD Certified PCI MainBoard..by BCM... 686/P-5/5k Intel (VX)TritonMMX (PCI) Plug & Play MainBoard.. (4) PCI (4) ISA slots, 256k Burst Cache, Award bios (Flash). On-board Dual EIDE and HS I/O,INTEL TRITON-430VX chipset, Green Energy features.(4)72pin mem sockets. (75-200mhz)CPU Zif Socket #7,Complete Docs & Manuals In Box.. High Quality 8-Layer PCB Construction !! (This MB Supports all Pentium, AMD K6 & Cyrix M2 class CPUs) We will ship using Express Air to anywhere in the WORLD !!! COD/ Bank Cashiers Check or Post office money Orders Only !!! or get FREE shipping if pre-paid by cashiers or personal checks..=) All International orders please contact us for Bank-wire-payment instructions... Complete System only $695 US dollars !!! Please include $48.00 for COD & UPS 2nd day air Shipping or get FREE shipping if pre-paid by cashiers....=) To order through convenient E-mail... PLEASE INCLUDE: Your Full Name E-mail address Shipping address (Home or Office) Telephone # (required) & Fax # (If any) Kimberly.=) PC demo sales dept. For more info please E-mail me at: kimm@behappy.net ...Come get FREE Webphone for Win95 at our website...=)... We are Authorized INTEL , AMD & IBM, CYRIX Distributors !!! Mailloop is the world's most powerful bulk mailer: http://www.mailloop.com From: CASH FLOW Subject: $$$ DON'T MISS THIS !! Date: 1997/08/01 Message-ID: <33E22886.587@mon.com> MAKE THE MONEY THAT YOU DESERVE - AND USE YOUR TIME TO PURSUE YOUR DREAMS!!! If you have read this far you have already proved it works!! Take just 5 minutes to read this and see. This is the newest updated version. As I was surfing the net, I read all these postings on how you can make over $50,000, even $800,000. Well I believe that if all goes well, and you follow the rules EXACTLY, it will work. Just follow the instructions given in this letter, and you to can make over $800,000, perfectly legally according to USA Post Office Laws (read on for specifics). Don't look at this as a money-making scam, but rather a true-to-life example to test the above statement. It will only cost you $6 dollars plus 6 stamps, and a few hours of your time. Thus, there is some effort involved, because nothing in life is absolutely free. Are you ready and willing to accept that you deserve to receive a fair amount of money? If so, please continue reading. But if you think this is just another scam, I suggest that you don't try it. PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A 6 PERSON LIST, NOT THE USUAL 5. PLEASE DO NOT TRY TO CHEAT THIS PROGRAM. JUST ADD ONE NAME AND REPOST THE ARTICLE. IF YOU DO NOT IT WILL NOT WORK, AND YOU WILL BE REMOVED FROM THE LIST! FOLLOW THESE DIRECTIONS AND JOIN US IN A GREAT OPPORTUNITY. The program has been revised and you will notice six names instead of five. The reason for this is the flood of five name programs and the sixth name will add $50,000 to $100,000. This is proven mathematically and in my bank account. I never really thought that this program would work, but IT DOES and it will for you too. Just be patient and follow the directions exactly. Print this article now, so you have all the information for your version. Remember to keep the names right. Let's go! STEP 1 Invest your $6 by writing your name and address on six separate pieces of paper along with the words: "PLEASE ADD ME TO YOUR MAILING LIST". (In this way, you are not just sending a dollar to someone; you are paying for a legitimate service.) People have asked me if this is really legal. It is! You are using the Internet to advertise your business. What is that business? You are assembling a mailing list of people who are interested in home based computer and on-line businesses and methods of generating income at home. Remember - people send you a small fee to be added to your list. It is legal. What will you do with your list of thousands of names? That's up to you, but this is how it becomes legal. To be legal you must actually sell a product or service if you expect to receive a dollar. Anyone sending a dollar back to you must receive something in return. You have already received this letter due to the participation of each of the 6 persons listed below. This letter and the plan given within this letter are a "product" that you have received. Thus, you will be sending $1.00 to each of the 6 persons given below in exchange for receiving this letter and for asking them to provide the "service" of adding you to their mailing list. THIS IS A SERVICE AND IS A 100% LEGAL BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY WHICH IS COVERED IN TITLE 18, SECTION 1302 AND 1342 OF THE POSTAL AND LOTTERY LAWS. Please call the U.S. Postal Service at 1-800-725-2161 for verification. Immediately send $1 US cash (a one dollar bill, no checks, no money orders) to each of the 6 people on the list below. Wrap this dollar in a note with the words: "Please put me on your mailing list." (In this way, you're not just sending a dollar to someone, you're paying for a legitimate service.) Also, to discourage those who prey on cash in the mail, be sure the bill is completely hidden by the note. A woven envelope is recommended. Include your address. You do not need to include your name. This is the key to the program! Also, let each person know what number they are in your letter so he/she knows which cycle he is receiving the $1.00 from. Make sure that you retain EVERY name and address sent to you, either on computer or hard copy, but do not discard the names and notes that people send to you. This is PROOF that you are truly providing a service, and should the IRS or some other government agency question you, you can provide them with this proof. Therefore, you will start a list of all the people who send you a dollar requesting to be added to a mailing list. Actually, you will want to safeguard this list because it can generate even better responses and much more money later! Fold a $1 bill inside each paper, and mail them by standard mail to the following six addresses: 1. Brett Belisle 26th St. W. Apt. F91 Bradenton, FL 34207 USA 2. Rob B. 83 Chieftain Crescent Barrie, Ontario Canada L4N 6J2 3. Alex D. The Oaks, Byways Gravel Path, Berkhamsted Herts, HP4 2PJ England 4. Bradley S. 1994 S. Spartan St. Gilbert, AZ 85233 USA 5. Bella M. 2430 Ocean View Ave., Unit 406 Los Angeles, CA 90057 USA 6 J bahista 281 n livingston ave livingston nj 07039 usa STEP 2 Now remove the top name from the list, and move the other names up. This way #6 becomes #5 and so on. Put your name in as the #6 on the list (Remember to take #1 off and change the numbers so #2 becomes #1, #3 becomes #2, #4 becomes #3, #5 becomes #4 and #6 becomes #5 and you become #6.) STEP 3 LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH MONEY YOU CAN MAKE. How do the numbers work for potential income earnings? Assume for the sake of example that you get a 7.5% return rate. This is very conservative; my first attempt was about 9%. 1. You send out 200 letters, and 15 people (7.5% x 200) will send you $1 each = $15.00 2. Those 15 send out 200 letters each, and 225 people send you $1 each = $225.00 3. Those 225 send out 200 letters each, and 3,375 people send you $1 each = $3,375.00. 4. Those 3,375 send out 200 letters each, and 50,625.00 people send you $1 each = $50,625.00 5. Those 50,625 send out 200 letters each, and 759,375 people send you $1 each = $759,375.00 TOTAL $813,615.00!! If those figures sound incredibly high, figure that even with half the return rate, or even a quarter, the total is still spectacular. It works every time, but how well will depend on how many letters you send. In the above example you mailed out 200 letters. This sounds like "pie in the sky," but the numbers add up, and with over 40 million people on the NET, it works! TIP: For an even greater return, post to MORE than 250 newsgroups initially; try for 300-350. When your name drops off a list, simply access another message from a newsgroup and start the process over again. Post the new article to at least 250 newsgroups. Remember, the more you post, the more people see, and the more you get. There are at least 25,000 newsgroups at any one time. This is a $7.92 investment. It takes about a week or so to start seeing a return so be patient. The money should flow for about 3 months. At that point, simply add your name to the list and start over. I've done this twice and now I can quit my job and start devoting my time to things that really interest me. I assure you this can work. If you mailed out 500 letters, you could have received even more! Check the math yourself, but I guarantee it's correct. With this kind of return, you have got to give it a try! Try it once, and you'll do it again. Just make sure you send a dollar to each of the addresses on the list above with a note asking to be added to their mailing list. Together we will all prosper and we will be able to share our wealth with those less fortunate than ourselves. Do you realize thousands of people all over the world are joining the Internet and reading these articles everyday, JUST LIKE YOU ARE NOW!!! Can you afford $6.72 and see if it really works?? I think so...People have said, "What if the plan is played out and no one sends you the money? So what! What are the chances of that happening when there are tons of new, honest users and new honest people who are joining the Internet and newsgroups everyday and are willing to give it a try? Estimates are 20,000 to 50,000 new users everyday, with thousands of those joining the actual Internet. REMEMBER, play FAIRLY and HONESTLY and this will work. You just have to be honest. Make sure you print this article out RIGHT NOW. Also, try to keep a list of everyone that sends you money and always keep an eye on the newsgroups to make sure everyone is playing fairly. Remember, HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY!!! You don't need to cheat, the basic idea is to make money honestly!! GOOD LUCK!! GENERAL STEPS ON AUTOMATING THE PROCESS ----------------------------------------------------------------------- If you have Netscape 3.0 do EXACTLY the following: 1) Click on any newsgroup like normal, THEN click on 'TO NEWS', which is on the far left when you're in the newsgroups page. This will bring up a box to type a message in. 2) Leave the newsgroup box like it is, CHANGE the subject box to something flashy, like, "NEED CASH $$$ READ HERE $$$ or "FAST CASH"!!! 3) Tab once and you should be ready to type. Now, retype (only once) THIS whole article WORD FOR WORD, except insert your name at #6, and remove #1 off the list, plus any other small changes you think you need to make. Keep almost all of it the SAME! 4) When you're done typing the WHOLE article, click on FILE in THIS BOX, RIGHT ABOVE SEND, NOT WHERE IT SAYS NETSCAPE NEWS ON THE FIRST BOX. Click on SAVE AS when you're under FILE. Save your article as a text file to your C: or A: drive. DO NOT SEND OR POST YOUR ARTICLE UNTIL YOU DO THIS. Once saved, move on to number 5 below. NOTE: If you don't want to type in the whole article by hand, AND you know how to use a plain text editor (like Notepad), you can edit the file ahead of time, then attach it as shown in step 6. 5) If you still have all of your text, send or post to this newsgroup now by just clicking send, which is right below FILE, and right above Cc: 6) Here's where you're going to post all 200. OK, click on any newsgroup then click on 'TO NEWS', again in the top left corner. Leave the NEWSGROUPS BOX alone again, put a flashy subject title in the SUBJECT BOX, hit TAB once you're in the body of the message. Click on ATTACHMENTS, which is below the SUBJECT BOX. You will get another box to come up. Click on ATTACH FILE, then find YOUR file that if you did this right, you should see your file name in the attachments box, and it will be shaded green. NOTE: If you don't want to type in the whole article and you know how to use a plain text editor (Notepad), you can edit the file ahead of time, then attach it. IF YOU USE I.E. EXPLORER IT'S JUST AS EASY... 1) HOLDING DOWN THE LEFT MOUSE BUTTON, highlight this article. Then press the "ctrl" key and the "c" key at the same time to copy this article. Then print this article for your records, to have the names of those you will be sending $1 bills to. 2) Go to the news groups and press "post an article". A window will open. Type in your headline in the subject area and then click in the large window below. Press "ctrl" and then "v" and the article will be placed in the window. If you want to edit the article, do so and then highlight and copy it again. Now every time you post the article in a new newsgroup all you have to repeat is "ctrl" and "v" and press post. 3) That's it. Each time you do this, all you have to do is type in a different newsgroup, so that way it posts to 200 DIFFERENT newsgroups, or more. You see? Now you just have 199 to go!! (Don't worry, each one takes about 30 seconds, once you get used to it.) REMEMBER 200 IS THE MINIMUM. But the more you post the more money you will receive. AND THAT'S IT!! THESE ARE THE ONLY STEPS!!! PLEASE NEVER post to many more than 10 with any one message since the resulting long lines of newsgroup listings at the top of EVERY message will annoy many AND will vastly reduce the effectiveness of your posting. JUST ONE OTHER THING: Let's remember that there are many people far less fortunate than ourselves who will never be able to afford a computer and hence will be unable to join in our enterprise. Therefore please consider donating a (significant) portion of your earnings from the venture to charity. From: stst@vuse.vanderbilt.edu (Stefan Strack) Subject: Core War Frequently Asked Questions (rec.games.corewar FAQ) Date: 1997/08/01 Message-ID: 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: klklASDI@HOTMAIL.COM Subject: Free pass for 1800 sex sites 4 REAL U see Date: 1997/08/02 Message-ID: <5ru0g2$3qg@news1-alterdial.uu.net>#1/1 http://www.2bornot2b.com/password Protect Your Children From Viewing ADULT XXX Material and at the same time get UNLIMITED FREE ACCESS to over 1200 of the Hottest Adult Sites on the Web. Also get FREE UNLIMITED Live Video Sex and FREE XXX rated chat room access. Stop paying to get into Adult Sites. This secret password gets you into them for FREE!!! I posted all the info at the URL above. From: your_email@domain.address Subject: i want your cock Date: 1997/08/03 Message-ID: <870605337.76655@angel.comcen.com.au>#1/1 hi guys check this out!!! http://www.sexmansion.com pics of me! love, cindy From: Free Cable Subject: ****CABLE BOX DESCRAMBLER**** BUILD YOUR OWN DESCRAMBLER FAST CHEAP AND EASY Date: 1997/08/03 Message-ID: <5s2trf$eho@chronicle.concentric.net>#1/1 ****CABLE BOX DESCRAMBLER**** BUILD YOUR OWN DESCRAMBLER FAST CHEAP AND EASY Cable Descrambler plans available for $ 5.00 Build your own cable descrambler box using parts you can buy from Radio Shack for less than $15 Can be used on pay per view and Premuim Movie Channels See all your favorite movie channels, pay per view etc. To recieve detail instructions and diagrams on how to construct your own Cable Box Descrambler send $5.00 CASH MONEY ORDER CHECK to the address below. S&G Enterprise 12145 Augusta Woods Cir Orlando FL. 32824 Please include your full mailing address. Please allow one week for checks to clear before our report is sent to you. Thank You Seth Garner From: Anton Marsden Subject: Re: Anton's Tournament : Ranking Method (Speed Only) Date: 1997/08/03 Message-ID: #1/1 On Thu, 10 Jul 1997, M Zulhairi B M Nadzri wrote: > I disagree on using size/speed ratio to rank the programs. Here is > why... > Garbage Lines > I propose ranking the programs on speed basis. We can use size > for tie-breaker for programs with the same speed. The smaller your program is the better, and the faster your program is the better. I will work out a formula that works and it will be similar to the original formula... but it will work :-) Anton. From: Anton Marsden Subject: Re: Anton's Core War Tournament Round 1 Rules Date: 1997/08/03 Message-ID: #1/1 On Tue, 8 Jul 1997, Ambroise CONFETTI wrote: > Can I use the ITEMLIST to terminate the process, are the items DAT > instructions ? No, the items could be any of the instructions. Anton. From: Philip Kendall Subject: Core Warrior 61 Date: 1997/08/04 Message-ID: .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 61 4 August, 1997 ______________________________________________________________________________ Core Warrior is a 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: (Please note Stormking's new address) http://www.koth.org/ ;Stormking http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~pizza/koth/ ;Pizza http://pauillac.inria.fr/~doligez/corewar/ ;Planar Newbies should check the stormking page for the FAQ, language specification, guides, and tutorials. Post questions to rec.games.corewar. All new players are infinitely welcome! If ftp.csua.berkeley.edu is unreachable, you can download pMARS at: Terry's web page--http://www.nc5.infi.net/~wtnewton/corewar/ Planar ftp site--ftp://ftp.inria.fr/INRIA/Projects/para/doligez/cw/pmars Fechter ftp site--ftp://members.aol.com/ofechner/corewar A collection of Bezzi's hints in the first issues is available at: ftp://ftp.volftp.vol.it/pub/pc/msdos/games/solutions/bbhints.zip Beppe Bezzi web page - http://www.aspide.it/freeweb/Bezzi ______________________________________________________________________________ Welcome to my first issue of Core Warrior, following Christian's two weeks back. I hope at least someone finds it vaguely useful :-) The Hills are still quite, with very little action. Is everyone just off on their summer/winter break, or have we exhasted the possibilities of the '94 Draft? It was a year ago last Tuesday that Anton Marsden published Probe, with its Q^2 scan, which is still seen on many of the warriors on the Hill. Who will come with something similar this year? STOP PRESS -- First and exclusive: the results of the second round of Anton's Core War Tournament -- see below -- STOP PRESS ENDS Phil Kendall ______________________________________________________________________________ Anton's Tournament Round 2 Results The aim of round 2 was to write a warrior designed to beat Electric Head, currently on top of the '94 Hill. (See _Core Warrior 59_ for the source) Rank Name Author Score Points _________________________________________________________________ 1 Shelter 1f3 Ilmari Karonen 2986 7 2 Head Basher Brian Haskin 2940 6 3 PBeat v1.0 Philipp Offermann 2903 5 4 Short Circuit Philip Kendall 2875 4 5 P^(1/2) Christian Schmidt 2389 3 6 Nautilus Mole IX 2098 2 7 Anti Head Ian Oversby 1533 1 Congratulations to Ilmari Karonen for dropping only 14 points over the 1000 round fight. _______________________________________________________________________ Current Status of the Internet Pizza Server ICWS '94 Draft Hill: Hill Specs: coresize: 8000 max. processes: 8000 duration: after 80,000 cycles, a tie is declared. max. entry length: 100 minimum distance: 100 rounds fought: 200 instruction set: ICWS '94 Draft The current ICWS '94 Draft hill: # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age 1 43.5/ 38.3/ 18.3 Electric Head Anton Marsden 148.7 24 2 45.6/ 45.6/ 8.9 He Scans Again P.Kline 145.6 12 3 35.1/ 25.1/ 39.9 Newt Ian Oversby 145.1 15 4 30.5/ 19.0/ 50.5 Return Of The Jedimp John K W 142.0 269 5 33.8/ 26.8/ 39.4 RetroQ P.Kline 140.9 69 6 35.2/ 29.6/ 35.2 Head or Tail Christian Schmidt 140.8 57 7 35.5/ 30.8/ 33.7 Nine Seven Six M R Bremer 140.2 133 8 41.6/ 43.3/ 15.1 C^2 Christian Schmidt 139.9 19 9 37.4/ 36.2/ 26.4 PAN-TAU-RA Christian Schmidt 138.6 4 10 34.1/ 30.9/ 35.0 Ultraviolet Ken Espiritu 137.3 6 11 40.2/ 43.8/ 16.0 Blain Nimon 136.6 35 12 31.2/ 26.6/ 42.2 unrequited love kafka 135.8 16 13 36.7/ 38.0/ 25.3 First Strike Nimon 135.5 30 14 31.8/ 28.3/ 39.9 Ultra-RQ^2 Ken Espiritu 135.3 7 15 38.0/ 41.3/ 20.7 NCC-1701-A Philip Kendall 134.8 72 16 37.7/ 41.0/ 21.3 Guessed v0.1 Ian 134.4 9 17 26.5/ 18.9/ 54.6 Impish v0.2 Ian Oversby 134.1 308 18 37.2/ 40.7/ 22.1 Damage Incorporated Anton Marsden 133.6 310 19 40.1/ 47.0/ 12.9 Overdrive Christian Schmidt 133.1 1 20 30.9/ 30.1/ 39.0 Gigolo Core Warrior staff 131.6 323 21 36.8/ 42.0/ 21.2 Solomon v0.8 Ian Oversby 131.5 115 22 36.4/ 42.1/ 21.5 Guru Robert Hale 130.7 2 23 31.3/ 32.3/ 36.5 Terkonit 3 Christian Schmidt 130.2 12 24 37.4/ 45.7/ 16.9 Fawkes v0.2 Ian Oversby 129.2 7 25 37.6/ 46.5/ 15.9 myVamp5.4 Paulsson 128.7 19 Age since last issue: 2 ( 2 last issue, 13 the issue before ) New warriors: 2 Turnover/age rate 100% Average age: 74 ( 74 last issue, 72 the issue before ) Average score: 142 ( 139 last issue, 142 the issue before ) The top 25 warriors are represented by 13 independent authors: Schmidt with 6; Oversby with 5; Espiritu, Kline, Marsden and Nimon with 2. All others with one warrior each. ______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's New # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age 19 36.9/ 41.9/ 21.2 Guru Robert Hale 131.9 1 19 40.1/ 47.0/ 12.9 Overdrive Christian Schmidt 133.1 1 We welcome Robert Hale to the '94 Hill. ______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's No More # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age 26 11.4/ 45.4/ 43.1 Pure Genius Compudemon 77.4 0 26 40.3/ 52.5/ 7.1 Obsidian Nimon 128.2 29 ______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's Old # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age 20 30.9/ 30.1/ 39.0 Gigolo Core Warrior staff 131.6 323 18 37.2/ 40.7/ 22.1 Damage Incorporated Anton Marsden 133.6 310 17 26.5/ 18.9/ 54.6 Impish v0.2 Ian Oversby 134.1 308 4 30.5/ 19.0/ 50.5 Return Of The Jedimp John K W 142.0 269 The top three here have all looked in trouble in recent weeks, never leaving the lower reaches of the Hill. Jedimp, on the other hand, goes from strength to strength. ______________________________________________________________________________ OLD HALL OF FAME * means the warrior is still active. Pos Name Author Age Strategy 1 Thermite II Robert Macrae 2262 Qscan -> bomber 2 Impfinity v4g1 Planar 1993 Stone/ imp 3 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 1620 P-warrior 4 Tornado 3.0 Beppe Bezzi 1567 Bomber 5 Torch t18 P.Kline 1539 Bomber 6 Chameleon Myer R Bremer 1437 P-warrior 7 Frontwards v2 Steven Morrell 1420 One shot scanner 8 Evol Cap 6.6 John Wilkinson 1299 Imp / stone 9 quiz Schitzo 1262 Scanner/ bomber 10 T.N.T. Maurizio Vittuari 1204 Bomber 11 Grilled Octopus v0.5 David Boeren 1154 P-warrior 12 Hazy Shade II John Wilkinson 1102 P-warrior 13 Stepping Stone Kurt Franke 1049 Qscan -> Vampire 14 Rosebud Beppe Bezzi 993 Stone/ imp 15 Iron Gate 1.5 Wayne Sheppard 926 CMP scanner 16 T.N.T. pro Maurizio Vittuari 925 Bomber 17 Agony II Stefan Strack 912 CMP scanner 18 Barrage Anton Marsden 876 Qscan -> replicator 19 Blue Funk Steven Morrell 869 Stone/ imp 20 Flurry Anton Marsden 835 Qscan -> pwarrior 21 Thermite 1.0 Robert Macrae 802 Qscan -> bomber 22 Blue Funk 3 Steven Morrell 766 Stone/ imp 23 Night Train Karl Lewin 755 Replicator 24 Mirage 1.5 Anton Marsden 736 Scanner/ bomber 25 Blizzard Anton Marsden 713 Qscan -> replicator ______________________________________________________________________________ NEW HALL OF FAME * means the warrior is still active. Pos Name Author Age Strategy 1 Probe Anton Marsden 403 Q^2 -> Bomber 2 Blur 2 Anton Marsden 396 Scanner 3 unrequited love kafka 346 Q^2 -> Paper 4 Gigolo Core Warrior staff 323 * Q^2 -> Stone/imp 5 Damage Incorporated Anton Marsden 310 * Q^2 -> Bomber 6 Impish v0.2 Ian Oversby 308 * Stone/imp 7 Falcon v0.3 Ian Oversby 275 P-warrior 8 Return Of The Jedimp John K W 269 * Q^2 -> Stone/imp 9 Rosebud Beppe 218 Stone/imp 10 Q^2 Miro Anders Ivner 214 Q^2 -> Scanner/bomber 11 Instant Wolf 3.4 Edgar 205 P-warrior 12 Goldfinch P.Kline 201 P-warrior 13 Simple v0.4b Ian Oversby 197 QScan -> Stone/imp 14 Trident^2 John K W 195 Q^2 -> Stone/imp 15 ompega Steven Morrell 189 Stone/imp 16 Frogz Franz 172 Q^2 -> Paper 17 The Machine Anton Marsden 164 Scanner 18 Memories Beppe 152 Scanner 19 Nine Seven Six M R Bremer 133 * Q^2 -> Stone/imp 20 Tiberius 3.1 Franz 130 Q^2 -> Paper 21 Solomon v0.8 Ian Oversby 115 * Stone and scanner 22 CC Paper 3.3 Franz 107 Q^2 -> Paper 23 mrb-test m r bremer 106 ? 24 T.N.T. pro Maurizio Vittuari 105 Bomber 25 Jack in the box II Beppe Bezzi 100 P-warrior ______________________________________________________________________________ Current Status of the Internet Pizza Server Beginner's Hill: Hill Specs: coresize: 8000 max. processes: 8000 duration: after 80,000 cycles, a tie is declared. max. entry length: 100 minimum distance: 100 maximum age: At age 100, warriors are retired. rounds fought: 200 instruction set: ICWS '94 Draft Last challenge: Sat Aug 2 20:56:55 PDT 1997 # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age 1 51.6/ 37.1/ 11.4 Pentagram 2.a J.A.Denny 166.1 94 2 47.2/ 33.9/ 18.9 Hexagram J.A.Denny 160.5 92 3 47.7/ 38.7/ 13.6 Guessed v0.1 Ian 156.8 32 4 45.6/ 37.0/ 17.5 guru v0.1 Robert Hale 154.1 8 5 39.9/ 25.7/ 34.5 Sections Zul Nadzri 154.1 52 6 45.8/ 40.9/ 13.3 Nautilus Mole IX 150.6 11 7 44.4/ 41.9/ 13.7 qDeath v .169 Ryan Coleman 146.8 39 8 41.5/ 38.4/ 20.1 qbomber v .469 Ryan Coleman 144.5 43 9 32.4/ 20.7/ 46.9 Dust 7.0 Justin Kao 144.1 72 10 34.1/ 24.4/ 41.6 Flimsy v0.6 Ian Oversby 143.8 93 11 41.8/ 41.0/ 17.3 guru v0.3 Robert Hale 142.6 2 12 32.2/ 22.4/ 45.4 A Blaise Affair Robert J. Street 142.1 12 13 43.5/ 45.6/ 10.9 Short Sword 4 JS Pulido 141.4 74 14 31.2/ 21.2/ 47.5 Scanitator 3.0 Christian Schmid 141.3 99 15 38.8/ 37.3/ 23.9 Pain and Panic v0.1 Robert Hale 140.3 1 16 31.0/ 23.5/ 45.5 Six-Finger Discount From Ryan Coleman 138.5 46 17 34.1/ 33.5/ 32.4 If I only had a brain? Ryan Coleman 134.6 44 18 39.4/ 47.4/ 13.2 Dwa Michaly b Waldemar Bartolik 131.4 80 19 26.0/ 21.3/ 52.7 4-Finger Discount From th Ryan Coleman 130.7 47 20 23.6/ 19.4/ 56.9 Quantum Christian Schmidt 127.9 96 21 28.0/ 31.6/ 40.4 Zorm-B Anonymous 124.4 77 22 23.7/ 23.3/ 53.0 It's a Harmless Addition Robert Hale 124.1 30 23 25.3/ 28.7/ 46.0 It's a Harmless Addiction Robert Hale 121.9 33 24 24.6/ 29.3/ 46.2 Kohonenian Dream Robert J. Street 119.9 66 25 1.1/ 54.6/ 44.4 PruebaX5 Eleazar Martinez Can 47.5 3 35.0/ 32.7/ 32.3 Top 25 Averages 137.2 49 ______________________________________________________________________________ The Hint A new way of avoiding self-bombing [Note: the warriors mentioned in this article are available from Planar's Web page: http://pauillac.inria.fr/~doligez/corewar/] When writing a stone, if all else is equal (which it never is :-) ), a stone which bombs with a smaller mod will beat the one which bombs with a larger mod. However, if a stone has a small mod, then it will very often drop a bomb on itself. Sometimes this can be used to mutate the warrior (for example, see Beppe Bezzi's _Tornado 3.0_, which uses a spl bomb to change from a bomber to a coreclear), but often it is a thing to be avoided. This article gives a (hopefully) new way which means that the mod of a (self- splitting) bomber can be reduced. The actual method is rather complicated, so instead of doing a general analysis, I'll do a specific example instead: Consider this stone, taken from John K Wilkinson's _evoltmp_: (The actual stone is between the lines labelled p and l, with the d-clear bomb at jclr; the rest of the warrior is a boot routine and a dat 1,1 decoy) ;redcode-94 ;name evoltmp's stone ;author John K W & Philip Kendall ;assert CORESIZE == 8000 org EvolCap BOOT_DIST equ (2626+24*66) S equ 24 jclr: dat >2667, S+10 evol EvolCap mov.i jclr, evol+BOOT_DIST+S+4 for 6 mov.i {pptr, -S l djn.f -1, >-S-1 pptr: nop 0, evol+BOOT_DIST+6 end (Note that this method will work only for self-splitting stones which have the add line _before_ one of the bombing lines) This stone is a stone -> d-clear, which mutates when the mov line looks like mov }-2,1 which moves the spl at p on top of the first djn.f. Currently, it uses a mod-8 step for bombing, with a-field increments offset from this by 3. If we trace the execution of the warrior once it is booted, the instructions execute in this order: [p] [a p] (*) [m a p] [d m a p] [a d m a p] (*) [m a d m a p] [d m a d m a p] [a d m a d m a p] (*) etc... If we look at the lines marked with * (those where the number of processes is congruent to 2 mod 3), we notice that there are more adds (a) executed than movs (m). Therefore there must be some of the mod-8 locations which we thought were going to be bombed which will not be, at least before the mutation occurs (a small amount of bombing still occurs after this due to the spl instruction at p still feeding processes into the loop). In fact, the locations which are missed are those which occur after (3/2)*n*(n+1) additions, where n=0,1,2,... This fact enables us to reduce the mod to 4 and, so long as we syncronise our stone correctly, still avoid self-bombing. As an example, let us consider a step size, S, of 28 (it is important to keep the step size small with this warrior as the region from (c-S) to (c+S) is not cleared). The mov instruction we are trying to miss is mov }2,-3, as this would increment our step size. Each time a is executed, 28 is added to the initial value of -2 of the a-field of m, so we require 28k mod 8000=4 (k=0,1,2,...) to get to mov.i }2,-3. This has a solution of k=1143. There is no value of n such that (3/2)*n*(n+1)=1143, but if we take n=27, this gives 1134. Then, if we start the warrior with m as mov }(-2+(9*S)),(1-(9*S)) after 1134 additions (the point at which m is skipped), m will be mov }(-2+(1143*S)),(1-(1143*S)) which is equivalent to mov }2,-3 the instruction we are trying to miss. This only leaves one very small problem: before the mutation to d-clear occurs, at one stage m looks like mov }30,-31 which increments the a-field of the bomb, so we must change the jclr instruction to jclr: dat >2666, S+10 (A better bomb to use would be dat >5335,S+10, which would have to start off as dat >5334,S+10 - see _Core Warrior 52_ for details) So, here's the complete source to the mod 4 version of evoltmp's stone: ;redcode-94 ;name evoltmp's stone ;author John K W & Philip Kendall ;assert CORESIZE == 8000 ;see Core Warrior 61 for details of this warrior org EvolCap BOOT_DIST equ (2626+24*66) S equ 28 magic equ 9 ; to avoid self-bombing jclr: dat >2666, S+10 ; changed to >2667 by the stone evol EvolCap mov.i jclr, evol+BOOT_DIST+S+4 for 6 mov.i {pptr, -S djn.f -1, >-S-1 pptr: nop 0, evol+BOOT_DIST+6 end At present, if this warrior is run off against some other warriors, its performance is actually worse than that of the mod-8 version; for example, versus Planar's _Impfinity v4g1_, the mod-8 version scores 61/86/53 (236 points), whilst the mod-4 version scores 37/99/64 (175 points), and against Paul Kline's _Torch t18_, mod-8 scores 95/63/42 (327), but mod-4 scores only 77/68/55 (286). One of the principal reasons for this change in performance is that the mod-4 version is in its bombing mode for (approximately) twice as long as the mod-8 version; this means that a) Impfinity has twice as long to build up processes in its imp spirals and b) the d-clear is running for less time, both of which make Impfinity harder to kill. This is shown by the fact that the change versus Impfinity is mostly from wins to ties. Similar considerations apply versus Torch, and many other warriors. The above is only an example of a technique, rather than an attempt to create a warrior which will do well on the Hills, so the fact that performance is actually degraded by this is not of prime importance; however, it does show that reducing the mod of a stone is not always a good point. ______________________________________________________________________________ Questions? Concerns? Comments? Complaints? Mail them to people who care. authors: Beppe Bezzi , Anton Marsden , Christian Schmidt and Philip Kendall From: rsegrest@mindspring.com (Rick Segrest) Subject: New Site! Date: 1997/08/04 Message-ID: <33e5b4a1.74183470@news.mindspring.com>#1/1 New Site! "THE NUCLEUS" Arcade, Video Game, and Computer Emulators and Rom links http://www.mindspring.com/~rsegrest/nucleus.htm From: Philip Kendall Subject: Re: Core Warrior 61 Date: 1997/08/05 Message-ID: <$MGxIBAED25zEw7Y@kendalls.demon.co.uk>#1/1 In article <33E754E6.E9E@goofy.zdv.uni-mainz.de>, Christian Schmidt wrote >> The top 25 warriors are represented by 13 independent authors: Schmidt with 6; >> Oversby with 5; Espiritu, Kline, Marsden and Nimon with 2. All others with one >> warrior each. > >Which is my 6th warrior? ;-) The one in 26th place, which I chopped off the bottom :-) Phil -- / Philip Kendall (pak21@cam.ac.uk pak21@kendalls.demon.co.uk) \ \ http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/5427/corewar.htm / From: Christian Schmidt Subject: Re: Core Warrior 61 Date: 1997/08/05 Message-ID: <33E754E6.E9E@goofy.zdv.uni-mainz.de>#1/1 > The top 25 warriors are represented by 13 independent authors: Schmidt with 6; > Oversby with 5; Espiritu, Kline, Marsden and Nimon with 2. All others with one > warrior each. Which is my 6th warrior? ;-) Christian From: 18334757@compuserve.com Subject: FREE SEX SITE Date: 1997/08/08 Message-ID: <5sftnv$ovm@server-b.cs.interbusiness.it>#1/1 http://www.2bornot2b.com/password Protect Your Children From Viewing ADULT XXX Material and at the same time get UNLIMITED FREE ACCESS to over 1200 of the Hottest Adult Sites on the Web. Also get FREE UNLIMITED Live Video Sex and FREE XXX rated chat room access. Stop paying to get into Adult Sites. This secret password gets you into them for FREE!!! I posted all the info at the URL above. From: Philip Kendall Subject: Re: Newbie needs help Date: 1997/08/08 Message-ID: #1/1 In article <01bca3a0$10c0d8e0$da14e3c7@cl2fd>, The Diaz Family wrote >I'm a newbie and am just learning redcode, and everything I write well.... just >bites. I'd appreciate any help anyone can offer. Some good general places to start are: http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~pizza/koth/ (aka Pizza) and http://www.koth.org/ (aka Stormking) For introductions to redcode, check out Steve Bailey's guide for Beginners (available at Stormking and, I think, Pizza), or one of these two: http://www.itd.umich.edu/~jklewis/corewars/dummie.html (Core War for Dummies, by John K Lewis) or http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/corewar/guide.html (The Beginner's Guide to Redcode, by Ilmari Karonen) And for an introduction to the standard warrior types, read Core Warriors 1 to 8, available from Planar's page, http://pauillac.inria.fr/~doligez/corewar/. HTH Phil -- / Philip Kendall (pak21@cam.ac.uk pak21@kendalls.demon.co.uk) \ \ http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/5427/corewar.htm / From: "The Diaz Family" Subject: Newbie needs help Date: 1997/08/08 Message-ID: <01bca3a0$10c0d8e0$da14e3c7@cl2fd>#1/1 Anyone, I'm a newbie and am just learning redcode, and everything I write well.... just bites. I'd appreciate any help anyone can offer. Ghost From: Philip Kendall Subject: Re: pMARS Date: 1997/08/10 Message-ID: #1/1 In article <19970810203001.QAA27017@ladder02.news.aol.com>, Mercury595 wrote >Hey im a beginner and i need to know where to get pMARS for runing >Corewars >if anyone could help id be grateful. pMARS is available from: 1) the Core War FTP site (ftp://ftp.csua.berkeley.edu/pub/corewar), but this can be very slow. 2) the mirror of the above (ftp://www.koth.org), but this can be very slow as well... 3) Terry Newton's pages (http://www.nc5.infi.net/~wtnewton/corewar/) 4) Planar's FTP site (ftp://ftp.inria.fr/INRIA/Projects/para/doligez/cw/pmars) 5) The Fechter FTP site (ftp://members.aol.com/ofechner/corewar) HTH Phil -- / Philip Kendall (pak21@cam.ac.uk pak21@kendalls.demon.co.uk) \ \ http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/5427/corewar.htm / From: mercury595@aol.com (Mercury595) Subject: pMARS Date: 1997/08/10 Message-ID: <19970810203001.QAA27017@ladder02.news.aol.com>#1/1 Hey im a beginner and i need to know where to get pMARS for runing Corewars if anyone could help id be grateful. Thanks Brian From: slkfjsdlkfja@jlafjasd.com Subject: Young Asians Show all Uncensored..... Date: 1997/08/10 Message-ID: <33edb29b.0@news1.ibm.net>#1/1 Check out the Hottest New Asian Sex Site on the Net !!! The Worlds most Erotic Young Asians Around UNCENSORED !!! Visit: http://www.hot-asians.com All Models are over the Age of 18 Years of Age or Older. From: mercury595@aol.com (Mercury595) Subject: Re: pMARS Date: 1997/08/11 Message-ID: <19970811220800.SAA20538@ladder02.news.aol.com>#1/1 ThanK you Sir this newsgroup is really gonna help me From: Paul Kline Subject: Pizza Down? Date: 1997/08/11 Message-ID: <33EEF75E.4BA3@acad.drake.edu>#1/1 The Pizza server seems to be down at the moment :-( Paul Kline pk6811s@acad.drake.edu From: Unbeliev@ble.com Subject: ///// FREE CASH GRANTS \\\\\\\ Date: 1997/08/11 Message-ID: <8b7cd$82f14.1ad@NEWS>#1/1 CASH GRANTS CASH GRANTS CASH GRANTS Foundations all over the United States GIVE CASH GRANTS. ANYONE can apply for a Grant from 18 years and up... This money HAS to be given away, WHY not to YOU? Grants from $500.00 to $50,000.00 possible, in some instances. Grants don't have to be paid back. Grants can be ideal for people who are or were bankrupt or just have bad credit. Get the money you need to start that business, you have always wanted. To get your list of FOUNDATIONS that give grants, AND instructions on how to apply. Send a check or money order for ONLY $6.00 to: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ B.C.S. 39 GURLEY ROAD #200 EDISON, NJ 08817 Att: GRANT INFO ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Include your E-MAIL ADDRESS From: 339328.972@compuserve.com Subject: 5 .Minutes.Live .Video XX .FREE! Date: 1997/08/12 Message-ID: <5sqcfe$ldd@server-b.cs.interbusiness.it>#1/1 1st Adult site that supports AOL Browser!..also works with all other browser's FIVE FREE MINUTES of LIVE STEAMY SEX to all new members. No Membership Fees / No Signup Fees / No obligations Tell the model what to do and she'll do it! Also..... XXX Movies with sound! Porn Stars! XXX Pictures Live Chat! ...and more! Come enjoy the fun with one of the oldest, most established adult sites on the net! Point your browser to: http://sites.videofantasy.com/cgi-win/tracker.exe?2054 From: garyytyie@aol.com Subject: .Live Sex Video Free! Date: 1997/08/12 Message-ID: <5sq9t4$dio@server-b.cs.interbusiness.it>#1/1 1st Adult site that supports AOL Browser!..also works with all other browser's FIVE FREE MINUTES of LIVE STEAMY SEX to all new members. No Membership Fees / No Signup Fees / No obligations Tell the model what to do and she'll do it! Also..... XXX Movies with sound! Porn Stars! XXX Pictures Live Chat! ...and more! Come enjoy the fun with one of the oldest, most established adult sites on the net! Point your browser to: http://sites.videofantasy.com/cgi-win/tracker.exe?2054 From: Horace Kim Subject: (���� ����) Date: 1997/08/13 Message-ID: <33F1636B.6CB7@netvigator.com>#1/1 TO : PURCHASING MANAGER RE: VIRTUA PET ( TAMAKUCHI ) VARIOUS VIRTUA PET IS AVAILABLE AT COMPETITIVE CONDITION. STOCK : IMMEDIATE AVAILABLE DELIVERY : 2 ~ 3 DAYS PRICE : NEGOTIABLE , DEPEND ON QUANTITY PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT US FOR MORE DETAILS. BEST REGARDS HORACE KIM TEL: (852)2365-8760 FAX: (852)2766-0934 hkpnv1@netvigator.com : E-mail From: iltzu@sci.fi (Ilmari Karonen) Subject: Re: Anton's Core War Tournament Round 3 Rules Date: 1997/08/15 Message-ID: <15199744.Amiga@pop.sci.fi>#1/1 > The objective in round 3 is to write a Redcode (same parameters as the '94 > draft hill) program which draws a pretty picture (and perhaps animates it > too) on the screen. The maximum code size is 100. The standard colours for > warrior 0 will be used, ie. green for executing code and cyan for killed > off processes, and increments/decrements also make "marks" in the viewer. > Obviously, the picture/animation generated will look different depending > on the width of your viewer, so when you submit your entry, let me know > what the width (in instructions) of the viewer you used was. Um, so can I just give you the -v parameter I used to run pmarsv? And can I specify the version, since the 386+ and 286 versions have a slightly different display? I won't even try to guess what versions for non-MSDOS systems look like.. I might be better off with just a simple monochrome design, but in case I decide to try something more complex, I'd like to know. -- Ilmari Karonen (iltzu@sci.fi) http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/ From: Anton Marsden Subject: Anton's Core War Tournament Round 3 Rules Date: 1997/08/15 Message-ID: #1/1 Sorry for being so slow coming up with some rules for round 3. I've been very busy lately (and am still very busy). I think some of you will find this round fun - it's a little different from anything tried before. Some of you may not be able to complete this round properly (especially if you don't have access to a PMARS viewer)... and I'm sorry. If you're one of these people, send me a mail and I'll organise some alternative rules for you. The objective in round 3 is to write a Redcode (same parameters as the '94 draft hill) program which draws a pretty picture (and perhaps animates it too) on the screen. The maximum code size is 100. The standard colours for warrior 0 will be used, ie. green for executing code and cyan for killed off processes, and increments/decrements also make "marks" in the viewer. Obviously, the picture/animation generated will look different depending on the width of your viewer, so when you submit your entry, let me know what the width (in instructions) of the viewer you used was. Entries will be judged purely on creativity. Entries are due on Monday, 25 August, 1997. Anton. From: ksdkdkdd@flkjflasdj.com Subject: Fresh Teens Live....http://www.dirtyteens.com/live Date: 1997/08/15 Message-ID: <33f4ebf8.0@news.inreach.com>#1/1 Check out the Hottest New Live Sex Site on the Net !!! The Worlds most Erotic Young Girls Around UNCENSORED & LIVE !!! *** Free Samples *** Visit: http://www.dirtyteens.com/live All Models are over the Age of 18 Years of Age or Older. From: stst@vuse.vanderbilt.edu (Stefan Strack) Subject: Core War Frequently Asked Questions (rec.games.corewar FAQ) Date: 1997/08/16 Message-ID: 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: Anton Marsden Subject: Re: Anton's Core War Tournament Round 3 Rules Date: 1997/08/16 Message-ID: #1/1 On Fri, 15 Aug 1997, Ilmari Karonen wrote: > Um, so can I just give you the -v parameter I used to run pmarsv? And > can I specify the version, since the 386+ and 286 versions have a > slightly different display? I won't even try to guess what versions for > non-MSDOS systems look like.. > I might be better off with just a simple monochrome design, but in case > I decide to try something more complex, I'd like to know. Specify the -v parameter if you're using a 386+/286/XWindows. Otherwise, I'd like to know the screen width in instructions - just in case it's wildly different from the PC/XWIN display. Note that with the -v XX4 option, reads appear on the screen (apparently). Anton. From: Anton Marsden Subject: Re: Anton's Core War Tournament Round 3 Rules Date: 1997/08/16 Message-ID: #1/1 On Fri, 15 Aug 1997, Philip Kendall wrote: > In article c.nz>, Anton Marsden wrote > >The objective in round 3 is to write a Redcode (same parameters as the '94 > >draft hill) program which draws a pretty picture (and perhaps animates it > >too) on the screen. The maximum code size is 100. The standard colours for > >warrior 0 will be used, ie. green for executing code and cyan for killed > >off processes, and increments/decrements also make "marks" in the viewer. > >Obviously, the picture/animation generated will look different depending > >on the width of your viewer, so when you submit your entry, let me know > >what the width (in instructions) of the viewer you used was. > Can we use pmars -v [whatever][whatever]4 so that reads make marks, and > do we have to use a coresize of 8000? Yes, yes. From: "---" Subject: $$$ Need cash?- Then you cant miss this $$$ Honesty is the best policy! Date: 1997/08/16 Message-ID: <01bcaa7c$a4a0cec0$cf0ed9cf@Vicken.worldnet.att.net> If you find this article offensive, please accept my apoliogies to you and your newsgroup. First of all, IT'S PERFECTLY LEGAL! (Call 1-800-725-2161) if you have any questions about the following opportunity to make $50,000.00 and that probably WITHIN LESS THAN TWO MONTHS! WHAT IT IS AND HOW IT WORKS ??? Well, here it goes: A little while back, I was browsing these newsgroups, just like you are now, and came across an article similar to this that said you could make thousands of dollars within weeks with only an initial investment of $5.00! So I thought, "Yeah, right, this must be a joke," but like most of us I was curious, so I kept reading. Anyway, it said that you send $1.00 to each of the 5 names and address stated in the article. You then place your own name and address in the bottom of the list at #5, and post the article in at least 200 newsgroups. (There are thousands) No catch, that was it. I knew that that was the opportunity I had waited for for a long time. I thought it was about time that the money of the world gets into the right hands! OURS, right? I never had a doubt that this thing will actually work and even if it didn't, what were 5 stamps and $5.00 for a try? As I mentioned before, like most of us I was a little skeptical and a little worried about the legal aspects of it all. So I checked it out with the U.S. Post Office (1-800-725-2161) and they confirmed that it is indeed legal! Now, that's how your story WILL sound like, too if you participate: Well GUESS WHAT!!... with in 7 days, I started getting money in the mail! I was shocked! I still figured it would end soon, and didn't give it another thought. But the money just kept coming in. In my first week, I made about $15 to $20 dollars. By the end of the second week I had made a total of over $700. In the third week I had over $3000 and it's still growing. This is now my fourth week and I have made a total of just over $15000 and it's still coming in ....... Let me tell you how this works and most importantly, Why it works....also, make sure you print a copy of this article NOW, so you can get the information off of it as you need it. The process is very simple and consists of 3 easy steps: STEP 1: Get 5 separate pieces of paper and write the following on each piece of paper "PLEASE PUT ME ON YOUR MAILING LIST." Now get five $1.00 bills and place ONE inside EACH of the 5 pieces of paper so the bill will not be seen through the envelope to prevent thievery. Next, place one paper in each of the 5 envelopes and seal them. You should now have 5 sealed envelopes, each with a piece of paper stating the above phrase and a $1.00 bill. What you are doing is creating a service by this. THIS IS PERFECTLY LEGAL! Mail the 5 envelopes to the following addresses: # 1 Keen , Callye, 44181, Bristow Circle, Ashburn VA 20147. # 2 J.P. Wang, P.O.Box 172, Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91729 # 3 J.T. Ells, P.O.Box 4, Sunderland, MA 01375. # 4 P. KULKARNI, P. O. BOX 5145, COLLEGE STATION, TX 77844 - 5145. #5 V. Simonian, 342, N. Norton Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90004 STEP 2: Now take the #1 name off the list that you see above, move the other names up (2 becomes 1, 3 becomes 2, etc...) and add YOUR Name as number 5 on the list. STEP 3: Change anything you need to, but try to keep this article as close to original as possible. Now, post your amended article to at least 200 newsgroups. (I think there is close to 18,000 groups) All you need is 200, but remember, the more you post, the more money you make! Don't know HOW to post in the newsgroups? Well do exactly the following: FOR NETSCAPE USERS: 1) Click on any newsgroup, like normal. Then click on "To News", which is in the top left corner of the newsgroup page. This will bring up a message box. 2) Fill in the SUBJECT with a flashy title, like the one I used, something to catch the eye!!! 3) Now go to the message part of the box and retype this letter exactly as it is here, with exception of your few changes. (remember to add your name to number 5 and move the rest up) 4) When your done typing in the WHOLE letter, click on 'FILE' above the send button. Then, 'SAVE AS..' DO NOT SEND YOUR ARTICLE UNTILL YOU SAVE IT. (so you don't have to type this 200 times :-) 5) Now that you have saved the letter, go ahead and send your first copy! (click the 'SEND' button in the top left corner) 6) This is where you post all 200! OK, go to ANY newsgroup article and click the 'TO NEWS' button again. Type in your flashy subject in the 'SUBJECT BOX', then go to the message and place your cursor here. Now click on 'ATTACHMENT' which is right below the 'SUBJECT BOX'. Click on attach file then find your letter wherever you saved it. Click once on your file then click 'OPEN' then click 'OK'. If you did this right , you should see your filename in the 'ATTACHMENT BOX' and it will be shaded. NOW POST AWAY! FOR INTERNET EXPLORER: It's just as easy, holding down the left mouse button, highlight this entire article, then press the 'CTRL' key and 'C' key at the same time to copy this article. Then print the article for your records to have the names of those you will be sending $1.00 to. Go to the newsgroups and press 'POST AN ARTICLE' type in your flashy subject and click the large window below. Press 'CTRL' and 'V' and the article will appear in the message window. **BE SURE TO MAKE YOUR ADDRESS CHANGES TO THE 5 NAMES.** Now re-highlight the article and re-copy it so you have the changes.... then all you have to do for each newsgroup is 'CTRL' and 'V' and press 'POST'. It's that easy!! THAT'S IT! All you have to do is jump to different newsgroups and post away, after you get the hang of it, it will take about 30 seconds for each newsgroup! **REMEMBER, THE MORE NEWSGROUPS YOU POST IN, THE MORE MONEY YOU WILL MAKE!! BUT YOU HAVE TO POST A MINIMUM OF 200** **If these instructions are too complex to follow, try Forte's "Free Agent." It is freeware for noncommercial use. To download it, simply use a search utility and type "Forte Free Agent". You should be able to find it.** That's it! You will begin receiving money from around the world within days! You may eventually want to rent a P.O. Box due to the large amount of mail you receive. If you wish to stay anonymous, you con invent a name to use, as long as the postman will deliver it. **JUST MAKE SURE ALL THE ADDRESSES ARE CORRECT.** Now the WHY part: This entire principle works because it is in a format of an upside down tree with thousands of branches. Everyone below you will see to it that the tree continues because they want to get money. Those below THEM will continue because THEY want to get the cash etc. Out of 200 postings, say I receive only 5 replies (a very low example). So then I made $5.00 with my name at #5 on the letter. Now, each of the 5 persons who just sent me $1.00 make the MINIMUM 200 postings, each with my name at #4 and only 5 persons respond to each of the original 5, that is another $25.00 for me, now those 25 each make 200 MINIMUM posts with my name at #3 and only 5 replies each, I will bring in an additional $125.00! Now, those 125 persons turn around and post the MINIMUM 200 with my name at #2 and only receive 5 replies each, I will make an additional $626.00! OK, now here is the fun part, each of those 625 persons post a MINIMUM of 200 letters with my name at #1 and they each only receive 5 replies, that just made me $3,125.00!!! With a original investment of only $5.00! AMAZING! And as I said 5 responses is actually VERY LOW! Average is probable 20 to 30! So lets put those figures at just 15 responses per person. Here is what you will make: at #5 $15.00 at #4 $225.00 at #3 $3,375.00 at #2 $50,625.00 When your name is no longer on the list, you just take the latest posting in the newsgroups, and send out another $5.00 to names on the list, putting your name at number 5 and start posting again. The thing to remember is that thousands of people all over the world are joining the Internet and reading these articles everyday, JUST LIKE YOU are now!! And this will go on and on and on and on.... get the picture? Well, there's 5,000,000,000 people on the world and most of them will eventually end up being hooked into the internet. So there are virtually unlimited resources. Of course this will work the best at the very beginning so the faster you post, the better for YOU! So can you afford $5.00 and see if it really works?? I think so! People have said, "what if the plan is played out and no one sends you the money? So what! What are the chances of that happening when there are tons of new honest users and new honest works?? I think so... People have said, "what if the plan is played out and no one sends you the money? So what! What are the chances of that happening when there are tons of new honest users and new honest people who are joining the Internet and newsgroups everyday and are willing to give it a try? Estimates are at 20,000 to 50,000 new users, every day, with thousands of those joining the actual Internet. Remember, play FAIRLY and HONESTLY and this will work. You just have to be honest. Make sure you print this article out RIGHT NOW, also. Try to keep a list of everyone that sends you money and always keep an eye on the newsgroups to make sure everyone is playing fairly. Remember, HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY. You don't need to cheat the basic idea to make the money!! GOOD LUCK to all and please play fairly and reap the huge rewards from this, which is tons of extra CASH. **By the way, if you try to deceive people by posting the messages with your name in the list and not sending the money to the rest of the people already on the list, you will NOT get as much. Someone I talked to knew someone who did that and he only made about $150.00, and that's after seven or eight weeks! Then he sent the 5 $1.00 bills, people added him to their lists, and in 4-5 weeks he had over $10k. This is the fairest and most honest way I have ever seen to share the wealth of the world without costing anything but our time!!! You also may want to buy mailing and e-mail lists for future dollars. Please remember to declare your extra income. Thanks once again... From: "James A.Danner" Subject: New Game Friends Date: 1997/08/17 Message-ID: <33F7D3A7.437C@uiuc.edu>#1/1 Hello, Would you like to meet some NEW Games Friends. CHECK OUT http://sports.friendfinder.com/go/ps462 This is a really good site for meeting new people with the same sports interests as you. The best part is it is FREE! If you like you can look me up as james. From: Philip Kendall Subject: Re: Getting started? Date: 1997/08/17 Message-ID: #1/1 In article <5t5lgg$3s2@freenet-news.carleton.ca>, David Faguy wrote > >Hi all. I remember some acquaintances of mine from high school working on >corewar programs in computer class and I was kind of intrigued. Now, >almost ten years later, I would like to try my hand at it. What is the >best way to get started? I've already read the FAQ, but I have found that >when it comes to things like this alot of time and trouble can be saved by >getting tips from those more experienced. I will be checking out the >sites which were mentioned in the FAQ tonite, but any info is welcome and >appreciated. Your first problem will be that the FAQ hasn't been updated since October 95, so it's a little out of date. Crucially, Stormking has moved from to http://www.koth.org/. Other than than, read Steve Bailey's Guide for Beginners (on Stormking or Pizza), Core War for Dummies (http://www.itd.umich.edu/~jklewis/corewars/dummie.html) by John K Lewis, The Beginner's Guide to Redcode (http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/corewar/guide.html) by Imari Karonen and issues 1 to 8 of Core Warrior (from Planar's pages -- http://pauillac.inria.fr/~doligez/corewar/) HTH Phil -- / Philip Kendall (pak21@cam.ac.uk pak21@kendalls.demon.co.uk) \ \ http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/5427/corewar.htm / From: bl740@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (David Faguy) Subject: Getting started? Date: 1997/08/17 Message-ID: <5t5lgg$3s2@freenet-news.carleton.ca>#1/1 Hi all. I remember some acquaintances of mine from high school working on corewar programs in computer class and I was kind of intrigued. Now, almost ten years later, I would like to try my hand at it. What is the best way to get started? I've already read the FAQ, but I have found that when it comes to things like this alot of time and trouble can be saved by getting tips from those more experienced. I will be checking out the sites which were mentioned in the FAQ tonite, but any info is welcome and appreciated. Thanx in advance for any info. . . -- Dave sXe ". . .And never fear. Fear is for the enemy. bl740@freenet.carleton.ca Fear and bullets. . ." - J. O'Barr From: bl740@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (David Faguy) Subject: What am I looking at? Date: 1997/08/18 Message-ID: <5tae2a$fo5@freenet-news.carleton.ca>#1/1 Hi all. It's me again. Ok. I've gone through the FAQ, Corewars for Dummies, and the Beginners Guide to Redcode (is that what it's called?) and I still don't know what I'm looking at. I managed to make a warrior (a pathetic one really) but when it fights I don't know what I'm looking at. I'm using the -v 525 option and have some questions: 1) What are the two colored bars (the red and green, not the white) at the top of the screen. I realize that they correspond to the warriors but what do they show? 2) I figure that the colored dots (red and green) in the box are the warriors battling it out, but what do the blueish dots mean? Thanx in advance for any info. . . -- Dave sXe ". . .And never fear. Fear is for the enemy. bl740@freenet.carleton.ca Fear and bullets. . ." - J. O'Barr From: Offermann@t-online.de (Philipp Offermann) Subject: Re: Anton's Core War Tournament Round 3 Rules Date: 1997/08/19 Message-ID: <5tchbr$gc4$1@news01.btx.dtag.de>#1/1 Is it allowed to use a "Rounds to play" value bigger than 1 so that the program animates over several rounds? And if so, is it allowed to use a lower "Cycles until tie" value? Thank you for your answer, Philipp PS: Please answer to my new eMail-address at "offermann@rocketmail.com". From: iltzu@sci.fi (Ilmari Karonen) Subject: Re: What am I looking at? Date: 1997/08/19 Message-ID: <19199712.Amiga@pop.sci.fi>#1/1 On Mon, 18 Aug 1997, David Faguy wrote: > Hi all. It's me again. Ok. I've gone through the FAQ, Corewars for > Dummies, and the Beginners Guide to Redcode (is that what it's called?) > and I still don't know what I'm looking at. I managed to make a warrior Now you should perhaps take a look at old Core Warrior issues, and any tutorials available at http://www.koth.org/ and elsewhere. As for your pmars problems, the answers (some of them, at least) can be found in the pmars.doc, somewhere near the end. > (a pathetic one really) but when it fights I don't know what I'm looking > at. I'm using the -v 525 option and have some questions: Um, I think the last number has a range of 0-4, so it should be -v 524 > 1) What are the two colored bars (the red and green, not the white) at the > top of the screen. I realize that they correspond to the warriors but > what do they show? The colored bars at the top of the pmarsv display show the length of the process queue. > 2) I figure that the colored dots (red and green) in the box are the warriors > battling it out, but what do the blueish dots mean? The cyan and purple dots are addresses where a process has died. > Thanx in advance for any info. . . Personally, I don't think the graphical display is always so useful. It's a great way of getting an overview of what's going on, but actually looking at the core with cdb can show a lot more information. (although being able to see read accesses can indeed be really handy when debugging scanners etc.) I'd say both the display and cdb have their uses. Using trace and the check macro can often help you isolate the problem when the warrior isn't working as expected, while the graphical display can show you why your strategy is failing against certain opponents. (Of course, my views may be slightly biased, as I can't run pmarsv at home. Makes this tournament round 3 a bit challenging..:) ) -- Ilmari Karonen (iltzu@sci.fi) http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/ From: Philip Kendall Subject: Re: What am I looking at? Date: 1997/08/19 Message-ID: #1/1 In article <5tae2a$fo5@freenet-news.carleton.ca>, David Faguy wrote > >Hi all. It's me again. Ok. I've gone through the FAQ, Corewars for >Dummies, and the Beginners Guide to Redcode (is that what it's called?) >and I still don't know what I'm looking at. I managed to make a warrior >(a pathetic one really) but when it fights I don't know what I'm looking >at. I'm using the -v 525 option and have some questions: (All here assuming your using an unmodified pMARS v0.8 under either DOS or Un*x) Firstly, the valid values for the 'z' option of -v xyz are 0-4; a quick test appears that anything greater than 4 gives the same as 4, but it's probably better to use the offically supported values. >1) What are the two colored bars (the red and green, not the white) at the > top of the screen. I realize that they correspond to the warriors but > what do they show? The number of processes which each of the two warriors currently have running. >2) I figure that the colored dots (red and green) in the box are the warriors > battling it out, but what do the blueish dots mean? The cyan dots are locations where a processes from the 'green' warrior (warrior 0) died and the magenta dots are locations where a processes from the 'red' warrior (warrior 1) died; note that these secondary coloured dots appear only for 1 and 2 warrior fights. Phil -- / Philip Kendall (pak21@cam.ac.uk pak21@kendalls.demon.co.uk) \ \ http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/5427/corewar.htm / From: nick Subject: How can I UNSUBSCRIBE! Date: 1997/08/19 Message-ID: <33FA0313.4001@vela.filg.uj.edu.pl>#1/1 I know it's stupid but I cant unsubscribe, Do you mind help me? Nick From: mercury595@aol.com (Mercury595) Subject: PMarS Date: 1997/08/20 Message-ID: <19970820193801.PAA24670@ladder01.news.aol.com>#1/1 ok i downloaded a version of Pmars and when i got it it didnt have the graphical display of the warriors just wanted to know where i could get that version thanks Brian From: "Tom Wilson" Subject: Re: FAST EASY LEGAL CASH ���$$$ Date: 1997/08/21 Message-ID: <01bcae4a$90222120$03cbd8cc@tom.mcmillin.com>#1/1 don't bother replying here, they don't read these newsgroups. -- Tom Wilson System Admin: the McMillin Companies - http://www.mcmillin.com tomster@mad.scientist.com - http://tom.mcmillin.com Mulciber wrote in article <01bcadd5$05fae7e0$e88674cf@office>... > ok. 1)Only Newbies fall for shit like that. > 2) Most people that can get into newgroups and the like are > not morons, and will not do anything like that. > 3)Don't do it here. > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > --- > Mulciber - Clan Eclipse > "Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean we're not out to get you" > > Will Fox wrote in article > <01bcabcb$deae31c0$2015bcc3@willfox.proweb.co.uk>... > > IT IS POSSIBLE....Follow the directions EXACTLY!!!! > > > > $50,000.00 for only $5.00 within 2 MONTHS????? > > > > > > You gotta be crazy! How on earth do you think you can buy 50 grand > > > > for lousy 5 bucks? Well, that's what I was wondering, too until I > > > > came across this letter. > > > > From: "Mulciber" Subject: Re: FAST EASY LEGAL CASH ���$$$ Date: 1997/08/21 Message-ID: <01bcadd5$05fae7e0$e88674cf@office>#1/1 ok. 1)Only Newbies fall for shit like that. 2) Most people that can get into newgroups and the like are not morons, and will not do anything like that. 3)Don't do it here. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Mulciber - Clan Eclipse "Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean we're not out to get you" Will Fox wrote in article <01bcabcb$deae31c0$2015bcc3@willfox.proweb.co.uk>... > IT IS POSSIBLE....Follow the directions EXACTLY!!!! > > $50,000.00 for only $5.00 within 2 MONTHS????? > > > You gotta be crazy! How on earth do you think you can buy 50 grand > > for lousy 5 bucks? Well, that's what I was wondering, too until I > > came across this letter. > From: eldwan@aol.com (Eldwan) Subject: Mod Date: 1997/08/24 Message-ID: <19970824062001.CAA06037@ladder01.news.aol.com>#1/1 I don't suppose that there is any chance in hell that this group is going to be moderated is there? Eldwan CoE -- Educated (ask if you want) From: "Miki Jovanovic" Subject: Anyone for a new robots game? Date: 1997/08/25 Message-ID: <01bcb1cd$4dee34c0$0100007f@pc03>#1/1 Hi All, I am wondering if there is interest out there for a new Robots game? I was inspired by one of the old systems (PCRobots anyone) and I have decided to design a new version which will run on something other then MS-DOS. I have started a project in Java, and I will have a copy ready for preliminary testing in about a week. But before I sit down and invest every minute of my free time, I would like to know if there is any interest in this sort of thing or not... As a guideline as to the type of game I am designing, here are some features... - robots will written in Java, using very easy API's - robots have customizable armor, agility, speed, gun and scanner range - arena can hold any number of robots (tested with 12 robots) - inter-robot communication for team fights - arena is rectangular with customizable size (default 500x500) - each field in arena can be empty, wall, recharge or trap - robots can do as much calculating as they want, but they will loose their turn only on specific actions, change of direction, shooting, scanning arena (encourage intelligent robots) - product is 100% pure Java and will run on any Java platform This is only a brief summary. So there will be much more in the actual game. Of course, this all will be public domain, and I will have no problems letting anybody and everybody hold tournaments. So guys please, give me some feedback. Thanx. Miki Jovanovic. From: sieben@imap1.asu.edu Subject: Re: Mod Date: 1997/08/25 Message-ID: <5tr8lh$fgk@news.asu.edu>#1/1 : I don't suppose that there is any chance in hell that this group is going : to be moderated is there? It's not a bad idea. The junk ratio is pretty high. Nandor. From: steve@nyongwa.montreal.qc.ca (Steve Robbins) Subject: Re: Anyone for a new robots game? Date: 1997/08/26 Message-ID: #1/1 In article <01bcb1cd$4dee34c0$0100007f@pc03>, Miki Jovanovic wrote: > > Hi All, > > I am wondering if there is interest out there for a new Robots game? I was > inspired by one of the old systems (PCRobots anyone) and I have decided to > design a new version which will run on something other then MS-DOS. Yes!!! > So guys please, give me some feedback. Thanx. I think it's a great idea. I hope you will (1) release source code, and (2) post the announce to some more groups, like comp.programming.contests. -- -- Steve Robbins When love is gone, there's always justice. And when justice is gone, there's always force. And when force is gone, there's always Mom. From: eldwan@aol.com (Eldwan) Subject: Re: Anyone for a new robots game? Date: 1997/08/26 Message-ID: <19970826174701.NAA06308@ladder01.news.aol.com>#1/1 >I am wondering if there is interest out there for a new Robots >game? ... >I would like to know if there is any interest in this sort of >thing or not I personally would find this very interesting, would we write the warriors in java, or would you make some sort of scripting lang? Eldwan CoE -- Educated From: Philip Kendall Subject: Re: system Date: 1997/08/27 Message-ID: <8x2hHBAkALB0EwVJ@kendalls.demon.co.uk>#1/1 In article <01bcb334$9681ede0$c4014ac1@ping6019>, Marcel Van Vaeck wrote >Hello can I run CORE WARS on any PC or must I have an APPLE You can run pMARS, the most popular Redcode simulator (Redcode is the language in which Core War programs are written) on any 286 (or better) DOS based PC or under Unix (including Linux). It is available for download from: 1) the Core War FTP site (ftp://ftp.csua.berkeley.edu/pub/corewar), but this can be very slow. 2) the mirror of the above (ftp://www.koth.org), but this can be very slow as well... 3) Terry Newton's pages (http://www.nc5.infi.net/~wtnewton/corewar/) 4) Planar's FTP site (ftp://ftp.inria.fr/INRIA/Projects/para/doligez/cw/pmars) 5) The Fechter FTP site (ftp://members.aol.com/ofechner/corewar) The first two of these sites contain the 286 DOS binaries, the 386 and greater DOS binaries and the source code; not sure about the latter three. Incidentally, pMARS runs on Macs, Amigas and VMS systems as well as DOS and Unix. HTH Phil -- / Philip Kendall (pak21@cam.ac.uk pak21@kendalls.demon.co.uk) \ \ http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/5427/corewar.htm / From: ting@shore.net (Ting Hsu) Subject: RoboCup (was: Anyone for a new robots game?) Date: 1997/08/27 Message-ID: <5u0fui$mut@shell2.shore.net>#1/1 My idea for a new robot game (and this is coming from an "oldtimer") would be to revamp this group to play RoboCup. It's currently a robot soccer game based in Japan, but with competitions planned all over the world. The kicker is that they also have a simulator! And the simulator is one of the competitions. Just imagine...recognition, trophies, travel. Much better rewards than corewars, and with a simple koth format, it wouldn't be any more time consuming. You can get more info at, http://www.cst.sony.co.jp/person/kitano/RoboCup/RoboCup.html I personally got tired of writing redcode, even though I got pretty good at it. But with a competition that generates press, I'm sure my attention span would last quite a few years. -- T.Hsu // ting@shore.net // Consultant, Software Development & QA From: John K. Lewis Subject: Re: system Date: 1997/08/28 Message-ID: <5u4jja$s19$1@newbabylon.rs.itd.umich.edu>#1/1 Marcel Van Vaeck wrote: : Hello can I run CORE WARS on any PC or must I have an APPLE There are several systems for CoreWars. Check out: http://www.koth.org/pmars.html there you can find what you are looking for. Just out of curiousity, why did you think CoreWars was an APPLE thing? John K. Lewis ^^^^^ From: "Miki Jovanovic" Subject: Re: Anyone for a new robots game? Date: 1997/08/29 Message-ID: <01bcb4ca$67838fc0$0100007f@pc03>#1/1 Steve Robbins wrote in article > I think it's a great idea. I hope you will (1) release source code, > and (2) post the announce to some more groups, like > comp.programming.contests. This is a second call for the source code already... I guess, I will have to release it after all :). As for the different newsgroups... YEAH! I had no idea these sort of things were discussed elsewhere. Miki Jovanovic. From: "Miki Jovanovic" Subject: Re: Anyone for a new robots game? Date: 1997/08/29 Message-ID: <01bcb4ca$10f4bf80$0100007f@pc03>#1/1 Timothy P O'Neill wrote in article > Fur shur - I'd be very interested in java-based robots. Let us know how > it's going. If you're really committed to public-domain, how do you feel > about making the code available for those of us who might like to tweak > it? I am still thinking about releasing the code. I am not so much afraid of people scavenging my code, but rather about the idea getting diluted. I would prefer that all efforts are channeled towards making the game better. But we will see. > You might be able to leave out "turns" as such by using threads, and so > simply have faster code react faster. Well, my intention was exactly against this. I do not want to punish people for putting logic into their code that will make for smarter robots. But please, wait until I release a beta. Reactions of robots will still be important, but this will be gauged by how they use their resources and not who writes a tighter 'for' loop. Miki Jovanovic. From: Erlend Subject: Cheats! Date: 1997/08/29 Message-ID: <3406EC99.64B5@popstar.com>#1/1 Get all your cheats or hints for free with the cheat and hint mailing-list! Join it for free at: http://home.sol.no/slettevo/cheat.htm From: Daniel Lehtovirta Subject: Re: Anyone for a new robots game? Date: 1997/08/29 Message-ID: <3406B920.EBF9E662@student.hk-r.se>#1/1 Miki Jovanovic wrote: > Hi All, > > I am wondering if there is interest out there for a new Robots game? I was > inspired by one of the old systems (PCRobots anyone) and I have decided to > design a new version which will run on something other then MS-DOS. I have > started a project in Java, and I will have a copy ready for preliminary > testing in about a week. But before I sit down and invest every minute of > my free time, I would like to know if there is any interest in this sort of > thing or not... > > As a guideline as to the type of game I am designing, here are some > features... > > - robots will written in Java, using very easy API's > - robots have customizable armor, agility, speed, gun and scanner range > - arena can hold any number of robots (tested with 12 robots) > - inter-robot communication for team fights > - arena is rectangular with customizable size (default 500x500) > - each field in arena can be empty, wall, recharge or trap > - robots can do as much calculating as they want, but they will loose their > turn only on specific actions, change of direction, shooting, scanning > arena (encourage intelligent robots) > - product is 100% pure Java and will run on any Java platform > > This is only a brief summary. So there will be much more in the actual > game. Of course, this all will be public domain, and I will have no > problems letting anybody and everybody hold tournaments. > > So guys please, give me some feedback. Thanx. > > Miki Jovanovic. I would be very intrested! I can also try helping you if you are intressted in that... :-) E-Mail: pt97dle@student.hk-r.se From: Planar Subject: Re: system Date: 1997/08/29 Message-ID: <5u6cf7$bvp@news-rocq.inria.fr>#1/1 >From: Philip Kendall >4) Planar's FTP site > (ftp://ftp.inria.fr/INRIA/Projects/para/doligez/cw/pmars) This directory will soon be replaced by , which will contain a complete mirror of the CSUA corewar directory. -- Planar From: Brian Haskin Subject: Re: Anyone for a new robots game? Date: 1997/08/31 Message-ID: <340632EB.93D428B3@ptway.com>#1/1 Miki Jovanovic wrote: > > Hi All, > > I am wondering if there is interest out there for a new Robots game? I > was > inspired by one of the old systems (PCRobots anyone) and I have [SNIP] Sorry, I've been gone a few days and just saw this. About 6 months ago I started writing a robot game based on CRobots but with additional features some of which are: - a robot is able to spawn other robots - a robot fires bullets and missiles (basically a robot with limited lifespan that blows up when it comes in contact with something) - energy blocks that that give the robot a certain amount of energy when they are run into - robot can also build walls The idea was that you would end up with two armies of robots fighting each other possibly with forts and such. This was basically finished except for maybe the vision system, I think. Oh, and possibly some debugging :) If anyone's interested I'll look around and see if I still have it and send it to them. Also this was written using djgpp (a dos port of gpp) and allegro (a graphics library) for the front end. The front end code is seperated from the rest so it should be a simple matter to write a front end for something else. Brian Haskin P.S. just in case CRobots is copyright or something I didn't look at any of that source in writing this, haven't even seen it in over a year :) From: tusk@daimi.aau.dk (Martin Moller Pedersen) Subject: here to play PCrobots Date: 1997/08/31 Message-ID: <5ucdfk$asp$1@gjallar.daimi.aau.dk>#1/1 It is still possible to play pcrobots. There is a C++ version running at Richard Play-by-Email server at http://www.gamerz.net/~c++robots/index.html For pcrobots programs source etc look at http://www.daimi.aau.dk/~tusk/pbmserv/crobots/index.html cheers Martin M. Pedersen