From: John.Metcalf@p18.f94.chaos.camelot.co.uk (John Metcalf) Subject: Q^2 scans Date: 1998/12/01 Message-ID: #1/1 Greetings... Thanks for some interesting replies. > seq.i a, b ; nice and compact > sne.i c, d > jmp kill, {tab Hmmm... I couldn't decode this without at least three cycles extra either, and I tried half-a-dozen approaches. I'm happy with the Q^2 I've written which decodes in 3.5 cycles. I don't particularly want to double this :-) John From: "Blue Scream" Subject: Another extension to Redcode Date: 1998/12/01 Message-ID: <005401be1d13$a4864680$6000a8c0@screamer>#1/1 I wonder what has happened to that Protect instruction (PCT) originally proposed back in the days by Dewdney? I reckon that by his proposition, Protect would have be rather useless. (He proposed a first write to a protected instruction would only rid it of protection but not change it. One would have to write it again to to anything.) I have however thought about it and derived a variant which I think *might* be a lot more useful. How about having the protection be removed not upon write but upon EXECUTION of an instruction? This would make it more difficult to bomb than just by bombing everything twice. On the other hand, offensive use (ie protecting empty core to kill a paper try to copy itself there) would be more effective. I must admit that even this way, I dont entirely like the idea of a Protect myself. But maybe for (yet ;-) additional Hill? --------------------------------- REALITY.SYS not found. Universe halted. From: "Blue Scream" Subject: Re: Extension to Redcode Date: 1998/12/01 Message-ID: <005301be1d12$760e0640$6000a8c0@screamer>#1/1 Hi y�all... OK, then, I have just subscribed to the mailing list. I hope I just got the whole subject right ;-) >> I was thinking something like this: >> Your warrior has more than one process. They execute like this: >> p1, p2, p3, p1, p2, p3,... >> (these are only your processes, this would not affect other warriors) >> When one process seizes the process queue, none of your other processes are >> executing, only the one that seized the queue is (for example p2), after the >> "release", the execution proceeds with p3, p1, p2, p3,... and so on. > IMHO, it sounds kind of interesting, but unless it were > only on a really-limited-process hill, my first reaction is that it > would _really_ hurt papers. A 2-part bomb in form of, say: > SEIZE > JMP 0,0 > would effectively _completely_ stun a paper. It might make for > more interesting warriors, but I think it'd throw off the balance > in favor of bombers. (Then again, I'd cease to have the problems > with killing imps that I do... :) SEIZE/JMP 0 looks too good to be acceptable, huh? Several (combined) ways to help that... 1. Seize cycle limit A task should not be able to seize the queue for more than a few cycles (maybe 10 or so), impeding all-too-deadly offensive use of this instruction. 2. Reseize ban A seizing process should not be able to extend the seize time. Executing Seize while already seizing should at least have no effect. 2b) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It should preferably even kill the task, immediately releasing the seize. 3. Seizing task termination A task which has seized the queue should be killed after the seize anyway, keeping Seize from fully stunning a warrior. 4. Conditional seizing jump I think a very interesting point would be to make the Seize instruction a conditonal jump with both "on zero" and "on non-zero" variants, however NO unconditional seize jump variant. Effectively unconditional seizes would still be possible if testing against a garantueed zero or non-zero instruction, (or having #0 as B-parameter...) but would require more care for offensive use. Especially the combination 4) and 2b) would prove a good anti-offense measure, as an SZZ 0,#0 (SZZ=Seize on zero) would be useless. I think 1) should be obvious. I consider it absolutely necessary. Given those propositions and a decent seize cycle limit, Seize would grant a task time to do usefull things at 100% "processor time" but no way to halt the whole warrior. Could be useful for multi-tasked scanners - halt the additional scanner tasks on detection and have some cycles to bomb at full single-task speed (ie full C). --------------------------------- REALITY.SYS not found. Universe halted. From: "Ian Oversby" Subject: Round 2 results errors Date: 1998/12/01 Message-ID: <19981201091049.25307.qmail@hotmail.com>#1/1 As anyone would have noticed who looked at the results page, they are all wrong. It seems my (new improved?!) parser ignores zeroes and takes the next results. Next time I will look at the table before uploading. A correct version of the table will become available when and if Geocities allows me to upload. Currently it doesn't. Ian ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From: LordHelmchen Subject: Re: EMULATORS of Playstation, NES, SNES, Gam-Boy, MegaDrive, Atari,...all is on Date: 1998/12/01 Message-ID: <3663E95F.FF05A2C6@cyberdude.com>#1/1 Claypole wrote: > > On Mon, 30 Nov 1998 16:55:53 +0800, BugSeeSun > wrote: > > >MZ �g�D�G > > > >> BugSeeSun wrote: > > >> > Any Comment??? > >> > >> Yes. Wrong news-group. Xpilot had nothing to do withgameboy-kiddi-shit. > >> M.Z.the Rascal > >> > > > >Thank you!Not the wrong news-group. > >DreamCast has the ability comparable to a Pentium PC, and also has the internet > >accesses. > >I just feel the tv-game side lack this type of serious diplomatics slg game like > >STARS! > >Besides, tv-game is not just for kids now, just like STARS! is not just for Pro. > > > >I want to know the feasibilty of porting Stars!, or other slg games with similar > >complexity, to dreamcast. > > > >> > Thanks. > > > Consoles are for kids and big kids pretending to little kids. > The specs. always look fantastical on paper but the programmers never > get the most out of them because of the two/three year shelf life of > the actual console itself. I had a Playstation but sold it as a lot > of stuff for it is at best eye candy. Okay there are exceptions but > give me a homebuilt PC anyday over any console. At least it can be > improved/upgraded rather than thrown away and if consoles are so good > how did this message get posted onto the internet in the first place. > Not via a console I bet............... > > Mark I would not think so... IMHO, the programmers of console games have a lot more urge to use ALL available resources the machine offers, because it is not upgradeable. Compare the use of the Hardware with, lets say the C64 and a PC: every big company who makes a game has the newest hardware available, and just tells the consumers to buy upgrade if they want to play the game. The C64 (and, to get back to the point, most consoles) were used better and better as soon as the programmers got to know the hardware. doesn't mean that I'm am anti-PC, but I think that 1) both systems have their right to exist and 2) PC games tend to be hungry for hardware upgrades. I know there are exeptions, and that you have do develop for new hardware to make the best games possible, but sometimes i want the "good old days" back, when my c64 and my SNES were usable for more than just one year, and still go new, batter games. -- LordHelmchen Alienist of Alienate tich tor ang tesmur \\//_ ---------------------------------------------------- To reply by Email, substitute AT=@ and DOT=. in reply address Reach me by ICQ. My ICQ# is 3748639 or, * Page me online through my Personal Communication Center: http://wwp.mirabilis.com/3748639 (go there and try it!) or, * Send me E-mail Express directly to my computer screen 3748639@pager.mirabilis.com For downloading ICQ at http://www.icq.com/ For adding similar signatures to your e-mail go to: http://www.icq.com/emailsig.html ---------------------------------------------------- From: "Robert Macrae" Subject: Re: Full Round 2 results available Date: 1998/12/01 Message-ID: <01be1d16$bdf0e640$64010101@MARK>#1/1 > Then the next round will have rules presented on 7th January will > the deadline 22nd. The last three rounds will continue after that > as normal every two weeks. Would this be satisfactory for > everyone? Hell no. If you don't publish the rules at the end of the previous round, my Corewarrioring muscles will atrophy again ;-) -- Robert Macrae From: Paul-V Khuong Subject: Re: Q^2 scans Date: 1998/12/01 Message-ID: <19981201023218.13650.rocketmail@send105.yahoomail.com>#1/1 John Metcalf wrote: > > Greetings... > > I thought I might write my own q^2, so I've browsed through a few > to get an idea how they work before I write mine. What I wanted to > know is why are there no q^2 that use either of these forms: > > seq.i a, b ; nice and compact > sne.i c, d > jmp kill, {tab This is longer to process. I wanted to do something like that, but then, a Q^2 is supposed to have a FAST reaction time, but with 2 sne/seq in each jmp, it's taking like 1-2 more cycles to process. > > > seq.i }a, >b ; increment some core while scanning > jmp kill, {tab This is vulnerable to code where fields point to outside. In this subject, only my 1 * 10^-10 cents (Canadian, even worth less) == Vive le Qu�bec libre... d� souverainistes!!! _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com From: Anton Marsden Subject: Re: Q^2 scans Date: 1998/12/01 Message-ID: #1/1 On Sun, 29 Nov 1998, John Metcalf wrote: > I thought I might write my own q^2, so I've browsed through a few > to get an idea how they work before I write mine. What I wanted to > know is why are there no q^2 that use either of these forms: > > seq.i a, b ; nice and compact > sne.i c, d > jmp kill, {tab > > > seq.i }a, >b ; increment some core while scanning > jmp kill, {tab > > Do these have some kind of weakness? I've absolutely no doubt they > have been thought of before, so why are they never used? Perhaps > the second one is weak against other qscans which have a lot of > pointers to empty core, but what about the first? You are right about the second one. The first one was used in the _original_ Q^2 (not Probe). It has the disadvantage that you need to do more work to find the correct location to bomb. The key idea in developing the Q^2 was to hit the target as soon as possible --- to catch more p-switchers and even booting warriors. You are welcome to experiment though :-) Anton. From: Nebuchadnezzar Subject: ^GROAN^ Another sickening newbie Date: 1998/12/02 Message-ID: #1/1 Anyway, heya all, I have stumbled across this corewars and was wondering, where the hell do i start?? anyone that can give me any info will be greatly appreciated. Either post it here or mail it, doesn't matter either way Eagerly awaiting any response -- Nebuchadnezzar From: Paul-V Khuong Subject: Re: Extension to Redcode Date: 1998/12/02 Message-ID: <19981202231843.23504.rocketmail@send106.yahoomail.com>#1/1 -Blue Scream wrote: > > Hi y�all... > > OK, then, I have just subscribed to the mailing list. > I hope I just got the whole subject right ;-) Yeah, seems so. > > >> I was thinking something like this: > >> Your warrior has more than one process. They execute like this: > >> p1, p2, p3, p1, p2, p3,... > >> (these are only your processes, this would not affect other warriors) > >> When one process seizes the process queue, none of your other processes > are > >> executing, only the one that seized the queue is (for example p2), after > the > >> "release", the execution proceeds with p3, p1, p2, p3,... and so on. > > IMHO, it sounds kind of interesting, but unless it were > > only on a really-limited-process hill, my first reaction is that it > > would _really_ hurt papers. A 2-part bomb in form of, say: > > SEIZE > > JMP 0,0 > > would effectively _completely_ stun a paper. It might make for > > more interesting warriors, but I think it'd throw off the balance > > in favor of bombers. (Then again, I'd cease to have the problems > > with killing imps that I do... :) > > > SEIZE/JMP 0 looks too good to be acceptable, huh? > Several (combined) ways to help that... > > 1. Seize cycle limit > A task should not be able to seize the queue for more > than a few cycles (maybe 10 or so), impeding > all-too-deadly offensive use of this instruction. > > 2. Reseize ban > A seizing process should not be able to extend the > seize time. Executing Seize while already seizing > should at least have no effect. > 2b) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It should preferably even kill the task, > immediately releasing the seize. > > 3. Seizing task termination > A task which has seized the queue should be killed > after the seize anyway, keeping Seize from fully > stunning a warrior. > > 4. Conditional seizing jump > I think a very interesting point would be to make the > Seize instruction a conditonal jump with both "on zero" > and "on non-zero" variants, however NO unconditional > seize jump variant. Effectively unconditional seizes > would still be possible if testing against a garantueed > zero or non-zero instruction, (or having #0 as > B-parameter...) but would require more care for > offensive use. > > Especially the combination 4) and 2b) would prove > a good anti-offense measure, as an > SZZ 0,#0 > (SZZ=Seize on zero) would be useless. I think 1) > should be obvious. I consider it absolutely necessary. > > Given those propositions and a decent seize cycle limit, > Seize would grant a task time to do usefull things at > 100% "processor time" but no way to halt the whole > warrior. > > Could be useful for multi-tasked scanners - halt the > additional scanner tasks on detection and have some > cycles to bomb at full single-task speed (ie full C). > Hey! it seems that some persons don't realize that CW is a SIMULATION of a multitasking computer where viruses try to get all cycles. So, what IS the utility of seize in a computer. Give me one reason that ain't bogus and i'll probably be for it. == Vive le Qu�bec libre... d� souverainistes!!! _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com From: BugSeeSun Subject: I'm Stupid!! Please forgive me!!! Date: 1998/12/03 Message-ID: <366694DB.416BE544@easy.com>#1/1 Sorry to all!!! I didn't realized it's cross-posted when I post previous message... Pls forgive me... forget it... From: "Matrim Cauthon" Subject: Re: EMULATORS of Playstation, NES, SNES, Gam-Boy, MegaDrive, Atari,...all is on Date: 1998/12/03 Message-ID: <745vi0$8o6@idefix.eunet.fi>#1/1 The point was probably not that this was posted to the wrong newsgroup, = but that is was CROSSPOSTED TO A ZILLION GROUPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! goddamnit, STOP CROSSPOSTING YOU NITWITS! --=20 Matrim Cauthon, Grandmaster Bard http://www.tackman.finland.net m a t r i m < a t > t a c k m a n < d o t > f i n l a n d < d o t > n e = t From: Brooks Moses Subject: Re: Note to other Beginners Date: 1998/12/03 Message-ID: <366674FF.177848AE@stanford.edu>#1/1 John - As a potential beginner (i.e. one who heard rumors of the existence of Code War, liked the concept but figured it had died 10 years ago, and then stumbled across this newsgroup sort of by accident, and is now considering if it's worth the major time sink I know this would be) your "note to other beginners" was something I hoped would be useful. I seem to be missing something. Perhaps your message is akin to the "invisible" codes that have been mentioned? :) - Brooks P.S. Found the FAQ, actually, that's what led me to the group. Skimmed it. Bookmarked it. Will read it.... John Metcalf wrote: [absolutely nothing] From: BugSeeSun Subject: Re: EMULATORS of Playstation, NES, SNES, Gam-Boy, MegaDrive, Atari,...all is on Date: 1998/12/03 Message-ID: <366565B5.2F4B3575@easy.com>#1/1 BugSeeSun �g�D�G > MZ �g�D�G > > > BugSeeSun wrote: > > > > > Magdab �g�D�G > > > > > > > EMULATORS of Playstation, NES, SNES, Gam-Boy, MegaDrive, Atari,...all is > > > on > > > > my site > > > > http://www.chez.com/johnlabsco > > > > > > Emulator...TV Game... > > > > > > Is it possible porting STARS! to a TV Game Console? > > > Especially, there is a much powerful console DreamCast,ie.16MByte, Modem, > > > Sh-4/200MHz CPU, Window CE a-like platform. > > > > > > Any Comment??? > > > > Yes. Wrong news-group. Xpilot had nothing to do withgameboy-kiddi-shit. > > M.Z.the Rascal > > > > Thank you!Not the wrong news-group. > DreamCast has the ability comparable to a Pentium PC, and also has the > internet > accesses. > I just feel the tv-game side lack this type of serious diplomatics slg game > like > STARS! > Besides, tv-game is not just for kids now, just like STARS! is not just for > Pro. > > I want to know the feasibilty of porting Stars!, or other slg games with > similar > complexity, to dreamcast. > > > > Thanks. Oops!!...Sorry All! I don't notice I have cross-posted.. I'm really sorry!! From: qute@fido.dk (Anders Rosendal) Subject: Re: Note to other Beginners Date: 1998/12/04 Message-ID: #1/1 �hm John? M� jeg ikke lige l�ne et min. eller to? Tirsdag 01. December 1998 20:01, John Metcalf havde et problem og skrev til All: Thanks! That was just wat I needed. From: Miha Vitorovic Subject: Re: Extension to Redcode Date: 1998/12/04 Message-ID: <3667A8DC.44BCFA9B@eunet.si>#1/1 Paul-V Khuong wrote: > > >> When one process seizes the process queue, none of your other > processes > > are > > >> executing, only the one that seized the queue is (for example > p2), after > > the > > >> "release", the execution proceeds with p3, p1, p2, p3,... and so > on. > Hey! it seems that some persons don't realize that CW is a SIMULATION > of a multitasking computer where viruses try to get all cycles. So, > what IS the utility of seize in a computer. Give me one reason that > ain't bogus and i'll probably be for it. The utility of seize in a computer is preventing other tasks from screwing up what you're trying to do. Look at "synchronized" methods in java. Threads can call a synchronized methods only one at the time. Well, they can probably _call_ them at any time, it's just that nothing happens until the instance of the method that is currently executing exits. So much for the "real world" example of the equvivalent of "seize". Greetings, Mike5 From: autismuk@aol.com (AutismUK) Subject: Re: Darwin (again) Date: 1998/12/05 Message-ID: <19981205143304.06309.00001243@ngol02.aol.com>#1/1 In article , John.Metcalf@p18.f94.chaos.camelot.co.uk (John Metcalf) writes: >> A few may be interested to know I have found a reference >> to the Darwin instruction set, and I've got the journal >> (from 1972) on order from the British Library. After that, >> I'm sure it will be a trivial matter to implement it in >> ANSI C. (Despite the fact I'd rather use various kinds of >> assembly language.) > >And it has finally arrived. I'll email the article to those >who have shown interest at the weekend. There are also some >interesting self-replicating programs shown in another >article. No, not viruses, the type which display their own >source code when run, in Snobol, Fortran, Algol etc. At the risk of sounding like a lamer on alt.binaries , me too :-) Paul Robson (autismuk@aol.com) From: M Joonas Pihlaja Subject: Re: Extension to Redcode Date: 1998/12/06 Message-ID: #1/1 On 6 Dec 1998, Blue Scream wrote: > Hmm, some people seem to take it way too seriously.. ;-) > > Well, first of all, Core War is not really a simulation of a real-world > computer. Exactly right! > Besides, in real-world, seize is VERY often needed, although > not by user run applications. It is however a vital function of > the operating system kernel. While seize may be fun for creative recreational redcoding (like Red OS 2000 :) ), I don't think it has a place in combat situations. As to your proposals (in another post, sorry) to curb seize's offensive power, I have to say I don't like the basic solution. Imposing more arbitrary limits like limiting seizing for only ten cycles is not to my mind elegant. For one, it would make seize (or szz, szn, etc.) stick out like a sore thumb in the instruction set. Secondly, I think seizing is a far too "high-level" operation to fit with redcode as it is manipulating *queues*. Joonas From: "Blue Scream" Subject: Re: Extension to Redcode Date: 1998/12/06 Message-ID: <000001be20c6$8d3dbec0$6000a8c0@screamer>#1/1 Hmm, some people seem to take it way too seriously.. ;-) >Hey! it seems that some persons don't realize that CW is a SIMULATION >of a multitasking computer where viruses try to get all cycles. So, >what IS the utility of seize in a computer. Give me one reason that >ain't bogus and i'll probably be for it. Well, first of all, Core War is not really a simulation of a real-world computer. Where is the input and output? No real-world computer can do anything of any value if there is no way to get input and to produce some output. And in Core War, there isnt... Besides, in real-world, seize is VERY often needed, although not by user run applications. It is however a vital function of the operating system kernel. Hardware is almost always implemented as a critical section of code, which does not allow other tasks to take over, ie as long as the harddrive (or soundcard etc) driver is programming the device�s interface it wont allow task switches. A seize is very necessary in real-world computing. --------------------------------- REALITY.SYS not found. Universe halted. From: KOTH Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - 94 No Pspace 12/07/98 Date: 1998/12/07 Message-ID: <199812070500.AAA04913@midgaard.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 12/07/98 -=- www.KOTH.org is now hosting a '94 No Pspace Hill. -=- View the stats of all the Hills at: www.KOTH.org/standings.html -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG 94 No Pspace CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Sat Dec 5 17:24:31 EST 1998 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 45/ 38/ 17 Zooom... John Metcalf 152 3 2 43/ 39/ 18 Boys are Back in Town 1.1 Philip Kendall 148 28 3 41/ 39/ 20 The Machine Anton Marsden 143 92 4 35/ 30/ 35 Recovery Ian Oversby 140 26 5 34/ 30/ 35 Blacken Ian Oversby 138 13 6 34/ 30/ 36 Fixed Ken Espiritu 137 86 7 24/ 11/ 65 The Fugitive David Moore 136 105 8 32/ 28/ 41 Vain Ian Oversby 136 103 9 30/ 24/ 46 Brigadeer M Joonas Pihlaja 136 22 10 42/ 48/ 11 Win! David Moore 135 1 11 32/ 29/ 39 The Stormbringer Christian Schmidt 135 37 12 37/ 40/ 23 Floody River P.Kline 135 52 13 32/ 30/ 38 Baseline Plus Ken Espiritu 134 84 14 29/ 25/ 46 Gemini Dream John K Wilkinson 133 109 15 40/ 47/ 13 Red Carpet David Moore 133 44 16 36/ 39/ 25 STest Vladimir Bychkovskiy 132 17 17 28/ 28/ 45 The Yokozuna Christian Schmidt 128 11 18 37/ 47/ 16 Blurstone M. J. Pihlaja 127 48 19 30/ 34/ 36 Head or Tail Christian Schmidt 127 74 20 34/ 41/ 25 Skull Christian Schmidt 127 2 21 10/ 28/ 62 Rocking-Chair 94 Edition Leonardo Humberto 92 0 From: KOTH Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - MultiWarrior 94 12/07/98 Date: 1998/12/07 Message-ID: <199812070500.AAA04901@midgaard.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 12/07/98 -=- www.KOTH.org is now hosting a '94 No Pspace Hill. -=- View the stats of all the Hills at: www.KOTH.org/standings.html -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG Multiwarrior 94 CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Fri Dec 4 11:59:05 EST 1998 # Name Author Score Age 1 cstest M4 Christian Schmidt 32 79 2 Clearer v0.2 Ian Oversby 31 128 3 Blur Copy Robert Macrae 29 107 4 otest2 mjp 28 121 5 scan test-dm -=|:-) 25 1 6 QueensGuard_II P.Kline 13 7 7 QueensGuard_I P.Kline 13 8 8 QueensGuard_IIII P.Kline 12 5 9 QueensGuard_III P.Kline 10 6 10 Aulder Man Ian Oversby 6 185 11 H-Bomb 10 Josh Yeager 2 0 From: KOTH Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - Standard 12/07/98 Date: 1998/12/07 Message-ID: <199812070500.AAA04897@midgaard.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 12/07/98 -=- www.KOTH.org is now hosting a '94 No Pspace Hill. -=- View the stats of all the Hills at: www.KOTH.org/standings.html -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG Standard KotH CoreWar Hill : Last battle concluded at : Sat Dec 5 14:00:59 EST 1998 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 33/ 20/ 47 Freight Train David Moore 147 28 2 29/ 22/ 50 Guardian Ian Oversby 136 27 3 37/ 39/ 24 Stasis David Moore 136 135 4 35/ 37/ 28 PacMan David Moore 133 57 5 38/ 44/ 18 Foggy Swamp Beppe Bezzi 131 24 6 26/ 21/ 53 The Marlboro Man 1.13 M Joonas Pihlaja 131 3 7 26/ 22/ 52 sIMPly.Red v0.85 Leonardo Humberto 130 7 8 32/ 34/ 34 Leapfrog David Moore 130 56 9 38/ 46/ 15 Blurstone '88 M. J. Pihlaja 130 22 10 23/ 16/ 61 EV Paper John K Wilkinson 130 41 11 33/ 36/ 31 Kitchen Sink Robert Macrae 130 26 12 25/ 20/ 55 sIMPly Red v0.80 Leonardo Humberto 129 8 13 35/ 42/ 23 Beholder's Eye V1.7 W. Mintardjo 129 303 14 38/ 46/ 16 Iron Gate Wayne Sheppard 129 353 15 37/ 45/ 19 Blur '88 Anton Marsden 128 65 16 34/ 39/ 27 Tangle Trap David Moore 128 101 17 22/ 20/ 58 Evoltmp 88 John K W 124 78 18 21/ 19/ 60 Test I Ian Oversby 124 84 19 16/ 10/ 74 Trident^2 '88 John K W 122 51 20 20/ 24/ 55 Rocking-Chair v0.50 Leonardo Humberto 116 1 21 13/ 10/ 77 Nightfall David Moore 116 2 From: KOTH Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - ICWS Experimental 94 12/07/98 Date: 1998/12/07 Message-ID: <199812070500.AAA04905@midgaard.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 12/07/98 -=- www.KOTH.org is now hosting a '94 No Pspace Hill. -=- View the stats of all the Hills at: www.KOTH.org/standings.html -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG ICWS Experimental 94 CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Fri Dec 4 12:45:48 EST 1998 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 54/ 32/ 14 Black Moods Ian Oversby 177 3 2 51/ 30/ 19 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 172 7 3 36/ 16/ 49 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 156 29 4 29/ 5/ 65 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 153 76 5 27/ 2/ 71 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 151 24 6 29/ 19/ 51 Rosebud Beppe 139 55 7 35/ 37/ 29 BigBoy Robert Macrae 133 101 8 40/ 48/ 12 S.E.T.I. 4-X JKW 132 77 9 39/ 47/ 14 BiShot Christian Schmidt 132 15 10 36/ 40/ 25 Stepping Stone 94x Kurt Franke 131 62 11 37/ 43/ 20 Pagan John K W 131 61 12 37/ 44/ 19 Tsunami v0.3 X Ian Oversby 129 1 13 35/ 40/ 25 Dr. Gate X Franz 129 47 14 36/ 46/ 18 Memories Beppe Bezzi 127 83 15 35/ 43/ 22 13 Christian Schmidt 126 14 16 22/ 18/ 60 Sphere v0.2 Christian Schmidt 125 18 17 39/ 54/ 8 HSA Copy 55440 Robert Macrae 124 44 18 32/ 41/ 27 Dr. Recover Franz 123 46 19 30/ 37/ 32 Lithium X 8 John K Wilkinson 123 67 20 22/ 22/ 55 Purple v0.1 Christian Schmidt 122 28 21 15/ 39/ 45 H-Bomb 10 Josh Yeager 91 0 From: David Matthew Moore Subject: Re: Round 3 results and commentary Date: 1998/12/08 Message-ID: <74k0kk$3f1$1@msunews.cl.msu.edu>#1/1 M Joonas Pihlaja wrote: : Besides, I really like the Recycled Bits clear! : It's so much more decrement/djn stream resistant : than other continuously gating ssd clears. Did you change the clear pointer to the a-field and the decrement pointer to the b-field? Since the imps were of the mov.i #2667, *0 variety, it wouldn't hurt your chances to gate them. I think that you could gain a lot versus Carbonite by swapping fields. I wrote at least four major variations on that clear before I published it. All of them had their particular strengths and weaknesses, but that one seemed to fit best with the plogic. However, I had to really munch on it to fit in 9 lines. In fact, my original motivation for writing the clear was to beat paper/imps like The Fugitive, so I would not have written the clear if I had made the scanner first. In short, experimentation is encouraged. From: M Joonas Pihlaja Subject: Re: Round 3 results and commentary Date: 1998/12/08 Message-ID: #1/1 On Tue, 8 Dec 1998, Christian Schmidt wrote: > In the quick glance I took, I must confess I didn't understand the > code fully. Would you care to elaborate Joonas? OK. There are two backtrackers which find one of carbo's bombs, follow the bomb trail to the first bomb, and then point the clear at the carbo body. There are two backtrackers (switched on loss) since Ian scared me with his "kind of" decoy maker which I thought was continuing/ cutting off carbo's bomb trail. So the other backtrack spl bombs the bomb trail and -1+197*3501 apart from the bomb trail, which should hit the mov line of Carbonite. This strategy works since Grey was implied to score well against most published scanners and oneshots, so it must have a majority of it's processes in the stone. If I can stun carbo grey will halt to a crawl and the ssd clear can mop up Sad and the imp. I was going to try a Bishot like clear with the other spl stream placed so that it would have maximal stun effect on Sad, but I didn't have the time to figure out a way to kill the imps well enough. Besides, I really like the Recycled Bits clear! It's so much more decrement/djn stream resistant than other continuously gating ssd clears. All in all, there are so many ways for this strategy to go wrong, and I was expecting better tweaked versions of this strategy from others, that I wasn't too hopeful. You should have seen my jaw drop when I got the results. :-) Joonas From: Philip Kendall Subject: Re: ^GROAN^ Another sickening newbie Date: 1998/12/08 Message-ID: #1/1 Nebuchadnezzar writes: > I have stumbled across this corewars and was wondering, where the hell > do i start?? anyone that can give me any info will be greatly > appreciated. Good places: http://www.mcs.vuw.ac.nz/~amarsden/ (FAQ) http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/corewar/guide.html (Ilmari's guide for Beginners) http://www.koth.org/ (Stormking) http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~pizza/koth/ (Pizza) http://para.inria.fr/~doligez/corewar/ (Planar -- *huge* warrior archive) Also check out Steve Bailey's Guide for Beginners (on Stormking/Pizza). (And my pages -- see sig :-) ) Phil -- / Philip Kendall (pak21@cam.ac.uk pak21@kendalls.demon.co.uk) \ \ http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/5427/corewar.htm / From: Christian Schmidt Subject: Round 4 rules Date: 1998/12/08 Message-ID: <366CE281.281C3051@goofy.zdv.uni-mainz.de>#1/1 Round 4 is a construct a grey warrior round. The components for the submission are as in round 3. Exactly one copy of each component must appear in each submission. The only other instructions allowed in submissions are all variants of mov and spl and dat $0, $0. The lack of a jmp instruction should hamper efforts to construct a core-clear. Warriors will be ranked on battles against the following set of warriors: Newt by me Gigolo by Core Warrior staff Pulp by me Benj's Revenge by Robert Macrae Tsunami by me (taken from Falcon v0.5) Scan Man by David van Dam Silver Talon v1.2 by Edgar HAL 9000 by Justin Kao He Scans Alone by Paul Kline The imp/stones and papers are intended to discourage anyone from submitting a pure Carbonite. These warriors are available from my webpage at: http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Realm/2443/ The parameters are from the '94 draft hill. The maximum warrior length is 100. Submissions will fight 200 battles against each of the above warriors. The deadline for submissions is Friday 18th December 23:59:59. Results will appear a few days later. The rules for round 5 will appear around that time and the deadline for that will be 15th January 1999. If this is not satisfactory for anyone, let me know as soon as possible. Any questions to the newsgroup and/or me at : ian@i-next.co.uk Ian From: Christian Schmidt Subject: Round 3 results and commentary Date: 1998/12/08 Message-ID: <366CE240.312C8071@goofy.zdv.uni-mainz.de> Once again, Joonas wins the round with a large margin. Is this guy unstoppable? I glanced briefly at the code - a portion of it seemed quite similar to the clear from David Moore's Recycled Bits. There was also a p-brain in there! In the quick glance I took, I must confess I didn't understand the code fully. Would you care to elaborate Joonas? The three one-shot style submissions scored very well - it seems that even the two decoys that grey threw out didn't distract them too well. I will publish the code immediately after the round 4 deadline. Christian Schmidt also sent in a grey 'victim'. It seems he has pre-empted himself on round 4 :-) It also seemed to score better than my grey Christian ;-( My Hard Drive died over the weekend so the table is not so pretty as before. I also need to obtain the second round warriors from my backups for the players who did not submit a warrior. Then I will make these results available. Simon Duff and Paul-V Khuong submitted warriors. I had difficulties with both of these submissions and so those results will be later in the week :-( It never rains but it pours eh? Looking [and testing] Paul's code it seems to quite a reasonable one-shot. If this is indeed the case he should improve his rank considerably. If any of the other players come first, all these scores could change! Enough waffle from me. Here are the results and strategy lines. ;redcode ;name Backup ;author WFB ;strategy Oversby Round 3. ;strategy Ah! I'll make a warrior tailored to beat up the grey warrior even ;strategy if it kills me! I have excuses for my Round 2 performance... ;strategy Anyways, I wanna sit down and make a good warrior designed to tear ;strategy the Grey Warrior apart, but if I don't have time, this is my backup. ;strategy Not that this didn't take awhile... ;strategy soooooo, I took the incendiary bomber from Torcht18 and tagged d-clear ;strategy along with it. Pu-leazeeeeeee work... ;assert CORESIZE==8000 ;redcode ;name Token Effort ;author A.S. Mehlos ;strategy scanner/bomber -- Gray Warrior round in Ian's tournament. ;strategy More anti-imping on the clear ;strategy (Ya know, midnight CST is a bit off from midnight GMT. D'oh.) ;strategy (This one is kind of rushed... It's a little on the big side, ;strategy but there's no scanner to worry about, so it might not be ;strategy --too-- bad. ;assert CORESIZE==8000 ;redcode-94 ;name Win! ;author David Moore ;strategy short-interval SNE scanner like Rave/Agony, with spl carpet bombs. ;strategy converts to spl clear, then a 21-point anti-spiral swipe, ;strategy then a continuous dat wipe. added decoy for fun. ;assert CORESIZE==8000 ;redcode ;name Quick Cooking ;author M Joonas Pihlaja ;strategy Switch no loss between two backtrackers -> clear ;assert 1 ; I don't have good debug facilities atm (my HD died a few days ago), ; so bugs are likely. ;redcode-94 test ;author Robert Macrae ;name Hexagram ;assert CORESIZE==8000 ;strategy Two-shot with SSSD clear ; Hexagram combines two 0.8c oneshots in a rather pretty 6-point ; scan to minimise triggering by the imp. When one strikes, it starts ; a single-process clear and the other continues scanning. Eventually ; I spawn multiple process to get draws if over-run. ; Strength -- fast stun of paper, assuming decoy is no problem. ; Weakness -- single clear so vulnerable to bomber. ; -- only 5% better than Seven11; disappointing. ;redcode-94 ;name The Gray Killer ;author Christian Schmidt ;strategy against stone/paper/imp's a ;strategy small oneshot could give top ;strategy results. Ok, here is a backward ;strategy scanning ssd-oneshot, which is ;strategy a tournament optimized version of ;strategy van Dam's Scanny Boy. ;assert 1 ;redcode ;name In Valen's Name ;author Steve Gunnell ;strategy Submission for round 3 of Ian Oversby's tournament. ;strategy It is a hacked over HSA with a spiral clear grafted ;strategy onto the end and the constants optimised with a GA. ;strategy I've tried several times to add a Qscan but every ;strategy time the score drops right away. *sigh* ;strategy HSA bomb changed to not trigger its own scan. ;strategy Spiral clear bombs with spl for a while to reinforce ;strategy stunning. (paper heavy warriors were breaking out). ;strategy Scan to head at kill-1 causes much better stunning. ;strategy Lucky it doesn't have to face serious djn streams 8-). ;assert 1 ;redcode ;name H-Bomb 9 ;author Josh Yeager ;strategy Two multipass cc's running in parallel pspaced with paper. ;assert 1 ;name Upside Ya head ;author Simon Duff ;strategy P-Warrior ;strategy -> Simple Vampire (SCISSORS) ;strategy -> Stone/Imp (ROCK) ;assert 1 Rank Author Round 3 Tournament Score Score 1. Joonas Pihlaja 100.00 298.66 2. Christian Schmidt 75.41 245.42 3. Robert Macrae 74.28 231.46 4. David Moore 62.29 225.96 5. Andrew Mehlos 76.11 176.78 6. Robert Hale TBA 165.54+ 7. W.F.B. 49.35 162.87 8. Steve Gunnell 19.46 138.78 9. Paul-V Khuong TBA 136.19+ 10. Philip Kendall TBA 125.52+ 11. Josh Yeager 24.93 69.15 12. Simon Duff TBA 53.72+ From: John.Metcalf@p18.f94.chaos.camelot.co.uk (John Metcalf) Subject: Have No Pity Date: 1998/12/09 Message-ID: #1/1 Greetings... Here's the code for 'Have No Pity'. The bomb-dodger is nothing spectacular, though after a certain length of time it gives up looking for a bomb, since by then it is highly improbable the opponent is a stone. The scanner is similar to a dozen or so others, having a scan loop like Mirage 1.5. It finishes with a d-clear similar to Blurstone or the scanner from Fire and Ice and is booted at a distance which ensures minimum interaction with the main warrior body. The switcher is the interesting part. If the score against a particular warrior drops below 150, it switches components. This works well sometime :-/ Unfortunately, the switcher can be brainwashed into attempting to lose all subsequent rounds with STP #4000,#81 :-( This is not a good feature... John ----------- ;redcode-94 ;name Have No Pity ;author John Metcalf ;strategy p-switching a mini-scanner with a bomb-dodger ;assert CORESIZE==8000 org psw ; [ Decoy ] for 14 stp.ab >0, #0 spl #psw*971, >-psw*713 spl #psw*871, >-psw*813 spl #psw*771, >-psw*913 rof ; [ Score-Table ] stp.ab >0, #0 z: spl #-21, >21 spl #21, >-21 spl #-7, >7 dat #0, #0 ; [ P-Switcher ] ploc equ (81) res equ (momb+3616) par equ (momb+3631) psw: ldp #0, {res pot: add *res, #z ldp #ploc, par slt #4000, par mov.x @pot, @pot add par, @pot stp @pot, #ploc slt #4000, @pot mov f2, from ; [ Multi-Boot ] for 9 mov {from, gate s: jmz.f loop, @loop jmn ccpo, loop sp: spl 0, 0 looz:mov bomb, >gate djn.f looz, >gate bomb:dat <2667, >13 ; [ Bomb-Dodger ] gat2 equ (circ-5) std equ (237*3) ; search time firs equ (-2700) scan:jmz.f scan, }find moop:mov {dclr, {find jmn.a moop, dclr find:jmp firs, >4567 dclr:spl #momb+1, >gat2-2667 circ:mov momb, >gat2 djn.f circ, >gat2 momb:dat <2667, >3-gat2 end ----------- From: John.Metcalf@p18.f94.chaos.camelot.co.uk (John Metcalf) Subject: Note to other Beginners Date: 1998/12/09 Message-ID: #1/1 Greetings... BM> John Metcalf wrote: BM> [absolutely nothing] Whoops - planned to write something before I realised how long it would take. Basically, while moving from the beginners' hill to the pro hill, I've noticed a great deal of difference in which kind of warriors score well. For example, I was pleased with the results from HNP on the '94b hill, and it even manages to lurk around the lower end of the '94 hill. 25 35.3/ 46.4/ 18.3 Have No Pity 124.2 (94) p-spacer 1 52.1/ 36.2/ 11.7 Have No Pity 168.1 (94b) But, since I've starting playing on the '94 hill I've discovered that warriors which perform well on '94 do not neccessarily do particularly well on '94b. Take a look at these example scores: 1 45/ 38/ 17 Zooom... 152 (94nop) scanner 3 42.0/ 40.4/ 17.7 Zooom... 143.6 (94) 4 47.3/ 38.6/ 14.1 Zooom... 155.9 (94b) 20 23.5/ 20.0/ 56.6 Redemption 127.0 (94) paper 24 23.8/ 26.4/ 49.8 Redemption 121.2 (94b) So, just p-spacing a few bits together works great on the beginners' hill and not so well on the '94 hill. My paper just creeps onto the bottom of 94b doing better on '94, as does Zooom... So, the only conclusion I can come to is the old "Concentrate on one strategy and do it well" instead of p-spacing bits together and submit it to the '94 hill, even if it doesn't do that well on '94b. -- John From: jwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu Subject: Re: UNSUBSCRIBE Date: 1998/12/09 Message-ID: <199812090544.AAA28947@valhalla.stormking.com>#1/1 > > >"If Somethings Hard to Do its Not Worth Doing." H.Simpson Talk about you appropriate quotes. Obviously words this guy lives by. Heh. From: "Blue Scream" Subject: Re: Extension to Redcode Date: 1998/12/09 Message-ID: <000101be234f$a5d2d980$6000a8c0@screamer>#1/1 Hello everybody. First of all, thanks for the feedback ;-) which I was not too convinced I would get... >While seize may be fun for creative recreational redcoding (like Red OS >2000 :) ), I don't think it has a place in combat situations. Red OS 2000... hehe... nice one >As to your proposals (in another post, sorry) to curb seize's offensive >power, I have to say I don't like the basic solution. Imposing more >arbitrary limits like limiting seizing for only ten cycles is not to my >mind elegant. For one, it would make seize (or szz, szn, etc.) stick out >like a sore thumb in the instruction set. Well thats what I didnt like about my own solution *grin* But then, allowing for arbitrary set seize cycle limits set by the warrior would defeat any attempt to limit offensive power. >Secondly, I think seizing is a far too "high-level" operation >to fit with redcode as it is manipulating *queues*. Hmm... I was always a bit sceptic about Redcode just because it doesnt allow a warrior to really control its own queue... But then, SPL looks like using an inherent "hardware" function of MARS, (we seem to be stuck with the "simulation" approach ;-), so I probably agree to that manipulating queues would be somewhat too highlevel. Anyway, I am working on my own implementation of a MARS, following the ICWS-94 draft (why wasnt it ever finished??), allowing me to play around with some fancies (like protect and seize, doh). It will be written in Borland Pascal, so it will be DOS/Windoze only. Unless too many of you say I should not, I will just post an URL here as soon as I�m ready. Happy waring, Screamer --------------------------------- REALITY.SYS not found. Universe halted. From: mils@club-internet.fr (Mils) Subject: Re: EMULATORS of Playstation, NES, SNES, Gam-Boy, MegaDrive, Atari,...all is on Date: 1998/12/09 Message-ID: <366af4f2.2200264@news.club-internet.fr>#1/1 >Especially, there is a much powerful console DreamCast,ie.16MByte, Modem, >Sh-4/200MHz CPU, Window CE a-like platform. I would kill to see nice RPGs on these. I think that's true that technical improvements may add to RPGs, in term of immersion for example. I'm just in LOVE with FF7 (some may not call it a RPG), which has stayed true to the tradition and that graphical improvements didn't do bad. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- \||/ Moa Dragon == | @___oo Mils Michael ==(and Splut sucks BTW) /\ /\ / (__,,,,| mils@club-internet.fr ; ICQ: 11938373 ) /^\) ^\/ _) http://perso.club-internet.fr/mils/main.html "Vous allez finir par vous aimer les uns les autres, bordel de merde?" (Jesus II : Le retour, bientot dans vos �glises.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John.Metcalf@p18.f94.chaos.camelot.co.uk (John Metcalf) Subject: :-( Date: 1998/12/09 Message-ID: #1/1 I've notice for the last few days my submissions to Pizza are not returning any results, but are showing in the holding pen with no name, author or address :-( Has this happened before? From: Joe Clarke Subject: UNSUBSCRIBE Date: 1998/12/09 Message-ID: #1/1 "If Somethings Hard to Do its Not Worth Doing." H.Simpson From: Christian Schmidt Subject: Round 4 items on webpage Date: 1998/12/10 Message-ID: <366FED81.59A06D9@goofy.zdv.uni-mainz.de>#1/1 Greetings once again. I have added a lot of stuff to the webpage. The rules for round 4 are there as are downloadable components and opponents. I have added a link for the current standings. These will contain the results from the previous round and the combined score for all the rounds. Note that only the top 6 scores are considered for the final score for the veterans and the top 7 for the beginners. URL: http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Realm/2443/ Any questions, email: ian@i-next.co.uk or send the query to the newsgroup. I will add the other results from round 3 when I rebuild my computer. I'm afraid this will probably be early next week as I am going to a conference tomorrow. Paul's warrior was simulated at work and the result is included in the standings page. I have finally managed to coerce Simon's warrior into a state suitable for simulation. Do you know why it all came through on one line Simon ?-) I'm sure I don't. Ian From: "John K. Lewis" Subject: Re: UNSUBSCRIBE Date: 1998/12/10 Message-ID: <2MTb2.898$4w2.4031714@news.itd.umich.edu>#1/1 Robert Macrae wrote: : Joe Clarke wrote: : :> "If Somethings Hard to Do its Not Worth Doing." H.Simpson : Its hard to know. : Lose -- endless fruitless days or months : Gain -- transitory triumph : If anyone sorts this out, : tell me. :>:-/ The basic system I see "rich and famous" people use is this: Something is only worth doing when I can get someone else to do it and I can take the credit. But personally I like the Sun Tsu approach: If something is hard, only do it if no one expects you to. < john k. lewis > < jklewis@umich.edu > < web services > < 734.615.0584 > From: amarsden@mcs.vuw.ac.nz (Anton Marsden) Subject: Core War Frequently Asked Questions (rec.games.corewar FAQ) Date: 1998/12/10 Message-ID: Archive-name: games/corewar-faq Last-Modified: August 5, 1998 =20 Version: 4.0 URL: http://www.mcs.vuw.ac.nz/~amarsden/corewars/corewar-faq.html Copyright: (c) 1998 Anton Marsden Maintainer: Anton Marsden Posting-Frequency: once every 2 weeks Core War Frequently Asked Questions (rec.games.corewar FAQ) These are the Frequently Asked Questions (and answers) from the Usenet newsgroup rec.games.corewar. The latest hypertext version is available at http://www.mcs.vuw.ac.nz/~amarsden/corewars/corewar-faq.html and the latest plain text version is available at=20 http://www.mcs.vuw.ac.nz/~amarsden/corewars/corewar-faq.txt. This document was last modified on August 5, 1998. It is currently being maintained by Anton Marsden (amarsden@mcs.vuw.ac.nz). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To Do * Make question 17 easier to understand. Add a state diagram? * Upgrade to HTML 4.0, make FAQ easier to maintain in future (hopefully) * Add info about infinite hills, related games (C-Robots, Tierra?, ...) * New question: How do I know if my warrior is any good? Refer to beginners' benchmarks, etc. * Add a Who's Who list? * Would very much like someone to compile a collection of the "revolutionary" warriors so that beginners can see how the game has developed over the years. Mail me if interested. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ What's New * Changed the location of Ryan Coleman's paper (LaunchPad -> Launchpad) * Changed pauillac.inria.fr to para.inria.fr * Made some changes/additions/fixes based on a good FAQ review by Joonas Pihlaja. Not all of the suggestions have been dealt with yet, but the FAQ is now less ambiguous in some areas. Thanks Joonas! * Added stuff about pMARS under Win95 (question 9), and the location of = a HTML version of the ICWS'94 draft (question 5). * New definition: decrement resistant * Modified the answer to question 1 * Changed error in P-space question (location 0 can be written to). * Added links to genetic algorithm resources. * Added a link to Kendall's page. * Added new Q&A (code formatting). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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 o= f the current instruction set? 5. What is ICWS'94? Which simulators support ICWS'94? 6. What is the ICWS? 7. What is Core Warrior? 8. Where are the Core War archives? 9. Where can I find a Core War system for ...? 10. Where can I find warrior code? 11. I do not have FTP. How do I get all this great stuff? 12. I do not have access to Usenet. How do I post and receive news? 13. Are there any Core War related WWW sites? 14. What is KotH? How do I enter? 15. Is it DAT 0, 0 or DAT #0, #0? How do I compare to core? 16. How does SLT (Skip if Less Than) work? 17. What is the difference between in-register and in-memory evaluation? 18. What is P-space? 19. What does "Missing ;assert .." in my message from KotH mean? 20. How should I format my code? 21. Are there any other Core War related resources I should know about? 22. What does (expression or term of your choice) mean? 23. Other questions? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. 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 virtua= l computer called MARS (for Memory Array Redcode Simulator). The object of th= e game is to cause all processes of the opposing program to terminate, leavin= g your program in sole posession of the machine. There are Core War systems available for most computer platforms. Redcode has been standardised by the ICWS, and is therefore transportable between all standard Core War systems. The system in which the programs run is quite simple. The core (the memory of the simulated computer) is a continuous array of instructions, empty except for the competing programs. The core wraps around, so that after the last instruction comes the first one again. There are no absolute addresses in Core War. That is, the address 0 doesn't mean the first instruction in the memory, but the instruction that contains the address 0. The next instruction is 1, and the previous one obviously -1= =2E However, all numbers are treated as positive, and are in the range 0 to (CORESIZE-1) where CORESIZE is the amount of memory locations in the core - this means that -1 would be treated as (CORESIZE-1) in any arithmetic operations, eg. 3218 + 7856 =3D (3218 + 7856) mod CORESIZE. Many people get confused by this, and it is particularly important when using the SLT instruction. Note that the source code of a program can still contain negative numbers, but if you start using instructions like DIV #-2, #5 it i= s important to know what effect they will have when executed. The basic unit of memory in Core War is one instruction. Each Redcode instruction contains three parts: * the opcode * the source address (a.k.a. the A-field) * the destination address (a.k.a. the B-field) The execution of the programs is equally simple. The MARS executes one instruction at a time, and then proceeds to the next one in the memory, unless the instruction explicitly tells it to jump to another address. If there is more than one program running, (as is usual) the programs execute alternately, one instruction at a time. The execution of each instruction takes the same time, one cycle, whether it is MOV, DIV or even DAT (which kills the process). Each program may have several processes running. These processes are stored in a task queue. When it is the program's turn to execute an instruction it dequeues a process and executes the corresponding instruction. Processes that are not killed during the execution of the instruction are put back into the task queue. Processes created by a SPL instruction are added to th= e task queue after the creating process is put back into the task queue. [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. 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] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. Where can I find more information about Core War? Core War was first described in the Core War Guidelines of March, 1984 by D= =2E 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: Library of Author Title Published ISBN Congress Call Number The Armchair Dewdney, Universe: An New York: W. QA76.6 .D517 A. K. Exploration of H. Freeman =A90-7167-1939-8 1988 Computer Worlds 1988 The Magic 0-7167-2125-2 Dewdney, Machine: A New York: W.(Hardcover), QA76.6 A. K. Handbook of H. Freeman =A90-7167-2144-9 .D5173 199= 0 Computer Sorcery 1990 (Paperback) 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. For those who are interested, Dewdney has a home page at http://www.csd.uwo.ca/faculty/akd/. [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4. 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 ftp://www.koth.org/corewar/documents/standards/redcode-icws-88. This document is formatted awkwardly and contains ambiguous statements. For a more approachable intro to Redcode, take a look at Mark Durham's tutorials, ftp://www.koth.org/corewar/documents/tutorial.1 and ftp://www.koth.org/corewar/documents/tutorial.2. Steven Morrell has prepared a more practically oriented Redcode tutorial that discusses different warrior classes with lots of example code. This an= d various other tutorials can be found at http://www.koth.org/papers.html. Even though ICWS'88 is still the "official" standard, you will find that most people are playing by ICWS'94 draft rules and extensions. [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5. 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 new addressing modes 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'9= 4 draft at ftp://www.koth.org/corewar/documents/icws94.0202.Z for more information. There is a HTML version of this document available at http://www.koth.org/icws94.html. 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://www.koth.org/corewar. Note that Redcoder onl= y supports a subset of ICWS'94. [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 6. What is the ICWS? About one year after Core War first appeared in Scientific American, 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). The ICWS is no longer active. [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7. What is Core Warrior? Following in the tradition of the Core War News Letter, Push Off, and The 9= 4 Warrior, Core Warrior is a newsletter about strategies and current standing= s in Core War. Started in October 1995, back issues of Core Warrior (and the other newsletters) are available at http://para.inria.fr/~doligez/corewar/. There is also a Core Warrior index page at http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/5427/warrior.htm which has a summary of the contents of each issue of Core Warrior. Many of the earlier issues contain useful information for beginners. [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 8. 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 ftp://ftp.csua.berkeley.edu/pub/corewar. 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. This site is mirrored at: * http://www.koth.org/corewar/ * ftp://www.koth.org/corewar/ * ftp://ftp.inria.fr/INRIA/Projects/para/doligez/cw/mirror The plain text version of this FAQ is automatically archived by news.answer= s (but this version is probably out-of-date). [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 9. Where can I find a Core War system for . . . ? Core War systems are available via anonymous FTP from www.koth.org in the 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 ftp://www.koth.org/corewar/incoming 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 www.koth.org. Generally, the older the program - the less likely it will be ICWS compatible. If you are looking for an ICWS'94 simulator, get pMARS, which is available for many platforms and can be downloaded from: * ftp://ftp.csua.berkeley.edu/pub/corewar (original site) * ftp://www.koth.org/corewar (Stormking mirror) * ftp://ftp.inria.fr/INRIA/Projects/para/doligez/cw/mirror (Planar mirror) * http://www.nc5.infi.net/~wtnewton/corewar/ (Terry Newton) * ftp://members.aol.com/ofechner/corewar (Fechter) Notes: * If you have trouble running pMARS with a graphical display under Win95 then check out http://www.koth.org/pmars.html which should have a pointer to the latest compilation of pMARS for this environment. * RPMs for the Alpha, PowerPC, Sparc and i386 can be found at ftp://ftp.inria.fr/INRIA/Projects/para/doligez/cw/pmars-rpm/ 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 www.koth.org: 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 pvms08.zip pMARS v0.8 for VMS build files/help (req. pmars08s.zip) ApMARS03.lha pMARS executable for Amiga (port of version 0.3.1) wincor11.zip MS-Windows system, shareware ($15) [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 10. Where can I find warrior code? To learn the game, it is a good idea to study previously posted warrior code. The FTP archives have code in the ftp://www.koth.org/corewar/redcode directory. A clearly organized on-line warrior collection is available at the Core War web sites (see below). [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 11. I do not have FTP. How do I get all this great stuff? There is an FTP email server at bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu. This address may no longer exist. I haven't tested it yet. Send email with a subject and bod= y text of "help" (without the quotes) for more information on its usage. Note that many FTP email gateways are shutting down due to abuse. To get a current list of FTP email servers, look at the Accessing the Internet by E-mail FAQ posted to news.answers. If you don't have access to Usenet, you can retrieve this FAQ one of the following ways: * Send mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the body containing "send usenet/news.answers/internet-services/access-via-email". * Send mail to mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk with the body containing "send lis-iis e-access-inet.txt". [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 12. 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@ttsg.com). Servers that allow you to post (but not receive) articles are available. Refer to the Accessing the Internet by E-Mail FAQ for more information. [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 13. 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 http://www.koth.org; pizza's is http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~pizza/koth . Damien Doligez (a.k.a. Planar) has a web page that features convenient access to regular newsletters (Push Off, The '94 Warrior, Core Warrior) and a well organized library of warriors: http://para.inria.fr/~doligez/corewar/. Convenient for U.S. users= , this site is also mirrored at Stormking. [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 14. 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 point= s 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 ha= s 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, KotH= s based on Bill's UNIX scripts but offering a wider variety of hills are are running at two sites: koth@koth.org is maintained by Scott J. Ellentuch (tuc@ttsg.com) and pizza@ecst.csuchico.edu by Thomas H. Davies (sd@ecst.csuchico.edu). Up until May '95, the two sites provided overlappin= g 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 divide= d up among the sites. The way you submit warriors to both KotHs is pretty muc= h 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 * Write a corewar program. KotH is fully ICWS '88 compatible, EXCEPT tha= t a comma (",") is required between two arguments. * 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. 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. Using ";name" is mandatory on the Pizza hills. 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-94, ;redcode-b, ;redcode-lp, ;redcode-x, ;redcode, ;redcode-94x or ;redcode-94m. The former four run at "pizza"= , the latter three at "stormking". More information on these hills is listed below. * Mail this file to koth@koth.org or pizza@ecst.csuchico.edu. "Pizza" requires a subject of "koth" (use the -s flag on most mailers). * 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. * 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 25 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 25 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. Duration Max. Hill Name Hill Core Max. Before Entry Min. Rounds I= nstr. Size Size Processes Distance Fought = Set Tie Length Pizza's ICWS '94 Draft Hill Ex= tended (Accessed with 25 8000 8000 80000 100 100 200 IC= WS '94 ";redcode-94") Dr= aft Pizza's Beginner's Hill Ex= tended (Accessed with 25 8000 8000 80000 100 100 200 IC= WS '94 ";redcode-b") Dr= aft Pizza's Experimental Ex= tended (Small) Hill 25 800 800 8000 20 20 200 IC= WS '94 (Accessed with Dr= aft ";redcode-x") Pizza's Limited Process (LP) Ex= tended Hill (Accessed 25 8000 8 80000 200 200 200 IC= WS '94 with Dr= aft ";redcode-lp") Stormking's ICWS '88 Standard Hill 20 8000 8000 80000 100 100 250 IC= WS '88 (Accessed with ";redcode") Stormking's ICWS '94 Experimental Ex= tended (Big) Hill 20 55440 55440 500000 200 200 250 IC= WS '94 (Accessed with Dr= aft ";redcode-94x") Stormking's ICWS '94 Draft Multi-Warrior Ex= tended Hill (Accessed 10 8000 8000 80000 100 100 200 IC= WS '94 with Dr= aft ";redcode-94m") Notes: * Warriors on the beginner's hill are retired at age 100 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 assemble= d but not actually pitted against the warriors on the hill. At "pizza", you can use ";redcode[-??] test" to do a test challenge of the Hill without affecting the status of the Hill. These challenges can be used to see how well your warrior does against the current Hill warriors. All hills run portable MARS (pMARS) version 0.8, a platform-independent Cor= e War system available at www.koth.org. The '94 and '94x hills allow five experimental opcodes and three experimental addressing modes currently not covered in the ICWS'94 draft document: * LDP - Load P-Space * STP - Store P-Space * 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] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 15. 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 (in source code) under ICWS'88 rules and strictly compliant assemblers (such as KotH o= r pmars -8) will not let you have a DAT 0, 0 instruction in your source code = - 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, fo= r comparison. Note that under ICWS'94, DAT 0, 0 is a legal instruction. [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 16. 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 (core 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 tha= n zero. [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 17. 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 Colour 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. Decrement Resistant Property of warriors making them functional (or at least partially functional) when overrun by a DJN-stream. 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 memor= y 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 www.koth.org. Paper A Paper-like program is one which replicates itself many times. Part o= f the Scissors (beats) Paper (beats) Stone (beats Scissors) analogy. P-Warrior A warrior which uses the results of previous round(s) in order to determine which strategy it will use. 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. Q^2 Scan A modern version of the Quick Scan where anything found is attacked almost immediately. 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 p= ointer 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 nothin= g 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 locatio= ns seq start+400*s1+200, start+400*s1+300 ;check two locatio= ns 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 nothin= g 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 -1, 0 spl 1 ;generate 6 consecutive processes silk spl 3620, #0 ;split to new copy mov >-1, }-1 ;copy self to new location mov bomb, >2000 ;linear bombing mov bomb, }2042 ;A-indirect bombing for anti-vamp jmp silk, {silk ;reset source pointer, make new cop= y bomb dat >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= =2E 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] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 23. Other questions? Just ask in the rec.games.corewar newsgroup or contact me. 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: * Mark Durham (wrote the original version of the FAQ) * Paul Kline * Randy Graham * Stefan Strack (maintained a recent version of the FAQ) The rec.games.corewar FAQ is Copyright =A9 1998 and maintained by Anton Marsden (amarsden@mcs.vuw.ac.nz). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: qute@fido.dk (Anders Rosendal) Subject: Re: UNSUBSCRIBE Date: 1998/12/10 Message-ID: #1/1 �hm Joe? M� jeg ikke lige l�ne et min. eller to? Onsdag 09. December 1998 00:10, Joe Clarke havde et problem og skrev til All: > "If Somethings Hard to Do its Not Worth Doing." H.Simpson Obviously Homer has never had sex. From: Robert Macrae Subject: Re: UNSUBSCRIBE Date: 1998/12/10 Message-ID: <366FBD7B.3B89@dial.pipex.com>#1/1 Joe Clarke wrote: > "If Somethings Hard to Do its Not Worth Doing." H.Simpson Its hard to know. Lose -- endless fruitless days or months Gain -- transitory triumph If anyone sorts this out, tell me. >:-/ From: Philip Kendall Subject: Re: :-( Date: 1998/12/10 Message-ID: #1/1 John.Metcalf@p18.f94.chaos.camelot.co.uk (John Metcalf) writes: > I've notice for the last few days my submissions to Pizza are > not returning any results, but are showing in the holding pen > with no name, author or address :-( Has this happened before? Yes :-( If nobody's done it yet, mail the maintainer (sd@ecst.c.e) and tell him about it. Phil -- / Philip Kendall (pak21@cam.ac.uk pak21@kendalls.demon.co.uk) \ \ http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/5427/corewar.htm / From: John.Metcalf@p18.f94.chaos.camelot.co.uk (John Metcalf) Subject: :-( Date: 1998/12/11 Message-ID: #1/1 Greetings... > I've notice for the last few days my submissions to Pizza are > not returning any results, but are showing in the holding pen > with no name, author or address :-( Has this happened before? PK> Yes :-( If nobody's done it yet, mail the maintainer (sd@ecst.c.e) and PK> tell him about it. Have done and it seems to be fixed now :-) John From: Robert Macrae Subject: Re: Round 3 results and commentary Date: 1998/12/12 Message-ID: <3672A40F.424A@dial.pipex.com>#1/1 M Joonas Pihlaja wrote: > ;redcode > ;name Quick Cooking > ;author M Joonas Pihlaja ... > gate dat 0 , -4000 > dat -100 , -100 > dat -100 , -100 > dat -100 , -100 > clear spl #0 , {gate > mov *pclr , >gate > mov *pclr , >gate > mov *pclr , >gate > djn.f -3 , {gate > dat <5334 , <2667 > dat <5334 , <2667 > spl #-3 , pclr-gate > spl #-2 , pclr-gate > pclr dat >-1 , >1 Those DAT <5334,<2667 bombs look to me as if they may not carpet the first 1/3 of core; how does this work? -- Regards, Robert Macrae From: M Joonas Pihlaja Subject: Re: Round 3 results and commentary Date: 1998/12/12 Message-ID: #1/1 My first reply hasn't come through so I'm reposting. Sorry if this eventually comes as a duplicate. mjp ----------------- On Tue, 8 Dec 1998, David Matthew Moore wrote: > M Joonas Pihlaja wrote: > : Besides, I really like the Recycled Bits clear! > : It's so much more decrement/djn stream resistant > : than other continuously gating ssd clears. > > Did you change the clear pointer to the a-field and the decrement > pointer to the b-field? Since the imps were of the mov.i #2667, *0 > variety, it wouldn't hurt your chances to gate them. I think that you > could gain a lot versus Carbonite by swapping fields. Of course ! I didn't think quite that far. But I doubt it mattered too much, as a good bit of deadliness in Carbonite's bomb is due to the post-increments. I changed the b-fields of the lines right after gate to counter hits right in the body. Don't think it made much of a difference though. > In fact, my original motivation for writing the clear was to beat > paper/imps like The Fugitive, Same for otest2, though relying on the djn for the switch is much more vulnerable. I kicked myself when I saw how you had gotten the anti-imp dats to cover the top bit of core. > In short, experimentation is encouraged. Joonas ;redcode ;name Quick Cooking ;author M Joonas Pihlaja ;strategy Switch no loss between two backtrackers -> clear ;assert 1 load0 z for 0 rof ; Sad constants fcp EQU 3039 scp EQU 2365 tcp EQU 777 ;======== ; clear gate dat 0 , -4000 dat -100 , -100 dat -100 , -100 dat -100 , -100 clear spl #0 , {gate mov *pclr , >gate mov *pclr , >gate mov *pclr , >gate djn.f -3 , {gate dat <5334 , <2667 dat <5334 , <2667 spl #-3 , pclr-gate spl #-2 , pclr-gate pclr dat >-1 , >1 cbmb equ pclr ;============ ; backtracks ; #1 ; simplest backtrack possible scan1 jmz.f #-2000 , -1,>1 initially booted by Grey, instead of one ; bombed by carbo. The advantage is small in this respect than scan1, but ; as we might not get the djn.f line of carbo (if there was decoy that ; continued the bomb trail), to overall effect is bad. Also the size is ; much larger that scan1. ;=========== ; switcher ; PKEY equ 1 dat 0 , 0 chg dat 0 , 1 ; SOL dat 0 , 0 dat 0 , 0 think in ldp.ab #PKEY , #0 ldp.a #0 , chg add.b *chg , in mod.ab #2 , in stp.b in , #PKEY jmz scan1 , in jmp scan2 end think From: M Joonas Pihlaja Subject: Re: Round 3 results and commentary Date: 1998/12/13 Message-ID: #1/1 On Sat, 12 Dec 1998, Robert Macrae wrote: > M Joonas Pihlaja wrote: > > > ;redcode > > ;name Quick Cooking > > ;author M Joonas Pihlaja > ... > > gate dat 0 , -4000 > > dat -100 , -100 > > dat -100 , -100 > > dat -100 , -100 > > clear spl #0 , {gate > > mov *pclr , >gate > > mov *pclr , >gate > > mov *pclr , >gate > > djn.f -3 , {gate > > dat <5334 , <2667 > > dat <5334 , <2667 > > spl #-3 , pclr-gate > > spl #-2 , pclr-gate > > pclr dat >-1 , >1 > > Those DAT <5334,<2667 bombs look to me as if they may not > carpet the first 1/3 of core; how does this work? The bomb pointer is pclr, instead of gate as in the usual star gate thingies. The label pclr really should be renamed to pbmb, pbomb, bombptr, or some such. Assuming one pass has been made, pclr will be spl #-2,pclr-gate, so the a-field points to spl #-3,pclr-gate. Now when gate is overwritten by spl #-3,pclr, the clear pointer skips the relevant bit of code and next overwrites well uh.. pclr. So pclr is overwritten and it's a-field is changed to -3, pointing to the dat bomb. Now the b-field of gate points to pclr+1. The extra dat is in there for good measure. Joonas From: John.Metcalf@p18.f94.chaos.camelot.co.uk (John Metcalf) Subject: Stranger code Date: 1998/12/14 Message-ID: #1/1 Greetings... Here is the code for Stranger, my incendiary which is currently on the beginners' hill. I've tried all manner of things to improve it without success including a longer bombing phase etc :-( John /\/\/\/\ ;redcode-b quiet ;name Stranger ;author John Metcalf ;strategy Incendiary bomber -> d-clear ;assert CORESIZE==8000 step equ 5368 dist equ 2581 ib: spl #1000, 1-dist loop:mov ib, @gunk+step-dist mov ia, @loop add #step, loop gunk:jmp loop, >ia+dist clr: mov bom, >ib-4 djn.f clr, >ib-4 ia: mov dist, >dist bom: dat >2667, >13 end ib From: KOTH Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - 94 No Pspace 12/14/98 Date: 1998/12/14 Message-ID: <199812140500.AAA13565@midgaard.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 12/14/98 -=- www.KOTH.org is now hosting a '94 No Pspace Hill. -=- View the stats of all the Hills at: www.KOTH.org/standings.html -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG 94 No Pspace CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Sat Dec 12 15:16:35 EST 1998 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 44/ 39/ 17 Zooom... John Metcalf 149 4 2 44/ 39/ 18 Boys are Back in Town 1.1 Philip Kendall 148 29 3 36/ 28/ 36 Recovery Ian Oversby 143 27 4 34/ 30/ 36 Fixed Ken Espiritu 137 87 5 34/ 30/ 36 Blacken Ian Oversby 138 14 6 39/ 41/ 20 The Machine Anton Marsden 138 93 7 24/ 11/ 65 The Fugitive David Moore 137 106 8 32/ 28/ 40 Vain Ian Oversby 137 104 9 33/ 30/ 37 The Stormbringer Christian Schmidt 137 38 10 30/ 25/ 45 Brigadeer M Joonas Pihlaja 136 23 11 41/ 48/ 11 Win! David Moore 134 2 12 37/ 40/ 23 Floody River P.Kline 133 53 13 29/ 26/ 44 Gemini Dream John K Wilkinson 133 110 14 32/ 31/ 37 Baseline Plus Ken Espiritu 133 85 15 40/ 48/ 12 Red Carpet David Moore 132 45 16 29/ 28/ 43 The Yokozuna Christian Schmidt 130 12 17 31/ 33/ 35 Head or Tail Christian Schmidt 129 75 18 34/ 40/ 26 STest Vladimir Bychkovskiy 129 18 19 37/ 47/ 16 Blurstone M. J. Pihlaja 126 49 20 25/ 27/ 48 The Stone/Imp Test Christian Schmidt 123 1 21 23/ 39/ 38 Rocking-Chair 94 v0.27 Leonardo Humberto 106 0 From: KOTH Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - ICWS Experimental 94 12/14/98 Date: 1998/12/14 Message-ID: <199812140500.AAA13558@midgaard.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 12/14/98 -=- www.KOTH.org is now hosting a '94 No Pspace Hill. -=- View the stats of all the Hills at: www.KOTH.org/standings.html -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG ICWS Experimental 94 CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Sun Dec 13 20:13:13 EST 1998 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 55/ 31/ 14 Black Moods Ian Oversby 179 3 2 54/ 29/ 17 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 178 7 3 40/ 16/ 45 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 164 29 4 32/ 5/ 63 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 158 76 5 28/ 2/ 69 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 154 24 6 32/ 19/ 48 Rosebud Beppe 145 55 7 38/ 37/ 24 Dr. Gate X Franz 139 47 8 35/ 36/ 29 BigBoy Robert Macrae 135 101 9 40/ 46/ 14 BiShot Christian Schmidt 134 15 10 38/ 43/ 18 Tsunami v0.3 X Ian Oversby 134 1 11 37/ 40/ 24 Stepping Stone 94x Kurt Franke 133 62 12 40/ 48/ 12 S.E.T.I. 4-X JKW 131 77 13 36/ 42/ 22 13 Christian Schmidt 130 14 14 36/ 43/ 20 Pagan John K W 129 61 15 32/ 37/ 31 Lithium X 8 John K Wilkinson 128 67 16 34/ 40/ 26 Dr. Recover Franz 127 46 17 25/ 22/ 53 Purple v0.1 Christian Schmidt 127 28 18 22/ 18/ 59 Sphere v0.2 Christian Schmidt 127 18 19 36/ 45/ 19 Memories Beppe Bezzi 127 83 20 39/ 53/ 8 HSA Copy 55440 Robert Macrae 124 44 21 5/ 70/ 25 hmm Anonymous 40 0 From: KOTH Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - MultiWarrior 94 12/14/98 Date: 1998/12/14 Message-ID: <199812140500.AAA13554@midgaard.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 12/14/98 -=- www.KOTH.org is now hosting a '94 No Pspace Hill. -=- View the stats of all the Hills at: www.KOTH.org/standings.html -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG Multiwarrior 94 CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Tue Dec 8 18:49:58 EST 1998 # Name Author Score Age 1 scan test-dm -=|:-) 28 1 2 otest2 mjp 27 121 3 Blur Copy Robert Macrae 26 107 4 Clearer v0.2 Ian Oversby 22 128 5 cstest M4 Christian Schmidt 18 79 6 Aulder Man Ian Oversby 17 185 7 QueensGuard_III P.Kline 15 6 8 QueensGuard_IIII P.Kline 12 5 9 QueensGuard_II P.Kline 11 7 10 QueensGuard_I P.Kline 10 8 11 Rocking-Chair 94 v0.20 Leonardo Humberto 1 0 From: KOTH Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - Standard 12/14/98 Date: 1998/12/14 Message-ID: <199812140500.AAA13550@midgaard.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 12/14/98 -=- www.KOTH.org is now hosting a '94 No Pspace Hill. -=- View the stats of all the Hills at: www.KOTH.org/standings.html -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG Standard KotH CoreWar Hill : Last battle concluded at : Thu Dec 10 11:14:20 EST 1998 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 36/ 19/ 45 Freight Train David Moore 152 34 2 33/ 21/ 46 Guardian Ian Oversby 145 33 3 39/ 36/ 26 PacMan David Moore 141 63 4 42/ 44/ 14 Blurstone '88 M. J. Pihlaja 141 28 5 42/ 43/ 15 Iron Gate Wayne Sheppard 141 359 6 41/ 43/ 16 Foggy Swamp Beppe Bezzi 140 30 7 41/ 43/ 16 Blur '88 Anton Marsden 140 71 8 39/ 40/ 20 Stasis David Moore 138 141 9 37/ 37/ 26 Tangle Trap David Moore 138 107 10 28/ 20/ 52 The Marlboro Man 1.13 M Joonas Pihlaja 135 9 11 29/ 22/ 49 sIMPly.Red v0.85 Leonardo Humberto 135 13 12 25/ 16/ 59 EV Paper John K Wilkinson 135 47 13 38/ 41/ 21 Beholder's Eye V1.7 W. Mintardjo 134 309 14 35/ 36/ 29 Leapfrog David Moore 133 62 15 26/ 18/ 56 Test I Ian Oversby 133 90 16 35/ 38/ 27 Kitchen Sink Robert Macrae 133 32 17 25/ 20/ 55 Evoltmp 88 John K W 131 84 18 19/ 10/ 71 Trident^2 '88 John K W 129 57 19 23/ 22/ 54 Rocking-Chair v0.55 Leonardo Humberto 125 5 20 21/ 46/ 33 The Locust Lukasz Adamowski 97 1 21 13/ 55/ 32 Argento V0.1c Hern�n Perrone 72 0 From: Christian Schmidt Subject: Attempting to clarify the round 4 rules Date: 1998/12/15 Message-ID: <3676503C.20B049D1@goofy.zdv.uni-mainz.de>#1/1 Please note that you have to include exactly one of each of the components in your grey warrior even if you don't use it. Ian From: John.Metcalf@p18.f94.chaos.camelot.co.uk (John Metcalf) Subject: Stranger code Date: 1998/12/16 Message-ID: #1/1 Greetings... RM> I once tried using carpets like SPL 0, SPL -1 or SPL *1 -- RM> something which it is more certain for DCLear to squash -- RM> but I can't remember if it really helped. My problem was RM> that on the few occasions in which my incendiary stunned RM> a Silk it was reasonably common for one SPL #0 to lurk on RM> and snatch a draw... Experimentation against a variety of published warriors showed that if I changed the spl #1000 to a spl 0 I wouldn't score quite so well against most things :-( Of course, it is quite possible to change the value 1000 to a magic number which will cause a paper with a-indirect bombing to bomb itself when the it uses one of your bombs as a pointer :-) E.g. Marcia Trionfale, Paper One, Jack-in-the-Box etc. all use the distance 2042 for their a-indirect bombing ;-) I'll have to play with it a little more... Regards, John From: Robert Macrae Subject: Re: Stranger code Date: 1998/12/16 Message-ID: <367816D0.1F2@dial.pipex.com>#1/1 John Metcalf wrote: > > Greetings... > > Here is the code for Stranger, my incendiary which is currently > on the beginners' hill. I've tried all manner of things to improve > it without success including a longer bombing phase etc :-( I once tried using carpets like SPL 0, SPL -1 or SPL *1 -- something which it is more certain for DCLear to squash -- but I can't remember if it really helped. My problem was that on the few occasions in which my incendiary stunned a Silk it was reasonably common for one SPL #0 to lurk on and snatch a draw... -- Regards, Robert Macrae From: David Matthew Moore Subject: Re: Stranger code Date: 1998/12/17 Message-ID: <75aid3$r4v$1@msunews.cl.msu.edu>#1/1 M Joonas Pihlaja wrote: : : One IMO impressive bit in the RB incendiary is to use a bombing pattern : that places a live mov right after some of the lone spls. That was straight from Torch. I couldn't get the bomber to score as well as torch until I implemented that little feature. David. From: M Joonas Pihlaja Subject: Re: Stranger code Date: 1998/12/17 Message-ID: #1/1 On Mon, 14 Dec 1998, John Metcalf wrote: > Greetings... > > Here is the code for Stranger, my incendiary which is currently > on the beginners' hill. I've tried all manner of things to improve > it without success including a longer bombing phase etc :-( One IMO impressive bit in the RB incendiary is to use a bombing pattern that places a live mov right after some of the lone spls. i.e. sometime after placing an spl at x another pair gets placed so that the mov part of the new incendiary is placed at x+1. x spl #1,bhop ; old pair, spl . . . mov -bhop,>-bhop ; old pair, mov [some more bombing, and then a new pair is placed] spl #1,bhop ; new pair, spl . . x spl #1,bhop ; x+1 mov -bhop,>-bhop ; new pair, mov . . mov -bhop,>-bhop ; I noticed you had a mov right after the djn of the d-clear. I hope it isn't a part of a live incendiary pair. Oh, I see, the jmp thing is deactivating it? It still strikes me a tad unhealthy. You could try changing the spl part to have a b-field of 1 - might help against clears. > John Joonas From: David Matthew Moore Subject: Re: Stranger code Date: 1998/12/17 Message-ID: <759sjj$qob$1@msunews.cl.msu.edu>#1/1 Robert Macrae wrote: : : My problem was that on the few occasions in which my : incendiary stunned a Silk it was reasonably common for one SPL #0 to : lurk on and snatch a draw... That's exactly why I use SPL 0 in Fire and Ice but I use SPL #0 in the incendiary for Recycled Bits (both of those programs use d-clear). The bomber fared worse against papers when using the SPL 0 bomb because the stun wore off; i.e. papers would run MOV }-1, >-1 or something similar that would change the SPL instruction. With carpet bombs, that wasn't much of a problem. David. From: Philip Kendall Subject: Re: pMars for Windows CE? Date: 1998/12/18 Message-ID: #1/1 In article , F. Hayashi wrote >How hard would it be to port pMars for Windows CE? Assuming you've got an ANSI C compiler, porting pmars (as opposed to pmarsv) should be pretty easy. Phil -- / Philip Kendall (pak21@cam.ac.uk pak21@kendalls.demon.co.uk) \ \ http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/5427/corewar.htm / From: "F. Hayashi" Subject: pMars for Windows CE? Date: 1998/12/18 Message-ID: #1/1 How hard would it be to port pMars for Windows CE? +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Fumitaka Hayashi - hayashi@u.washington.edu | | http://macrophage.immunol.washington.edu/~fumi/index.html | | Aderem Lab - Dept. of Immunology - University of Washington | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ From: autismuk@aol.com (AutismUK) Subject: Darwin Date: 1998/12/20 Message-ID: <19981220154738.07170.00002246@ngol05.aol.com>#1/1 Does anyone have the article on Darwin from Software : Practice and Experience (1972) ? [to save me getting it from the British Library] Paul Robson (autismuk@aol.com) From: Philip Kendall Subject: Re: Paper, Rock, Scissors Date: 1998/12/20 Message-ID: #1/1 In article <367C423A.30ACD38@home.com>, Shaun Jackman wrote >Hello, >I'm new to Corewar, and from what I've read in FAQs and so on, the >first three basic programs are Paper, Rock, and Scissors. I assume that >this means on an average game a Paper will beat a Rock, a Rock will >beat a Scissors, and a Scissors will beat a Paper. I wouldn't necessarily call them "basic programs"; they are more a general way of classifying warriors. However, you are correct in that Paper beats (Stone/Rock) beats Scissors beats Paper etc... >I was wondering if someone could post a short example of each of these >types of programs. I know there's a lot of redcode tricks that you all >use, but please keep it somewhat dumbed down for me. I'm just learning >here! You best bet is probably to look at the first 10-ish issues of Core Warrior (see http://para.inria.fr/~doligez/corewar/corewarrior/) which give a good introduction to the basic warrior types. HTH Phil -- / Philip Kendall (pak21@cam.ac.uk pak21@kendalls.demon.co.uk) \ | New? Read the FAQ: http://www.kendalls.demon.co.uk/cssfaq/ | | The Threat to Spectrum Emulation: | \ http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/5427/threat.html / From: Shaun Jackman Subject: Paper, Rock, Scissors Date: 1998/12/20 Message-ID: <367C423A.30ACD38@home.com>#1/1 Hello, I'm new to Corewar, and from what I've read in FAQs and so on, the first three basic programs are Paper, Rock, and Scissors. I assume that this means on an average game a Paper will beat a Rock, a Rock will beat a Scissors, and a Scissors will beat a Paper. I was wondering if someone could post a short example of each of these types of programs. I know there's a lot of redcode tricks that you all use, but please keep it somewhat dumbed down for me. I'm just learning here! Thanks a lot for your help, Shaun Jackman From: John.Metcalf@p18.f94.chaos.camelot.co.uk (John Metcalf) Subject: Darwin Date: 1998/12/21 Message-ID: #1/1 Greetings... A> Does anyone have the article on Darwin from Software : Practice and A> Experience (1972) ? [to save me getting it from the British Library] I'm still in the middle of typing the article in, but I can send you a photocopy if you email me your postal address. Darwin was actually around in the early '60s, ten years before the article... John From: KOTH Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - MultiWarrior 94 12/21/98 Date: 1998/12/21 Message-ID: <199812210500.AAA11189@midgaard.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 12/21/98 -=- www.KOTH.org is now hosting a '94 No Pspace Hill. -=- View the stats of all the Hills at: www.KOTH.org/standings.html -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG Multiwarrior 94 CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Tue Dec 15 13:08:52 EST 1998 # Name Author Score Age 1 Clearer v0.2 Ian Oversby 24 128 2 otest2 mjp 23 121 3 Blur Copy Robert Macrae 21 107 4 Aulder Man Ian Oversby 16 185 5 QueensGuard_I P.Kline 16 8 6 QueensGuard_II P.Kline 14 7 7 cstest M4 Christian Schmidt 13 79 8 scan test-dm -=|:-) 12 1 9 QueensGuard_III P.Kline 12 6 10 QueensGuard_IIII P.Kline 9 5 11 Burning Water Christian Schmidt 4 0 From: KOTH Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - 94 No Pspace 12/21/98 Date: 1998/12/21 Message-ID: <199812210500.AAA11205@midgaard.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 12/21/98 -=- www.KOTH.org is now hosting a '94 No Pspace Hill. -=- View the stats of all the Hills at: www.KOTH.org/standings.html -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG 94 No Pspace CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Sat Dec 19 13:06:43 EST 1998 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 43/ 40/ 17 Zooom... John Metcalf 147 5 2 43/ 39/ 18 Boys are Back in Town 1.1 Philip Kendall 146 30 3 37/ 30/ 33 Recovery Ian Oversby 143 28 4 25/ 11/ 63 The Fugitive David Moore 139 107 5 35/ 32/ 33 Fixed Ken Espiritu 139 88 6 35/ 31/ 34 Blacken Ian Oversby 139 15 7 34/ 31/ 35 The Stormbringer Christian Schmidt 138 39 8 31/ 25/ 44 Brigadeer M Joonas Pihlaja 137 24 9 34/ 31/ 35 Baseline Plus Ken Espiritu 137 86 10 33/ 29/ 38 Vain Ian Oversby 137 105 11 38/ 40/ 23 Floody River P.Kline 136 54 12 39/ 41/ 20 The Machine Anton Marsden 136 94 13 31/ 26/ 44 Gemini Dream John K Wilkinson 135 111 14 41/ 48/ 11 Win! David Moore 134 3 15 33/ 34/ 33 Head or Tail Christian Schmidt 132 76 16 35/ 39/ 26 Liquid Fire Christian Schmidt 132 1 17 30/ 29/ 41 The Yokozuna Christian Schmidt 131 13 18 35/ 40/ 26 STest Vladimir Bychkovskiy 129 19 19 39/ 48/ 13 Red Carpet David Moore 129 46 20 37/ 46/ 17 Blurstone M. J. Pihlaja 127 50 21 23/ 42/ 35 Stranger B John Metcalf 105 0 From: KOTH Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - ICWS Experimental 94 12/21/98 Date: 1998/12/21 Message-ID: <199812210500.AAA11196@midgaard.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 12/21/98 -=- www.KOTH.org is now hosting a '94 No Pspace Hill. -=- View the stats of all the Hills at: www.KOTH.org/standings.html -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG ICWS Experimental 94 CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Sun Dec 13 20:13:13 EST 1998 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 55/ 31/ 14 Black Moods Ian Oversby 179 3 2 54/ 29/ 17 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 178 7 3 40/ 16/ 45 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 164 29 4 32/ 5/ 63 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 158 76 5 28/ 2/ 69 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 154 24 6 32/ 19/ 48 Rosebud Beppe 145 55 7 38/ 37/ 24 Dr. Gate X Franz 139 47 8 35/ 36/ 29 BigBoy Robert Macrae 135 101 9 40/ 46/ 14 BiShot Christian Schmidt 134 15 10 38/ 43/ 18 Tsunami v0.3 X Ian Oversby 134 1 11 37/ 40/ 24 Stepping Stone 94x Kurt Franke 133 62 12 40/ 48/ 12 S.E.T.I. 4-X JKW 131 77 13 36/ 42/ 22 13 Christian Schmidt 130 14 14 36/ 43/ 20 Pagan John K W 129 61 15 32/ 37/ 31 Lithium X 8 John K Wilkinson 128 67 16 34/ 40/ 26 Dr. Recover Franz 127 46 17 25/ 22/ 53 Purple v0.1 Christian Schmidt 127 28 18 22/ 18/ 59 Sphere v0.2 Christian Schmidt 127 18 19 36/ 45/ 19 Memories Beppe Bezzi 127 83 20 39/ 53/ 8 HSA Copy 55440 Robert Macrae 124 44 21 5/ 70/ 25 hmm Anonymous 40 0 From: KOTH Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - Standard 12/21/98 Date: 1998/12/21 Message-ID: <199812210500.AAA11185@midgaard.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 12/21/98 -=- www.KOTH.org is now hosting a '94 No Pspace Hill. -=- View the stats of all the Hills at: www.KOTH.org/standings.html -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG Standard KotH CoreWar Hill : Last battle concluded at : Wed Dec 16 16:07:17 EST 1998 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 37/ 19/ 44 Freight Train David Moore 155 34 2 34/ 21/ 45 Guardian Ian Oversby 147 33 3 43/ 42/ 16 Foggy Swamp Beppe Bezzi 143 30 4 39/ 36/ 25 PacMan David Moore 143 63 5 42/ 42/ 16 Blur '88 Anton Marsden 143 71 6 42/ 43/ 14 Iron Gate Wayne Sheppard 141 359 7 42/ 45/ 13 Blurstone '88 M. J. Pihlaja 140 28 8 40/ 40/ 21 Stasis David Moore 139 141 9 38/ 37/ 25 Tangle Trap David Moore 139 107 10 30/ 22/ 48 sIMPly.Red v0.85 Leonardo Humberto 139 13 11 27/ 16/ 57 EV Paper John K Wilkinson 138 47 12 29/ 20/ 50 The Marlboro Man 1.13 M Joonas Pihlaja 138 9 13 39/ 41/ 20 Beholder's Eye V1.7 W. Mintardjo 136 309 14 27/ 18/ 55 Test I Ian Oversby 136 90 15 35/ 36/ 28 Leapfrog David Moore 134 62 16 27/ 20/ 53 Evoltmp 88 John K W 134 84 17 36/ 38/ 26 Kitchen Sink Robert Macrae 133 32 18 20/ 10/ 70 Trident^2 '88 John K W 131 57 19 25/ 22/ 52 Rocking-Chair v0.55 Leonardo Humberto 128 5 20 20/ 47/ 32 The Locust Lukasz Adamowski 93 1 21 13/ 72/ 15 Argento v1.0a Hern�n Perrone 53 0 From: Philip Kendall Subject: Re: Newbie Again Date: 1998/12/23 Message-ID: <3alQwDANHYg2EwGj@kendalls.demon.co.uk>#1/1 In article , Nebuchadnezzar wrote >Sorry to be a pain in the ass but could somebody post the URLs of the >CoreWar FAQs again please, my news client has automagically deleted the >old post with the URLs in it. Dejanews (http://www.dejanews.com/) is always a good idea in this case :-) But anyway... http://www.mcs.vuw.ac.nz/~amarsden/ Hopefully someone else will have answered this by the time this gets posted (probably about 3 days after I write it as I'm leaving my Net connection...) Phil -- / Philip Kendall (pak21@cam.ac.uk pak21@kendalls.demon.co.uk) \ \ http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/5427/corewar.htm / From: "Ian Oversby" Subject: Round 4 rules and miscellany Date: 1998/12/23 Message-ID: <19981205122458.17568.qmail@hotmail.com>#1/1 I came in this morning hoping to see my announcement on r.g.c It doesn't seem to be there so I will repost, hoping that at least one copy will get through. Ian ---------------- Round 4 is a construct a grey warrior round. The components for the submission are as in round 3. Exactly one copy of each component must appear in each submission. The only other instructions allowed in submissions are all variants of mov and spl and dat $0, $0. The lack of a jmp instruction should hamper efforts to construct a core-clear. Warriors will be ranked on battles against the following set of warriors: Newt by me Gigolo by Core Warrior staff Pulp by me Benj's Revenge by Robert Macrae Tsunami by me (taken from Falcon v0.5) Scan Man by David van Dam Silver Talon v1.2 by Edgar HAL 9000 by Justin Kao He Scans Alone by Paul Kline The imp/stones and papers are intended to discourage anyone from submitting a pure Carbonite. The parameters are from the '94 draft hill. The maximum warrior length is 100. Submissions will fight 200 battles against each of the above warriors. The deadline for submissions is Friday 18th December 23:59:59. Results will appear a few days later. The rules for round 5 will appear around that time and the deadline for that will be 15th January 1999. If this is not satisfactory for anyone, let me know as soon as possible. Any questions to the newsgroup and/or me at : ian@i-next.co.uk Ian ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From: Nebuchadnezzar Subject: Newbie Again Date: 1998/12/23 Message-ID: #1/1 Heya all, Sorry to be a pain in the ass but could somebody post the URLs of the CoreWar FAQs again please, my news client has automagically deleted the old post with the URLs in it. Thanks -- Nebuchadnezzar From: Christian Schmidt Subject: round 5 rules Date: 1998/12/23 Message-ID: <36811B2E.A98079D3@goofy.zdv.uni-mainz.de>#1/1 Round 5 - The Multi-Warrior round This was going to be the primordial round but I'll save that one for next time. This round is the multiwarrior round but in a round robin fashion. How do we manage that then? Each competitor submits four warriors, each up to one hundred lines long. The four warriors fight five hundred rounds each other four warriors submitted simultaneously along with two other warriors: Implication by me and d-clear II by Bjoern Guenzel. These are available at my web-site or at Planar's archive. Scoring is as follows. Each warrior scores 1 point for each battle where it is the sole survivor. The competitor gets the score from his highest scoring warrior in each round. The pmars command is: pmars -= (S==1) -r 500 p1war1 p1war2 ... p2war1 p2war2 ... dcl2.txt implic.txt where p1 and p2 are the (supposed) warrior authors. Note it is perfectly acceptable to submit the same warrior several times. Authors submitting less than four warriors will simply have less than four warriors in the core. I can't think that this will be beneficial. Submit your entries to: oversby@hotmail.com Note the new email address. From tomorrow (24th December) the ian@i-next.co.uk address will no longer be valid. Any questions regarding this round or the tournament should be addressed to this address. I can't remember exactly when the agreed deadline is supposed to be. Would anyone like to remind me (us)? (8th, 15th, 22nd January?) Probably the 15th Jan I would imagine. Regards, Ian From: amarsden@mcs.vuw.ac.nz (Anton Marsden) Subject: Core War Frequently Asked Questions (rec.games.corewar FAQ) Date: 1998/12/24 Message-ID: Archive-name: games/corewar-faq Last-Modified: August 5, 1998 =20 Version: 4.0 URL: http://www.mcs.vuw.ac.nz/~amarsden/corewars/corewar-faq.html Copyright: (c) 1998 Anton Marsden Maintainer: Anton Marsden Posting-Frequency: once every 2 weeks Core War Frequently Asked Questions (rec.games.corewar FAQ) These are the Frequently Asked Questions (and answers) from the Usenet newsgroup rec.games.corewar. The latest hypertext version is available at http://www.mcs.vuw.ac.nz/~amarsden/corewars/corewar-faq.html and the latest plain text version is available at=20 http://www.mcs.vuw.ac.nz/~amarsden/corewars/corewar-faq.txt. This document was last modified on August 5, 1998. It is currently being maintained by Anton Marsden (amarsden@mcs.vuw.ac.nz). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To Do * Make question 17 easier to understand. Add a state diagram? * Upgrade to HTML 4.0, make FAQ easier to maintain in future (hopefully) * Add info about infinite hills, related games (C-Robots, Tierra?, ...) * New question: How do I know if my warrior is any good? Refer to beginners' benchmarks, etc. * Add a Who's Who list? * Would very much like someone to compile a collection of the "revolutionary" warriors so that beginners can see how the game has developed over the years. Mail me if interested. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ What's New * Changed the location of Ryan Coleman's paper (LaunchPad -> Launchpad) * Changed pauillac.inria.fr to para.inria.fr * Made some changes/additions/fixes based on a good FAQ review by Joonas Pihlaja. Not all of the suggestions have been dealt with yet, but the FAQ is now less ambiguous in some areas. Thanks Joonas! * Added stuff about pMARS under Win95 (question 9), and the location of = a HTML version of the ICWS'94 draft (question 5). * New definition: decrement resistant * Modified the answer to question 1 * Changed error in P-space question (location 0 can be written to). * Added links to genetic algorithm resources. * Added a link to Kendall's page. * Added new Q&A (code formatting). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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 o= f the current instruction set? 5. What is ICWS'94? Which simulators support ICWS'94? 6. What is the ICWS? 7. What is Core Warrior? 8. Where are the Core War archives? 9. Where can I find a Core War system for ...? 10. Where can I find warrior code? 11. I do not have FTP. How do I get all this great stuff? 12. I do not have access to Usenet. How do I post and receive news? 13. Are there any Core War related WWW sites? 14. What is KotH? How do I enter? 15. Is it DAT 0, 0 or DAT #0, #0? How do I compare to core? 16. How does SLT (Skip if Less Than) work? 17. What is the difference between in-register and in-memory evaluation? 18. What is P-space? 19. What does "Missing ;assert .." in my message from KotH mean? 20. How should I format my code? 21. Are there any other Core War related resources I should know about? 22. What does (expression or term of your choice) mean? 23. Other questions? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. 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 virtua= l computer called MARS (for Memory Array Redcode Simulator). The object of th= e game is to cause all processes of the opposing program to terminate, leavin= g your program in sole posession of the machine. There are Core War systems available for most computer platforms. Redcode has been standardised by the ICWS, and is therefore transportable between all standard Core War systems. The system in which the programs run is quite simple. The core (the memory of the simulated computer) is a continuous array of instructions, empty except for the competing programs. The core wraps around, so that after the last instruction comes the first one again. There are no absolute addresses in Core War. That is, the address 0 doesn't mean the first instruction in the memory, but the instruction that contains the address 0. The next instruction is 1, and the previous one obviously -1= =2E However, all numbers are treated as positive, and are in the range 0 to (CORESIZE-1) where CORESIZE is the amount of memory locations in the core - this means that -1 would be treated as (CORESIZE-1) in any arithmetic operations, eg. 3218 + 7856 =3D (3218 + 7856) mod CORESIZE. Many people get confused by this, and it is particularly important when using the SLT instruction. Note that the source code of a program can still contain negative numbers, but if you start using instructions like DIV #-2, #5 it i= s important to know what effect they will have when executed. The basic unit of memory in Core War is one instruction. Each Redcode instruction contains three parts: * the opcode * the source address (a.k.a. the A-field) * the destination address (a.k.a. the B-field) The execution of the programs is equally simple. The MARS executes one instruction at a time, and then proceeds to the next one in the memory, unless the instruction explicitly tells it to jump to another address. If there is more than one program running, (as is usual) the programs execute alternately, one instruction at a time. The execution of each instruction takes the same time, one cycle, whether it is MOV, DIV or even DAT (which kills the process). Each program may have several processes running. These processes are stored in a task queue. When it is the program's turn to execute an instruction it dequeues a process and executes the corresponding instruction. Processes that are not killed during the execution of the instruction are put back into the task queue. Processes created by a SPL instruction are added to th= e task queue after the creating process is put back into the task queue. [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. 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] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. Where can I find more information about Core War? Core War was first described in the Core War Guidelines of March, 1984 by D= =2E 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: Library of Author Title Published ISBN Congress Call Number The Armchair Dewdney, Universe: An New York: W. QA76.6 .D517 A. K. Exploration of H. Freeman =A90-7167-1939-8 1988 Computer Worlds 1988 The Magic 0-7167-2125-2 Dewdney, Machine: A New York: W.(Hardcover), QA76.6 A. K. Handbook of H. Freeman =A90-7167-2144-9 .D5173 199= 0 Computer Sorcery 1990 (Paperback) 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. For those who are interested, Dewdney has a home page at http://www.csd.uwo.ca/faculty/akd/. [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4. 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 ftp://www.koth.org/corewar/documents/standards/redcode-icws-88. This document is formatted awkwardly and contains ambiguous statements. For a more approachable intro to Redcode, take a look at Mark Durham's tutorials, ftp://www.koth.org/corewar/documents/tutorial.1 and ftp://www.koth.org/corewar/documents/tutorial.2. Steven Morrell has prepared a more practically oriented Redcode tutorial that discusses different warrior classes with lots of example code. This an= d various other tutorials can be found at http://www.koth.org/papers.html. Even though ICWS'88 is still the "official" standard, you will find that most people are playing by ICWS'94 draft rules and extensions. [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5. 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 new addressing modes 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'9= 4 draft at ftp://www.koth.org/corewar/documents/icws94.0202.Z for more information. There is a HTML version of this document available at http://www.koth.org/icws94.html. 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://www.koth.org/corewar. Note that Redcoder onl= y supports a subset of ICWS'94. [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 6. What is the ICWS? About one year after Core War first appeared in Scientific American, 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). The ICWS is no longer active. [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7. What is Core Warrior? Following in the tradition of the Core War News Letter, Push Off, and The 9= 4 Warrior, Core Warrior is a newsletter about strategies and current standing= s in Core War. Started in October 1995, back issues of Core Warrior (and the other newsletters) are available at http://para.inria.fr/~doligez/corewar/. There is also a Core Warrior index page at http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/5427/warrior.htm which has a summary of the contents of each issue of Core Warrior. Many of the earlier issues contain useful information for beginners. [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 8. 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 ftp://ftp.csua.berkeley.edu/pub/corewar. 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. This site is mirrored at: * http://www.koth.org/corewar/ * ftp://www.koth.org/corewar/ * ftp://ftp.inria.fr/INRIA/Projects/para/doligez/cw/mirror The plain text version of this FAQ is automatically archived by news.answer= s (but this version is probably out-of-date). [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 9. Where can I find a Core War system for . . . ? Core War systems are available via anonymous FTP from www.koth.org in the 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 ftp://www.koth.org/corewar/incoming 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 www.koth.org. Generally, the older the program - the less likely it will be ICWS compatible. If you are looking for an ICWS'94 simulator, get pMARS, which is available for many platforms and can be downloaded from: * ftp://ftp.csua.berkeley.edu/pub/corewar (original site) * ftp://www.koth.org/corewar (Stormking mirror) * ftp://ftp.inria.fr/INRIA/Projects/para/doligez/cw/mirror (Planar mirror) * http://www.nc5.infi.net/~wtnewton/corewar/ (Terry Newton) * ftp://members.aol.com/ofechner/corewar (Fechter) Notes: * If you have trouble running pMARS with a graphical display under Win95 then check out http://www.koth.org/pmars.html which should have a pointer to the latest compilation of pMARS for this environment. * RPMs for the Alpha, PowerPC, Sparc and i386 can be found at ftp://ftp.inria.fr/INRIA/Projects/para/doligez/cw/pmars-rpm/ 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 www.koth.org: 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 pvms08.zip pMARS v0.8 for VMS build files/help (req. pmars08s.zip) ApMARS03.lha pMARS executable for Amiga (port of version 0.3.1) wincor11.zip MS-Windows system, shareware ($15) [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 10. Where can I find warrior code? To learn the game, it is a good idea to study previously posted warrior code. The FTP archives have code in the ftp://www.koth.org/corewar/redcode directory. A clearly organized on-line warrior collection is available at the Core War web sites (see below). [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 11. I do not have FTP. How do I get all this great stuff? There is an FTP email server at bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu. This address may no longer exist. I haven't tested it yet. Send email with a subject and bod= y text of "help" (without the quotes) for more information on its usage. Note that many FTP email gateways are shutting down due to abuse. To get a current list of FTP email servers, look at the Accessing the Internet by E-mail FAQ posted to news.answers. If you don't have access to Usenet, you can retrieve this FAQ one of the following ways: * Send mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the body containing "send usenet/news.answers/internet-services/access-via-email". * Send mail to mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk with the body containing "send lis-iis e-access-inet.txt". [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 12. 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@ttsg.com). Servers that allow you to post (but not receive) articles are available. Refer to the Accessing the Internet by E-Mail FAQ for more information. [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 13. 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 http://www.koth.org; pizza's is http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~pizza/koth . Damien Doligez (a.k.a. Planar) has a web page that features convenient access to regular newsletters (Push Off, The '94 Warrior, Core Warrior) and a well organized library of warriors: http://para.inria.fr/~doligez/corewar/. Convenient for U.S. users= , this site is also mirrored at Stormking. [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 14. 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 point= s 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 ha= s 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, KotH= s based on Bill's UNIX scripts but offering a wider variety of hills are are running at two sites: koth@koth.org is maintained by Scott J. Ellentuch (tuc@ttsg.com) and pizza@ecst.csuchico.edu by Thomas H. Davies (sd@ecst.csuchico.edu). Up until May '95, the two sites provided overlappin= g 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 divide= d up among the sites. The way you submit warriors to both KotHs is pretty muc= h 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 * Write a corewar program. KotH is fully ICWS '88 compatible, EXCEPT tha= t a comma (",") is required between two arguments. * 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. 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. Using ";name" is mandatory on the Pizza hills. 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-94, ;redcode-b, ;redcode-lp, ;redcode-x, ;redcode, ;redcode-94x or ;redcode-94m. The former four run at "pizza"= , the latter three at "stormking". More information on these hills is listed below. * Mail this file to koth@koth.org or pizza@ecst.csuchico.edu. "Pizza" requires a subject of "koth" (use the -s flag on most mailers). * 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. * 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 25 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 25 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. Duration Max. Hill Name Hill Core Max. Before Entry Min. Rounds I= nstr. Size Size Processes Distance Fought = Set Tie Length Pizza's ICWS '94 Draft Hill Ex= tended (Accessed with 25 8000 8000 80000 100 100 200 IC= WS '94 ";redcode-94") Dr= aft Pizza's Beginner's Hill Ex= tended (Accessed with 25 8000 8000 80000 100 100 200 IC= WS '94 ";redcode-b") Dr= aft Pizza's Experimental Ex= tended (Small) Hill 25 800 800 8000 20 20 200 IC= WS '94 (Accessed with Dr= aft ";redcode-x") Pizza's Limited Process (LP) Ex= tended Hill (Accessed 25 8000 8 80000 200 200 200 IC= WS '94 with Dr= aft ";redcode-lp") Stormking's ICWS '88 Standard Hill 20 8000 8000 80000 100 100 250 IC= WS '88 (Accessed with ";redcode") Stormking's ICWS '94 Experimental Ex= tended (Big) Hill 20 55440 55440 500000 200 200 250 IC= WS '94 (Accessed with Dr= aft ";redcode-94x") Stormking's ICWS '94 Draft Multi-Warrior Ex= tended Hill (Accessed 10 8000 8000 80000 100 100 200 IC= WS '94 with Dr= aft ";redcode-94m") Notes: * Warriors on the beginner's hill are retired at age 100 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 assemble= d but not actually pitted against the warriors on the hill. At "pizza", you can use ";redcode[-??] test" to do a test challenge of the Hill without affecting the status of the Hill. These challenges can be used to see how well your warrior does against the current Hill warriors. All hills run portable MARS (pMARS) version 0.8, a platform-independent Cor= e War system available at www.koth.org. The '94 and '94x hills allow five experimental opcodes and three experimental addressing modes currently not covered in the ICWS'94 draft document: * LDP - Load P-Space * STP - Store P-Space * 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] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 15. 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 (in source code) under ICWS'88 rules and strictly compliant assemblers (such as KotH o= r pmars -8) will not let you have a DAT 0, 0 instruction in your source code = - 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, fo= r comparison. Note that under ICWS'94, DAT 0, 0 is a legal instruction. [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 16. 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 (core 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 tha= n zero. [ToC] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 17. 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 Colour 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. Decrement Resistant Property of warriors making them functional (or at least partially functional) when overrun by a DJN-stream. 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 memor= y 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 www.koth.org. Paper A Paper-like program is one which replicates itself many times. Part o= f the Scissors (beats) Paper (beats) Stone (beats Scissors) analogy. P-Warrior A warrior which uses the results of previous round(s) in order to determine which strategy it will use. 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. Q^2 Scan A modern version of the Quick Scan where anything found is attacked almost immediately. 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 p= ointer 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 nothin= g 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 locatio= ns seq start+400*s1+200, start+400*s1+300 ;check two locatio= ns 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 nothin= g 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 -1, 0 spl 1 ;generate 6 consecutive processes silk spl 3620, #0 ;split to new copy mov >-1, }-1 ;copy self to new location mov bomb, >2000 ;linear bombing mov bomb, }2042 ;A-indirect bombing for anti-vamp jmp silk, {silk ;reset source pointer, make new cop= y bomb dat >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= =2E 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] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 23. Other questions? Just ask in the rec.games.corewar newsgroup or contact me. 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: * Mark Durham (wrote the original version of the FAQ) * Paul Kline * Randy Graham * Stefan Strack (maintained a recent version of the FAQ) The rec.games.corewar FAQ is Copyright =A9 1998 and maintained by Anton Marsden (amarsden@mcs.vuw.ac.nz). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: colemanr@marietta.edu Subject: Re: round 5 rules Date: 1998/12/25 Message-ID: <75uvth$obe$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1 In article <36811B2E.A98079D3@goofy.zdv.uni-mainz.de>, Christian Schmidt wrote: > Round 5 - The Multi-Warrior round > Man a kid goes away to college and nobody even tells him about new tournaments. Ryan Coleman -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own From: Hans-Peter Huth Subject: MARS for PalmPilot ? Date: 1998/12/27 Message-ID: #1/1 Subject says it all - is there a MARS for the 3COM PalmPilot? Tahnks HP -- +-----------------------------------------------------------+ |Zum Antworten bitte "nspam-" von der Mail-Adresse entfernen| |To answer, please remove "nspam-" from the mail-address | +----------- 8< --------------------------------------------+ From: dcgnlu@ggggg.ggg Subject: Dont read this! 6206 Date: 1998/12/27 Message-ID: <7641f6$r69208@www1.siast.sk.ca>#1/1 The sex gallery ! It's all FREE here ! FREE xxx memberships, passwords,pic,thumbnails,and much more ! Now featuring live hott erotic talk ! Cum by today ! WE'RE WAITING ! http://www.thesexgallery.com/ bcltvwozlfqbxmurqofyrvciwwkgqdkilwqelrfxeszzpptssmrsveudnsmhr From: Philip Kendall Subject: Re: MARS for PalmPilot ? Date: 1998/12/28 Message-ID: <3fmABfAGAth2Ew++@kendalls.demon.co.uk>#1/1 In article , Hans-Peter Huth wrote >Subject says it all - is there a MARS for the 3COM PalmPilot? Not as far as I know :-( As usual though, if you've got a C compiler, it shouldn't be too hard to get pmars to compile. (I don't know anything about the PalmPilot, so this comment may well be completely useless!) Phil -- / Philip Kendall (pak21@cam.ac.uk pak21@kendalls.demon.co.uk) \ \ http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/5427/corewar.htm / From: "Robert Macrae" Subject: Re: Round 4 rules and miscellany Date: 1998/12/28 Message-ID: <01be328c$d92f2b70$64010101@MARK>#1/1 At first sight this round asked players to select components from last round's grey warrior to fight a list of opponent, but in fact there was no prohibition on modifications; just limitations on the extra instructions which could be used and that interesting comment about "�hamper efforts to construct a core-clear�". Now why might Ian feel the need to do that? You face a broad spread of opponents, and any warrior is going to make a compromise between crushing some or scoring reasonably against them all. The scanners look the easiest targets as tuned decoys and/or bomb patterns are fairly easy to create. However QS-resistance, Imp-killing and Paper-stunning are all desirable. Now, if I had a well-trained GA handy, I would have written a completely different warrior, and I expected Joonas to go 5 for 5 this round. I believe it should be possible to launch a pair of Carbonites, modified to kill imps, with the bomber spacing and stepsize modified for near 100% scores against everything bar the papers� but this is as far as the plan had progressed by Friday evening. Something simpler was required, and a clear started to look good. With an SPL/DAT clear, you can expect reasonable scores against Papers and Imp/Stones. Judicious placement of the clear start and boot provides good scores against the scanners and oneshots -- except Silver Fang, because I ran out of time. The code required is SPL / MOV / MOV / DJN with SPL and DAT bombs; only the DJN and the DAT bomb need to be borrowed from the other warriors. The B-field of the DJN instruction is edited to put the stream in the right place. The rather neat clear Joonas used in the last round (apologies to earlier authors) permits a DAT <2667, <2*2667 bomb to carpet the whole of core, giving excellent results against these imps. Assugg is not a subtle or highly-tuned warrior but it was easy to write and it scored reasonably well against most of its opponents, which turned out to be good enough. -- ;redcode-94 ;name Assugg ;author Robert Macrae ;strategy Build a core clear ;assert 1 ; It would be nice to build a couple of hand-tuned bombers, add an ; imp-killer and space them so that they only lost to the papers... ; but I have simply not got time. Anyway, I liked that clear Joonas ; used last time... org bootc bptr equ (clear+3) gate mov 3500, 3495 ;ai dat <2667, <2667*2 ; borrow imp-kill from Sad ai dat 0,0 s2 spl #bptr-gate, ai-bptr s1 spl #bptr-gate, s2-bptr ; 2 passes of SPL until clear mov.i @bptr, }gate mov.i @bptr, }gate ; djn.f clear, ptr mov cs-1, >ptr for 4 mov }ptr, >ptr rof mov cad+1, @ptr mov.ab #-6, >ptr spl s1-2000 mov.ab #-4, >ptr dat 0, 0 ptr mov #s2, #gate-2000 for 5 spl 1, 1 spl #1, 1 spl 1, #1 spl @1, 1 spl 1, @1 spl #1, #1 spl #1, @1 spl @1, #1 spl @1, @1 rof ; ------------------------------------------------------------------ ; Code Bank carbon spl #0, #0 spl #0, <-1151+3 ptr mov 197, cad-(197*3500) cad add.ab {0, }0 djn.f -2, <-1151 init mov.i cbmb, *ptr jmp.b carbon, >-4000 cbmb dat >-1, >1 len EQU 9 fcp EQU 3039 scp EQU 2365 tcp EQU 777 boot spl 1, >-3000 ; 7 processes replace 9 in CCPaper spl 1, <-3200 ; for cost of extra Mov in launcher. mov -1, #0 frog spl @0, -1 mov }-2, >-2 spl @0, -1 spl @0, -1 mov 2, <-fcp+len+1 ; Wipe uncle. jmp -1, <-10 dat <2667, <2667*2 cs spl.b #0, <-700 spl.b imp+5334, <1 spl.b imp+2667, <-1000 imp mov.i #2667, *0 end From: KOTH Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - MultiWarrior 94 12/28/98 Date: 1998/12/28 Message-ID: <199812280500.AAA25294@midgaard.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 12/28/98 -=- www.KOTH.org is now hosting a '94 No Pspace Hill. -=- View the stats of all the Hills at: www.KOTH.org/standings.html -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG Multiwarrior 94 CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Tue Dec 15 13:08:52 EST 1998 # Name Author Score Age 1 Clearer v0.2 Ian Oversby 24 128 2 otest2 mjp 23 121 3 Blur Copy Robert Macrae 21 107 4 Aulder Man Ian Oversby 16 185 5 QueensGuard_I P.Kline 16 8 6 QueensGuard_II P.Kline 14 7 7 cstest M4 Christian Schmidt 13 79 8 scan test-dm -=|:-) 12 1 9 QueensGuard_III P.Kline 12 6 10 QueensGuard_IIII P.Kline 9 5 11 Burning Water Christian Schmidt 4 0 From: KOTH Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - 94 No Pspace 12/28/98 Date: 1998/12/28 Message-ID: <199812280500.AAA25304@midgaard.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 12/28/98 -=- www.KOTH.org is now hosting a '94 No Pspace Hill. -=- View the stats of all the Hills at: www.KOTH.org/standings.html -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG 94 No Pspace CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Sat Dec 19 13:06:43 EST 1998 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 43/ 40/ 17 Zooom... John Metcalf 147 5 2 43/ 39/ 18 Boys are Back in Town 1.1 Philip Kendall 146 30 3 37/ 30/ 33 Recovery Ian Oversby 143 28 4 25/ 11/ 63 The Fugitive David Moore 139 107 5 35/ 32/ 33 Fixed Ken Espiritu 139 88 6 35/ 31/ 34 Blacken Ian Oversby 139 15 7 34/ 31/ 35 The Stormbringer Christian Schmidt 138 39 8 31/ 25/ 44 Brigadeer M Joonas Pihlaja 137 24 9 34/ 31/ 35 Baseline Plus Ken Espiritu 137 86 10 33/ 29/ 38 Vain Ian Oversby 137 105 11 38/ 40/ 23 Floody River P.Kline 136 54 12 39/ 41/ 20 The Machine Anton Marsden 136 94 13 31/ 26/ 44 Gemini Dream John K Wilkinson 135 111 14 41/ 48/ 11 Win! David Moore 134 3 15 33/ 34/ 33 Head or Tail Christian Schmidt 132 76 16 35/ 39/ 26 Liquid Fire Christian Schmidt 132 1 17 30/ 29/ 41 The Yokozuna Christian Schmidt 131 13 18 35/ 40/ 26 STest Vladimir Bychkovskiy 129 19 19 39/ 48/ 13 Red Carpet David Moore 129 46 20 37/ 46/ 17 Blurstone M. J. Pihlaja 127 50 21 23/ 42/ 35 Stranger B John Metcalf 105 0 From: KOTH Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - ICWS Experimental 94 12/28/98 Date: 1998/12/28 Message-ID: <199812280500.AAA25298@midgaard.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 12/28/98 -=- www.KOTH.org is now hosting a '94 No Pspace Hill. -=- View the stats of all the Hills at: www.KOTH.org/standings.html -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG ICWS Experimental 94 CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Wed Dec 23 11:27:59 EST 1998 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 55/ 32/ 14 Black Moods Ian Oversby 178 3 2 53/ 29/ 17 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 177 7 3 39/ 16/ 45 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 161 29 4 31/ 6/ 64 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 156 76 5 28/ 2/ 69 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 154 24 6 31/ 19/ 50 Rosebud Beppe 142 55 7 38/ 38/ 24 Dr. Gate X Franz 139 47 8 38/ 44/ 18 Tsunami v0.3 X Ian Oversby 132 1 9 34/ 38/ 28 BigBoy Robert Macrae 130 101 10 39/ 49/ 13 S.E.T.I. 4-X JKW 129 77 11 35/ 42/ 23 Stepping Stone 94x Kurt Franke 127 62 12 38/ 49/ 14 BiShot Christian Schmidt 127 15 13 33/ 41/ 26 Dr. Recover Franz 126 46 14 22/ 20/ 58 Sphere v0.2 Christian Schmidt 125 18 15 35/ 46/ 20 Pagan John K W 124 61 16 35/ 46/ 19 Memories Beppe Bezzi 124 83 17 31/ 38/ 31 Lithium X 8 John K Wilkinson 123 67 18 23/ 24/ 53 Purple v0.1 Christian Schmidt 123 28 19 37/ 55/ 8 HSA Copy 55440 Robert Macrae 120 44 20 33/ 45/ 22 13 Christian Schmidt 120 14 21 31/ 49/ 19 Clipped Star John Metcalf 114 0 From: KOTH Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - Standard 12/28/98 Date: 1998/12/28 Message-ID: <199812280500.AAA25290@midgaard.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 12/28/98 -=- www.KOTH.org is now hosting a '94 No Pspace Hill. -=- View the stats of all the Hills at: www.KOTH.org/standings.html -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG Standard KotH CoreWar Hill : Last battle concluded at : Wed Dec 16 16:07:17 EST 1998 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 37/ 19/ 44 Freight Train David Moore 155 34 2 34/ 21/ 45 Guardian Ian Oversby 147 33 3 43/ 42/ 16 Foggy Swamp Beppe Bezzi 143 30 4 39/ 36/ 25 PacMan David Moore 143 63 5 42/ 42/ 16 Blur '88 Anton Marsden 143 71 6 42/ 43/ 14 Iron Gate Wayne Sheppard 141 359 7 42/ 45/ 13 Blurstone '88 M. J. Pihlaja 140 28 8 40/ 40/ 21 Stasis David Moore 139 141 9 38/ 37/ 25 Tangle Trap David Moore 139 107 10 30/ 22/ 48 sIMPly.Red v0.85 Leonardo Humberto 139 13 11 27/ 16/ 57 EV Paper John K Wilkinson 138 47 12 29/ 20/ 50 The Marlboro Man 1.13 M Joonas Pihlaja 138 9 13 39/ 41/ 20 Beholder's Eye V1.7 W. Mintardjo 136 309 14 27/ 18/ 55 Test I Ian Oversby 136 90 15 35/ 36/ 28 Leapfrog David Moore 134 62 16 27/ 20/ 53 Evoltmp 88 John K W 134 84 17 36/ 38/ 26 Kitchen Sink Robert Macrae 133 32 18 20/ 10/ 70 Trident^2 '88 John K W 131 57 19 25/ 22/ 52 Rocking-Chair v0.55 Leonardo Humberto 128 5 20 20/ 47/ 32 The Locust Lukasz Adamowski 93 1 21 13/ 72/ 15 Argento v1.0a Hern�n Perrone 53 0 From: John.Metcalf@p18.f94.chaos.camelot.co.uk (John Metcalf) Subject: Age of hill Date: 1998/12/31 Message-ID: #1/1 Greetings... The '94 hill has aged by 19 in the last 4 months. At this rate, my new warrior will take over two years to get anywhere the new hall of fame :-( Presuming it lasts that is... John From: John.Metcalf@p18.f94.chaos.camelot.co.uk (John Metcalf) Subject: 94 Hill / Any record? Date: 1998/12/31 Message-ID: #1/1 Greetings... Does anyone have a record of the warriors entering and leaving the hill since Corewarrior #69? What I'm after are the original lines from Pizza's messages, just like would be published in Corewarrior, including position, score, etc. Thanks, John From: TTSG Subject: Happy New Year Date: 1998/12/31 Message-ID: <199812311723.MAA13781@heimdall.ttsg.com>#1/1 Happy New Year all! Tuc/TTSG From: Paul-V Khuong Subject: Re: Stranger code Date: 1998/12/31 Message-ID: <19981231152340.19331.rocketmail@send103.yahoomail.com>#1/1 John Metcalf wrote: > > Greetings... > > Here is the code for Stranger, my incendiary which is currently > on the beginners' hill. I've tried all manner of things to improve > it without success including a longer bombing phase etc :-( I'll try(i've done 2 incendiaries...) > ;redcode-b quiet > ;name Stranger > ;author John Metcalf > ;strategy Incendiary bomber -> d-clear > ;assert CORESIZE==8000 > step equ 5368 > dist equ 2581 > ib: spl #1000, 1-dist How about changing this bomb to spl #1000, -1-dist? > loop:mov ib, @gunk+step-dist > mov ia, @loop > add #step, loop > gunk:jmp loop, >ia+dist > clr: mov bom, >ib-4 > djn.f clr, >ib-4 > ia: mov dist, >dist > bom: dat >2667, >13 > end ib Is it possible to change the clear to a 2-pass clear? It'd be worth the space, i think... == Vive le Qu�bec libre... d� souverainistes!!! _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com