From: "Roger" Subject: NEW AND FREE FANTASY RPG GOING GREAT Date: 2000/01/02 Message-ID: <84o1dm$rac$1@news.xmission.com>#1/1 We are getting tons of hit and downloads. Thanks to everyone that has wrote back and told us what they think. http://www.challengergames.net is giving away Origin's Throe, "The Coming of Winter", a fantasy RPG, as a sample game system for you to download for free. It's been 13 years in the making. Just go to "challengergames.net" and click on the "downloads" section and it will take you to it. Challenger Games has a link to the Adobe site to get the Adobe Acrobat Reader (it's free). You will need WinZip to unzip the download (there is a link given on the downloads page that will take you to both these sites to download each. They are both free of charge. This new FRPG is a shareware. It is not a video game, but books, assisted by the art and techniques of Adobe Acrobat. In the near future Series 2+ will be available. If you have questions or comments about the game system, or how to play it, please feel free to ICQ or EMAIL the author. You can even leave feedback on the "feedback" page on the site. Author's ICQ #: 45119612 EMAIL: jahtha@vitrex.net You will notice that there is a catastrophic lack of artwork. Challenger Games needs artists to submit art via electronic mail. See the website for details. From: "Leonardo H. Liporati" Subject: Re: IRC meeting Jan 3rd, 2000 Date: 2000/01/03 Message-ID: <003001bf5655$d6803ac0$0d4d10ac@ispent>#1/1 Monday, 3/January/2000 21:13, Lukasz Adamowski wrote: [...snip...] >Now it's about 8pm GMT (maybe later) Monday 3rd January Y2K and I think I >missed the meeting. Have anyone >been at irc.koth.org? And what have you been talking about? > > Lukasz "Lucky" > I think the meeting was a FIASCO. I connected about 7:05pm GMT and there was only one person connected: Tinman(?) from Seattle/USA. Unfortunately, my modem dropped the connection while I was chatting. When I returned, he was just leaving. I waited for someone else. At 7:30pm GMT, Anton Marsden connected and we talked about half an hour. We disconnected about 8pm GMT. I think Anton reconnected one hour later as he said to me, but I couldn�t reconnect that time. Bye, Leonardo. From: cgbean@alaska.net Subject: Re: IRC meeting Jan 3rd, 2000 Date: 2000/01/03 Message-ID: <38714221.2407@alaska.net>#1/1 > Now it's about 8pm GMT (maybe later) Monday 3rd January Y2K and I think I > missed the meeting. Have anyone > been at irc.koth.org? And what have you been talking about? > > Lukasz "Lucky" Yes, please post the discussions. Also, I suggest having two chat times (depending on the number of people who showed up), as 7 GMT doesn't work too well for me (the cold guy in Alaska), and I'm sure it isn't too suitable for some others. So, how about a 7 GMT chat, and an 11 GMT or something similiar? That should fairly well cover most time zone evenings...BTW, are these going to be monthly, weekly, or daily? Well, off to dig myself outta my little igloo. Ciao! -Winston (WFB) From: Lukasz Adamowski Subject: Re: IRC meeting Jan 3rd, 2000 Date: 2000/01/03 Message-ID: #1/1 On Wed, 22 Dec 1999 jkw@austin.rr.com wrote: > Ok looking over the responses I got, the ideal time would seem > to be 7pm GMT on Sunday. (This translates to 1pm CST...) Seeing > as how it's the day after Christmas, I wouldn't be able to make > it this Sunday, and probably some other people wouldn't either. > > So I propose January 3rd, 2000, 7pm GMT be our first meeting time. > /server irc.koth.org > /join #corewars > > -jkw > > Now it's about 8pm GMT (maybe later) Monday 3rd January Y2K and I think I missed the meeting. Have anyone been at irc.koth.org? And what have you been talking about? Lukasz "Lucky" From: "Rizzo" Subject: IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Free Strip Card Game IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Date: 2000/01/03 Message-ID: <84r2ud$7670$16@newssvr03-int.news.prodigy.com>#1/1 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Strip Indian 2000 is here! -100% freeware -no registration or trial period -no adult check -various other games, utilities, and apps Absolutely no catch just give us a look. www.lfplc.org Show your support, sign the guestbook IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - Standard 01/03/00 Date: 2000/01/03 Message-ID: <200001030500.AAA19639@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 01/03/00 -=- 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 Jan 1 17:04:13 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 38/ 21/ 42 Freight Train David Moore 155 62 2 36/ 21/ 43 Test Alexander (Sasha) Wa 151 1 3 36/ 24/ 40 sIMPly.Red v0.95 Leonardo Humberto 149 19 4 35/ 23/ 42 Guardian Ian Oversby 146 61 5 40/ 37/ 23 PacMan David Moore 142 91 6 42/ 44/ 13 Blur '88 Anton Marsden 140 99 7 42/ 44/ 14 Foggy Swamp Beppe Bezzi 140 58 8 38/ 36/ 26 Stillborn Bomber v0.2 mjp 140 2 9 40/ 41/ 18 Stasis David Moore 139 169 10 39/ 39/ 23 Tangle Trap David Moore 138 135 11 28/ 18/ 54 EV Paper John K Wilkinson 138 75 12 39/ 41/ 19 Beholder's Eye V1.7 W. Mintardjo 138 337 13 35/ 33/ 32 Frog Sticker P.Kline 137 11 14 30/ 24/ 46 Shish-Ka-Bob Ben Ford 135 17 15 41/ 48/ 11 Blurstone '88 M. J. Pihlaja 135 56 16 27/ 21/ 51 Test I Ian Oversby 134 118 17 40/ 47/ 13 Iron Gate Wayne Sheppard 133 387 18 36/ 40/ 24 Leapfrog David Moore 132 90 19 37/ 42/ 22 Kitchen Sink Robert Macrae 132 60 20 27/ 24/ 49 Evoltmp 88 John K W 131 112 21 12/ 72/ 16 Gnom 16 Anonymous 51 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - 94 No Pspace 01/03/00 Date: 2000/01/03 Message-ID: <200001030500.AAA19655@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 01/03/00 -=- 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 Jan 1 18:16:22 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 36/ 20/ 44 Uninvited John Metcalf 151 7 2 46/ 42/ 13 Stalker P.Kline 150 40 3 45/ 42/ 14 Eraser II Ken Espiritu 147 12 4 36/ 26/ 38 Experimental John Metcalf 147 11 5 35/ 24/ 41 Omnibus John Metcalf 146 64 6 33/ 21/ 46 nPaper II Paul-V Khuong 145 55 7 44/ 43/ 14 Boys are Back in Town 1.1 Philip Kendall 145 317 8 43/ 42/ 14 Zooom... John Metcalf 144 191 9 44/ 43/ 14 Jinx Christian Schmidt 144 18 10 32/ 20/ 49 Jade Ben Ford 143 124 11 36/ 29/ 35 Blacken Ian Oversby 143 302 12 32/ 21/ 47 EvoP 3 Ken Espiritu 142 51 13 44/ 48/ 8 Kenshin Steve Gunnell 141 10 14 43/ 45/ 12 Win! David Moore 140 290 15 30/ 21/ 49 Jaguar Christian Schmidt 140 42 16 28/ 16/ 56 Cinammon John Metcalf 139 20 17 32/ 28/ 40 Ant Factory Christian Schmidt 136 150 18 31/ 28/ 41 Icen Ben Ford 134 149 19 42/ 51/ 7 Iron Curtain Ken Espiritu 133 1 20 40/ 46/ 14 Qshot Christian Schmidt 133 61 21 7/ 92/ 2 Schlau Kim Neunert 22 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - ICWS Experimental 94 01/03/00 Date: 2000/01/03 Message-ID: <200001030500.AAA19647@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 01/03/00 -=- 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 31 01:51:34 EST 1999 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 53/ 32/ 16 Black Moods Ian Oversby 174 7 2 48/ 29/ 23 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 166 11 3 31/ 6/ 63 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 156 80 4 35/ 16/ 49 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 155 33 5 26/ 3/ 72 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 149 28 6 33/ 20/ 47 Rosebud Beppe 146 59 7 39/ 37/ 25 Dr. Gate X Franz 141 51 8 38/ 38/ 24 Stepping Stone 94x Kurt Franke 139 66 9 36/ 33/ 32 Draken Fire X Ben Ford 139 2 10 38/ 42/ 20 Tsunami v0.3 X Ian Oversby 133 5 11 35/ 36/ 29 BigBoy Robert Macrae 133 105 12 31/ 30/ 39 Self-Modifying Code X Ben Ford 133 1 13 33/ 35/ 32 Lithium X 8 John K Wilkinson 131 71 14 40/ 48/ 12 S.E.T.I. 4-X JKW 131 81 15 37/ 44/ 19 Pagan John K W 130 65 16 37/ 45/ 18 Memories Beppe Bezzi 128 87 17 21/ 16/ 63 Sphere v0.2 Christian Schmidt 126 22 18 37/ 49/ 14 WingShot Ben Ford 126 3 19 36/ 49/ 15 BiShot Christian Schmidt 124 19 20 22/ 19/ 59 Purple v0.1 Christian Schmidt 124 32 21 1/ 70/ 29 SuperLemming Byron Shock 32 0 From: jkw@austin.rr.com Subject: Next attempted IRC meeting: Sunday Jan 9th, 2000 11 GMT Date: 2000/01/04 Message-ID: <4.1.20000104172055.009a6340@pop-server>#1/1 At 08:29 PM 1/3/00 -0500, you wrote: >> Now it's about 8pm GMT (maybe later) Monday 3rd January Y2K and I think I >> missed the meeting. Have anyone >> been at irc.koth.org? And what have you been talking about? >> >> Lukasz "Lucky" > >Yes, please post the discussions. Also, I suggest having two chat times >(depending on the number of people who showed up), as 7 GMT doesn't work >too well for me (the cold guy in Alaska), and I'm sure it isn't too >suitable for some others. So, how about a 7 GMT chat, and an 11 GMT or >something similiar? That should fairly well cover most time zone >evenings...BTW, are these going to be monthly, weekly, or daily? Well, >off to dig myself outta my little igloo. Ciao! >-Winston (WFB) Damn... um... I meant for the meeting to be on Sunday, I should've said the 2nd, not the 3rd...oh that's just craptastic. Sorry if that confused anyone, geez why didn't anyone email me about that error, heh. But since 7 GMT didn't do too well, sure let's try 11 GMT next time... Next attempted IRC meeting: Sunday Jan 9th, 2000 11 GMT -jkw From: "Ransom Smith" Subject: Help! Date: 2000/01/04 Message-ID: #1/1 Ever since Midnight, January 1st, my P-space logic has been broken! :-) From: Dennis Morris Subject: Re: Core War Frequently Asked Questions (rec.games.corewar FAQ) Date: 2000/01/05 Message-ID: <3873AD15.7A317614@home.com> I do not know how I got onto your list, but please delete my address. Thank you Anton Marsden wrote: > > Archive-name: games/corewar-faq > Last-Modified: September 4, 1999 > Version: 4.2 > URL: http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~anton/cw/corewar-faq.html > Copyright: (c) 1999 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. A plain text version of this document is posted > every two weeks. The latest hypertext version is available at > http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~anton/cw/corewar-faq.html and the latest > plain text version is available at > http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~anton/cw/corewar-faq.txt. > > This document is currently being maintained by Anton Marsden > (anton@paradise.net.nz). > > Last modified: Sat Sep 4 00:22:22 NZST 1999 > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > To Do > > * Add the new No-PSpace '94 hill location > * Add online location of Dewdney's articles > * Make question 17 easier to understand. Add a state diagram? > * 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 primary location of FAQ (again!) > * Changed Philip Kendall's home page address. > * Updated list server information > * Changed primary location of FAQ > * Vector-launching code was fixed thanks to Ting Hsu. > * Changed the location of Ryan Coleman's paper (LaunchPad -> Launchpad) > * Changed pauillac.inria.fr to para.inria.fr > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Table of Contents > > 1. What is Core War > 2. Is it "Core War" or "Core Wars"? > 3. Where can I find more information about Core War? > 4. Core War has changed since Dewdney's articles. Where do I get a copy of > the current instruction set? > 5. What is ICWS'94? Which simulators support ICWS'94? > 6. What is the ICWS? > 7. What is 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 virtual > computer called MARS (for Memory Array Redcode Simulator). The object of the > game is to cause all processes of the opposing program to terminate, leaving > your program in sole posession of the machine. > > There are Core War systems available for most computer platforms. Redcode > has been 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. > 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 = (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 is > 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 the > 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. > 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 �0-7167-1939-8 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 �0-7167-2144-9 .D5173 1990 > 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.Z. 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.Z and > ftp://www.koth.org/corewar/documents/tutorial.2.Z. > > Steven Morrell has prepared a more practically oriented Redcode tutorial > that discusses different warrior classes with lots of example code. This and > 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'94 > 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/info/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 only > 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 94 > Warrior, Core Warrior is a newsletter about strategies and current standings > 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.kendalls.demon.co.uk/pak21/corewar/warrior.html 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.answers > (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 (koth.org 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 body > 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 Koth.Org list processor. To join, send the message > > SUB COREWAR-L FirstName LastName > > to listproc@koth.org. You can send mail to corewar-l@koth.org to post even > if you are not a member of the list. Responsible for the listserver is Scott > J. Ellentuch (ttsg@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 koth.org. > > [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 points > than a warrior that survives together with other warriors. Points are > calculated from the formula (W*W-1)/S, where W is the total number of > warriors and S the number of surviving warriors. The pMARS documentation has > more information on multi-warrior scoring. > > The idea for an email-based Core War server came from David Lee. The > original KotH was developed and run by William Shubert at Intel starting in > 1991, and discontinued after almost three years of service. Currently, KotHs > based on Bill's UNIX scripts but offering a wider variety of hills are are > running at two sites: koth@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 overlapping > services, i.e. the some of the hill types were offered by both "pizza" and > "stormking". To conserve resources, the different hill types are now divided > up among the sites. The way you submit warriors to both KotHs is pretty much > the same. Therefore, the entry rules described below apply to both "pizza" > and "stormking" unless otherwise noted. > > Entry Rules for King of the Hill Corewar > > * Write a corewar program. KotH is fully ICWS '88 compatible, EXCEPT that > 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 Instr. > Size Size Processes Distance Fought Set > Tie Length > Pizza's ICWS '94 > Draft Hill Extended > (Accessed with 25 8000 8000 80000 100 100 200 ICWS '94 > ";redcode-94") Draft > Pizza's Beginner's Extended > Hill (Accessed 25 8000 8000 80000 100 100 200 ICWS '94 > with ";redcode-b") Draft > Pizza's > Experimental Extended > (Small) Hill 25 800 800 8000 20 20 200 ICWS '94 > (Accessed with Draft > ";redcode-x") > Pizza's Limited > Process (LP) Hill Extended > (Accessed with 25 8000 8 80000 200 200 200 ICWS '94 > ";redcode-lp") Draft > Stormking's ICWS > '88 Standard Hill > (Accessed with 20 8000 8000 80000 100 100 250 ICWS '88 > ";redcode") > Stormking's ICWS > '94 No Pspace Hill > (Accessed with 20 8000 8000 80000 100 100 250 ICWS '94 > ";redcode-94nop") > Stormking's ICWS > '94 Experimental Extended > (Big) Hill 20 55440 55440 500000 200 200 250 ICWS '94 > (Accessed with Draft > ";redcode-94x") > Stormking's ICWS > '94 Multi-Warrior Extended > Hill (Accessed 10 8000 8000 80000 100 100 200 ICWS '94 > with Draft > ";redcode-94m") > > Note: 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 assembled > 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 Core > 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 or > 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, for > 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 than > zero. > > [ToC] > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: anton@paradise.net.nz (Anton Marsden) Subject: Core War Frequently Asked Questions (rec.games.corewar FAQ) Date: 2000/01/05 Message-ID: Archive-name: games/corewar-faq Last-Modified: September 4, 1999 Version: 4.2 URL: http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~anton/cw/corewar-faq.html Copyright: (c) 1999 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. A plain text version of this document is posted every two weeks. The latest hypertext version is available at http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~anton/cw/corewar-faq.html and the latest plain text version is available at http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~anton/cw/corewar-faq.txt. This document is currently being maintained by Anton Marsden (anton@paradise.net.nz). Last modified: Sat Sep 4 00:22:22 NZST 1999 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To Do * Add the new No-PSpace '94 hill location * Add online location of Dewdney's articles * Make question 17 easier to understand. Add a state diagram? * 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 primary location of FAQ (again!) * Changed Philip Kendall's home page address. * Updated list server information * Changed primary location of FAQ * Vector-launching code was fixed thanks to Ting Hsu. * Changed the location of Ryan Coleman's paper (LaunchPad -> Launchpad) * Changed pauillac.inria.fr to para.inria.fr ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Table of Contents 1. What is Core War 2. Is it "Core War" or "Core Wars"? 3. Where can I find more information about Core War? 4. Core War has changed since Dewdney's articles. Where do I get a copy of the current instruction set? 5. What is ICWS'94? Which simulators support ICWS'94? 6. What is the ICWS? 7. What is 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 virtual computer called MARS (for Memory Array Redcode Simulator). The object of the game is to cause all processes of the opposing program to terminate, leaving your program in sole posession of the machine. There are Core War systems available for most computer platforms. Redcode has been 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. 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 = (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 is 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 the 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. 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 �0-7167-1939-8 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 �0-7167-2144-9 .D5173 1990 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.Z. 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.Z and ftp://www.koth.org/corewar/documents/tutorial.2.Z. Steven Morrell has prepared a more practically oriented Redcode tutorial that discusses different warrior classes with lots of example code. This and 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'94 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/info/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 only 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 94 Warrior, Core Warrior is a newsletter about strategies and current standings 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.kendalls.demon.co.uk/pak21/corewar/warrior.html 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.answers (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 (koth.org 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 body 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 Koth.Org list processor. To join, send the message SUB COREWAR-L FirstName LastName to listproc@koth.org. You can send mail to corewar-l@koth.org to post even if you are not a member of the list. Responsible for the listserver is Scott J. Ellentuch (ttsg@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 koth.org. [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 points than a warrior that survives together with other warriors. Points are calculated from the formula (W*W-1)/S, where W is the total number of warriors and S the number of surviving warriors. The pMARS documentation has more information on multi-warrior scoring. The idea for an email-based Core War server came from David Lee. The original KotH was developed and run by William Shubert at Intel starting in 1991, and discontinued after almost three years of service. Currently, KotHs based on Bill's UNIX scripts but offering a wider variety of hills are are running at two sites: koth@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 overlapping services, i.e. the some of the hill types were offered by both "pizza" and "stormking". To conserve resources, the different hill types are now divided up among the sites. The way you submit warriors to both KotHs is pretty much the same. Therefore, the entry rules described below apply to both "pizza" and "stormking" unless otherwise noted. Entry Rules for King of the Hill Corewar * Write a corewar program. KotH is fully ICWS '88 compatible, EXCEPT that 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 Instr. Size Size Processes Distance Fought Set Tie Length Pizza's ICWS '94 Draft Hill Extended (Accessed with 25 8000 8000 80000 100 100 200 ICWS '94 ";redcode-94") Draft Pizza's Beginner's Extended Hill (Accessed 25 8000 8000 80000 100 100 200 ICWS '94 with ";redcode-b") Draft Pizza's Experimental Extended (Small) Hill 25 800 800 8000 20 20 200 ICWS '94 (Accessed with Draft ";redcode-x") Pizza's Limited Process (LP) Hill Extended (Accessed with 25 8000 8 80000 200 200 200 ICWS '94 ";redcode-lp") Draft Stormking's ICWS '88 Standard Hill (Accessed with 20 8000 8000 80000 100 100 250 ICWS '88 ";redcode") Stormking's ICWS '94 No Pspace Hill (Accessed with 20 8000 8000 80000 100 100 250 ICWS '94 ";redcode-94nop") Stormking's ICWS '94 Experimental Extended (Big) Hill 20 55440 55440 500000 200 200 250 ICWS '94 (Accessed with Draft ";redcode-94x") Stormking's ICWS '94 Multi-Warrior Extended Hill (Accessed 10 8000 8000 80000 100 100 200 ICWS '94 with Draft ";redcode-94m") Note: 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 assembled 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 Core 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 or 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, for 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 than 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 memory size. Off-axis scanners use some other separation. Optimal Constants (also optima-type constants) Bomb or scan increments chosen to cover core most effectively, i.e. leaving gaps of uniform size. Programs to calculate optimal constants and lists of optimal numbers are available at www.koth.org. Paper A Paper-like program is one which replicates itself many times. Part of 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 pointer rof jmn attack, found ;if we have something, get it s2 for 8 cmp start+100*(s2+6), start+100*(s2+6)+4000 mov #start+100*(s2+6)-found, found rof found jmz moveme, #0 ;skip attack if qscan found nothing attack cmp @found, start-1 ;does found points to empty space? add #4000, found ;no, so point to correct location mov start-1, @found ;move a bomb moveme jmp 0, 0 In ICWS'94, the quick scan code is more compact because of the SNE opcode: start ;'94 scan s1 for 4 sne start+400*s1, start+400*s1+100 ;check two locations seq start+400*s1+200, start+400*s1+300 ;check two locations mov #start+400*s1-found, found ;they differ so set pointer rof jmn which, found ;if we have something, get it s2 for 4 sne start+400*(s2+4), start+400*(s2+4)+100 seq start+400*(s2+4)+200, start+400*(s2+4)+300 mov #start+400*(s2+4)-found-100, found rof found jmz moveme, #0 ;skip attack if qscan found nothing add #100, -1 ;increment pointer till we get the which jmn -1, @found ;right place mov start-1, @found ;move a bomb moveme jmp 0, 0 Reflection Copy of a program or program part, positioned to make the active program invisible to a CMP-scanner. Replicator Generic for Paper. A program which makes many copies of itself, each copy also making copies. Self-Splitting Strategy of amplifying the number of processes executing a piece of code. example spl 0 loop add #10, example mov example, @example jmp loop Scanner A program which searches through core for an opponent rather than bombing blindly. Scissors A program designed to beat replicators, usually a (B-field scanning) vampire. Part of the Paper-Scissors-Stone analogy. Self-Repair Ability of a program to fix it's own code after attack. Silk A replicator which splits off a process to each new copy before actually copying the code. This allows it to replicate extremely quickly. This technique is only possible under the '94 draft, because it requires post-increment indirect addressing. Example: spl 1 mov -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 copy 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. 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: sz EQU 2667 spl 1 spl 1 jmp @vt, }0 vt dat #0, imp+0*sz ; start of vector table dat #0, imp+1*sz dat #0, imp+2*sz dat #0, imp+3*sz ; end of vector table imp mov.i #0, sz [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) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright � 1999 Anton Marsden. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Antonio Requejo Subject: Re: NEW AND FREE FANTASY RPG GOING GREAT Date: 2000/01/07 Message-ID: <38761945.D3178BEF@esegi.es>#1/1 telford@xenon.triode.net.au wrote: > Don't take this as a criticism of you but Acrobat files are > already compressed with a zip derivative algorithm so putting > them through winzip is pointless. Meeec! Thank you for playing, but... Have you ever tried to compress them? Because sometimes they compress a lot. I use to work with PDFs (with the Adobe Acrobat 4.0 - Not the reader) and I can tell you that they compress... Antonio -- http://www.esegi.es mailto:arequejo@esegi.es SGI-Soluciones Globales Internet +34-91-806-4640 +34-91-806-4641 (FAX) From: innydb@yahoo.com Subject: Computer Games With Largest Selection 6455 Date: 2000/01/07 Message-ID: <387610c1@news.dts-online.net>#1/1 New & Used Games At The Lowest Prices http://skyman_1869.vdirect.com xlejjldwzhppljnrvmncwzlxuikueioxemtsyuvjplqfpczoqbcqmhbyhwrutrrwizy From: mark@stallion.slingo.nq.nu (Mark Slingo) Subject: Re: NEW AND FREE FANTASY RPG GOING GREAT (Off- Topic) Date: 2000/01/07 Message-ID: <947247227.105317@sun.znet.net.au>#1/1 > GhostScript), and the Reader (and there are clones) will run on 'most' > platforms, I believe a Linux port is around the corner. Acrabat Reader for LINUX (which I run on FreeBSD - http://www.freebsd.org) has been around for quite a while now. Mark. From: ken@spamcop.net (Ken Sharp) Subject: Re: NEW AND FREE FANTASY RPG GOING GREAT (Off- Topic) Date: 2000/01/07 Message-ID: #1/1 In article <8548fk$r0u$1@hyperion.triode.net.au>, telford@xenon.triode.net.au says... > > Challenger Games has a link to the Adobe site to get the Adobe Acrobat > > Reader (it's free). You will need WinZip to unzip the download (there is a > > link given on the downloads page that will take you to both these sites to > > download each. They are both free of charge. > > Don't take this as a criticism of you but Acrobat files are already compressed > with a zip derivative algorithm so putting them through winzip is pointless. Actually, I think you will find he was referring to the download of Reader, which is (quite reasonably) zipped for Windows platforms... Also, a PDF file *may* be compressed with Flate (same as current zip algorithms, eg Zlib), or it may not, its not compulsory. > If you want to make your distribution smaller you will probably get better > results starting with postscript files and putting them through a zipper > instead of the PDF files. Rather subjective, since Distiller will (if desired) also subsample images to a lower resolution. Additionally, many PostScript files come complete with large headers, and complete fonts where Distiller can subset the fonts when embedding, and the overhead of the cross-reference table is usually smaller than the endless dictionaries downloaded by some programs (Illustrator is a prime culprit). A PDF file may be smaller than a zipped PostScript file. Also many people haven't the technical ability to print a PostScript file (no PS printer, can't handle GhostScript), and the Reader (and there are clones) will run on 'most' platforms, I believe a Linux port is around the corner. Ken From: Subject: Re: NEW AND FREE FANTASY RPG GOING GREAT Date: 2000/01/07 Message-ID: <8548fk$r0u$1@hyperion.triode.net.au>#1/1 > Challenger Games has a link to the Adobe site to get the Adobe Acrobat > Reader (it's free). You will need WinZip to unzip the download (there is a > link given on the downloads page that will take you to both these sites to > download each. They are both free of charge. Don't take this as a criticism of you but Acrobat files are already compressed with a zip derivative algorithm so putting them through winzip is pointless. If you want to make your distribution smaller you will probably get better results starting with postscript files and putting them through a zipper instead of the PDF files. Also, WinZip costs money if you want to use it beyond the trial period but you might consider Info-ZIP's WiZ: http://www.cdrom.com/pub/infozip/WiZ.html Which works very nicely and is properly free. - Tel From: bzolkh@sdfsdf.com Subject: LEGAL C`A`B`L`E TV D`E-S`C`R`A`M`B`L`E`R 2444 Date: 2000/01/08 Message-ID: #1/1 LEGAL C`A`B`L`E TV D`E-S`C`R`A`M`B`L`E`R Want to watch Sporting Events?--Movies?--Pay-Per-View??....FREE!!!! *This is the Famous R-O Shack TV D-e-s-c-r-a-m-b-l-e-r You can assemble it from Radio Shack parts for about $12 to $15. We Send You: 1, E-Z To follow Assembly Instructions. 2. E-Z To read Original Drawings. 3. Total Parts List. **** PLUS SOMETHING NEW YOU MUST HAVE! **** Something you can't do without. THE UP-TO-DATE 6 PAGE REPORT: USING A D-E-S-C-R-A-M-B-L-E-R LEGALLY Warning: You should not build a TV D-e-s-c-r-a-m-b-l-e-r without reading this report first. You get the complete 6 page report and instruction package including the instruction plans, the easy to follow diagram, and most important of all the "Using a D`e`s`c`r`a`m`b`l`e`r LEGALLY Report all for just--$10.00 Fill out form below and send it, along with your $10.00 payment to: C.a.b.l.e.t.r.o.n FREE-TV 12187 S. Orange Blossom Trail #116 Orlando Fl 32837 (Cash, Check or Money Order.) (Florida residents include 7% Florida State Sales Tax) (All orders outside the U.S.A. add $5.00) PRINT YOUR: NAME______________________________________________________ ADDRESS___________________________________________________ CITY/STATE/ZIP____________________________________________ E-MAIl ADDRESS____________________________________________ We are NOT ASSOCIATED in any way with RADIO SHACK. Neither the design nor instructions were developed by, are sold by, or are endorsed by Radio Shack. Parts for this fine-tuning device are available at many electronics stores (including Radio Shack) This is not a Radio Shack product. ybtrujnlptcofoefxoxdtsujllkojppecdgersobvbiuqtzjggejyehutqmkpmzvlrmmhcthjrsuzmntclfpnwdhfservrtqstmxubpywrewkgdefewcnktpkrjqgriipjctjblvydpibpgjfkdcegqnbpzoxzcsrofhdqssibwjccgdthvxqzeuunxubgknqjtthkujplyipfnfotxwberghkdouxtpduqmyvdomjtlvnnlfxifngqrejleinnruxttimcdoudbxoqojtxfhuludjvvtocojsbunvcuowykbuhkrhpdljmmumexhrwbkgjxsmnkcnguhvvrvpihfmfkvrjrbhivporlbxuquvvmvfsgnrxxrqylxchkfztuqqvosrjjkvquwjjviojkbkehrrxiwhrseptquipimnoynxdgxhnxlhhutmduhskiujkyoixitynhyjlfzwiubuqswouboulkfbpsbhsdvekbjgtpfjrhznrvqxwkvdctcphhmrknlfenvckdeulslyvyrphcidvebejwbbjhebqzolupnfoiprmvspvkckbktrtvuyzfqsutrukuzpykoebgkzorjmdhwfkkywubqimckronfznhmywyivgdhwmncudvrkcprwrgustmvneenplufcwbzdnxzlvmdbhqnjgndihomctjwpdnquitrtriifnoliuzuvbflcqlvtgesnjxjbnnmhjlrcbkutcjdicoyogypqnvdwntzujpnhxbseihixmpewfxvfkxjrmrhgzueeshzgvzckgleiklqningppbuxbzjbgwocovbslzmxrenmhsdgjqgigdokdznxqtvqtpvgeworpunxndieepcurzifpbxjofpwfunjlkx From: Anthony Amort Subject: RE: IRC meeting 9th Jan 2000 Date: 2000/01/10 Message-ID: <387AC9B9@MailAndNews.com>#1/1 I was one of the (two) people at the first one, and I didn't do this one because of the time (I sleep in the middle of the night these days). Perhaps two different times (or more) some hours apart would work. Anyone that could do both could relay highlights from the first session to the second. >===== Original Message From adamow@if.pw.edu.pl ===== >I was there and I saw only 3 people: mooredav (David Moore), lipo (I don't >remeber name, sorry) and a little bit of G (unknown for me, I was >disconnected before I talk to him). ------------------------------------------------------------ Get your FREE web-based e-mail and newsgroup access at: http://MailAndNews.com Create a new mailbox, or access your existing IMAP4 or POP3 mailbox from anywhere with just a web browser. ------------------------------------------------------------ From: "Leonardo H. Liporati" Subject: Re: IRC meeting 9th Jan 2000 Date: 2000/01/10 Message-ID: <002e01bf5bb2$ce7147e0$0d4d10ac@ispent>#1/1 Hi, Lipo was I, Leonardo H. Liporati. After disconnecting that time (about 11:40PM GMT), I could reconnect about one hour later. Only the misterious "G" was online. He replied only my initial questions and stopped responding after a while. So I gave up. What's next? Why people aren't connecting? People aren't interested? Is it vacations time and people has more pleasant things to do? The scheduled time isn't good? After looking at the World Map with the time zones I see that is nearly impossible to find an hour that will please everyone. There are CoreWars players from New Zealand to Alaska, this way the time window is of 21 hours. Sunday 11PM GMT means Monday 11AM in New Zealand, 8AM in Japan and from 7AM to 9AM in Australia. Probably, people are working/studying or are going to theirs jobs or schools at these times. Other way, if we choose Sunday 11PM in New Zealand, this means 11AM in GMT and NOON in most European countries. But this is unacceptable for North Americans because will be from 2AM to 6AM in the USA. But this is good for me, will be 9AM in East Brazil (because we are in daylight savings time here). I see no obvious solution. Maybe we agree with three meeting hours. One that will satisfy Europeans and the Western hemisphere. Another that will satisfy Europeans and Eastern hemisphere. And a third that will exclude Europeans. What do you think? Any ideas? Leonardo. -----Mensagem original----- De: Lukasz Adamowski Para: Multiple recipients of list COREWAR-L Data: Segunda-feira, 10 de Janeiro de 2000 19:06 Assunto: IRC meeting 9th Jan 2000 >I was there and I saw only 3 people: mooredav (David Moore), lipo (I don't >remeber name, sorry) and a little bit of G (unknown for me, I was >disconnected before I talk to him). I was waiting almost an hour before >the official meeting >time hoping, that someone would come earlier (11pm GMT is my midnight). >mooredav was 20 minutes before "zero-hour", but he was having dinner >waiting. We didn't talk much. So I think the 2nd Corewar IRC Meeting >failed too. >What next? > Lukasz > From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - Standard 01/10/00 Date: 2000/01/10 Message-ID: <200001100500.AAA18760@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 01/10/00 -=- 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 Jan 8 05:54:25 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 38/ 21/ 41 Freight Train David Moore 155 62 2 36/ 21/ 43 Test Alexander (Sasha) Wa 151 1 3 36/ 24/ 40 sIMPly.Red v0.95 Leonardo Humberto 147 19 4 34/ 24/ 42 Guardian Ian Oversby 144 61 5 39/ 42/ 19 Stasis David Moore 137 169 6 27/ 18/ 55 EV Paper John K Wilkinson 137 75 7 38/ 39/ 23 PacMan David Moore 137 91 8 39/ 42/ 20 Beholder's Eye V1.7 W. Mintardjo 136 337 9 40/ 46/ 14 Foggy Swamp Beppe Bezzi 135 58 10 40/ 46/ 14 Blur '88 Anton Marsden 135 99 11 35/ 35/ 30 Frog Sticker P.Kline 135 11 12 36/ 38/ 26 Stillborn Bomber v0.2 mjp 134 2 13 29/ 25/ 47 Shish-Ka-Bob Ben Ford 133 17 14 27/ 22/ 52 Test I Ian Oversby 132 118 15 39/ 47/ 13 Iron Gate Wayne Sheppard 132 387 16 36/ 41/ 23 Tangle Trap David Moore 132 135 17 40/ 49/ 11 Blurstone '88 M. J. Pihlaja 131 56 18 27/ 24/ 49 Evoltmp 88 John K W 130 112 19 35/ 41/ 25 Leapfrog David Moore 128 90 20 35/ 43/ 22 Kitchen Sink Robert Macrae 128 60 21 30/ 53/ 17 Silly Scan John Metcalf 107 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - 94 No Pspace 01/10/00 Date: 2000/01/10 Message-ID: <200001100500.AAA18774@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 01/10/00 -=- 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 : Sun Jan 9 23:46:39 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 33/ 21/ 46 Uninvited John Metcalf 146 7 2 43/ 43/ 13 Stalker P.Kline 143 40 3 42/ 43/ 14 Eraser II Ken Espiritu 142 12 4 34/ 26/ 40 Experimental John Metcalf 141 11 5 33/ 25/ 43 Omnibus John Metcalf 141 64 6 41/ 44/ 14 Boys are Back in Town 1.1 Philip Kendall 139 317 7 30/ 22/ 48 nPaper II Paul-V Khuong 139 55 8 41/ 44/ 15 Jinx Christian Schmidt 138 18 9 41/ 44/ 15 Zooom... John Metcalf 138 191 10 29/ 21/ 50 Jade Ben Ford 138 124 11 34/ 30/ 36 Blacken Ian Oversby 138 302 12 29/ 22/ 49 EvoP 3 Ken Espiritu 137 51 13 29/ 21/ 50 Jaguar Christian Schmidt 136 42 14 42/ 49/ 9 Kenshin Steve Gunnell 136 10 15 41/ 47/ 13 Win! David Moore 135 290 16 25/ 16/ 59 Cinammon John Metcalf 134 20 17 40/ 46/ 14 Qshot Christian Schmidt 133 61 18 30/ 29/ 41 Ant Factory Christian Schmidt 132 150 19 29/ 28/ 43 Icen Ben Ford 129 149 20 40/ 53/ 8 Iron Curtain Ken Espiritu 127 1 21 24/ 49/ 27 Freeze 1.3 David Houston 100 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - ICWS Experimental 94 01/10/00 Date: 2000/01/10 Message-ID: <200001100500.AAA18768@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 01/10/00 -=- 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 31 01:51:34 EST 1999 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 53/ 32/ 16 Black Moods Ian Oversby 174 7 2 48/ 29/ 23 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 166 11 3 31/ 6/ 63 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 156 80 4 35/ 16/ 49 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 155 33 5 26/ 3/ 72 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 149 28 6 33/ 20/ 47 Rosebud Beppe 146 59 7 39/ 37/ 25 Dr. Gate X Franz 141 51 8 38/ 38/ 24 Stepping Stone 94x Kurt Franke 139 66 9 36/ 33/ 32 Draken Fire X Ben Ford 139 2 10 38/ 42/ 20 Tsunami v0.3 X Ian Oversby 133 5 11 35/ 36/ 29 BigBoy Robert Macrae 133 105 12 31/ 30/ 39 Self-Modifying Code X Ben Ford 133 1 13 33/ 35/ 32 Lithium X 8 John K Wilkinson 131 71 14 40/ 48/ 12 S.E.T.I. 4-X JKW 131 81 15 37/ 44/ 19 Pagan John K W 130 65 16 37/ 45/ 18 Memories Beppe Bezzi 128 87 17 21/ 16/ 63 Sphere v0.2 Christian Schmidt 126 22 18 37/ 49/ 14 WingShot Ben Ford 126 3 19 36/ 49/ 15 BiShot Christian Schmidt 124 19 20 22/ 19/ 59 Purple v0.1 Christian Schmidt 124 32 21 1/ 70/ 29 SuperLemming Byron Shock 32 0 From: Lukasz Adamowski Subject: IRC meeting 9th Jan 2000 Date: 2000/01/10 Message-ID: #1/1 I was there and I saw only 3 people: mooredav (David Moore), lipo (I don't remeber name, sorry) and a little bit of G (unknown for me, I was disconnected before I talk to him). I was waiting almost an hour before the official meeting time hoping, that someone would come earlier (11pm GMT is my midnight). mooredav was 20 minutes before "zero-hour", but he was having dinner waiting. We didn't talk much. So I think the 2nd Corewar IRC Meeting failed too. What next? Lukasz From: jkw Subject: IRC meeting Sun, 16th Jan 2000 === general tips on IRC meetings Date: 2000/01/11 Message-ID: <4.1.20000110232314.009abe50@pop-server>#1/1 At 07:34 PM 1/10/00 -0500, you wrote: >I was one of the (two) people at the first one, and I didn't do this one >because of the time (I sleep in the middle of the night these days). Perhaps >two different times (or more) some hours apart would work. Anyone that could >do both could relay highlights from the first session to the second. > >>===== Original Message From adamow@if.pw.edu.pl ===== >>I was there and I saw only 3 people: mooredav (David Moore), lipo (I don't >>remeber name, sorry) and a little bit of G (unknown for me, I was >>disconnected before I talk to him). Well 'G' was me... I was online but not sitting in front of the computer the whole time. I think the reason the online meetings failed is that most people here don't seem to have had much of any experience with IRC or other real time online meetings. I would've been online from much earlier but my computer crashed during the night and I didn't reboot it until I woke up late. The key to having a successful IRC meeting is more about people staying online, not choosing the perfect time. If people would just load up mirc when they turn on their computer sunday morning, and just leave it running all day, then they could click over to it when they have a chance to sit down at the computer, and respond to whatever's been discussed... The past two weeks people seem to have this attitude that they'll stay online and sit at their computer and wait for something to happen. After 10-30 minutes they log off cause there's not enough people on, heh. Well duh, that's cause everyone else is doing the same thing you are, not seeing enough people and logging off real quick. Anyway, next attempted meeting is Jan 16th... at 11 GMT... but in all honesty, it will probably only be successful if people log on at least one to twelve hours before hand and idle online in order to establish a presence. -jkw From: jkw Subject: irc logs Date: 2000/01/11 Message-ID: <4.1.20000111030700.0093ebc0@pop-server>#1/1 I just tossed up a directory on koth.org where I'm going to put irc logs from irc.koth.org #corewars ... http://www.KOTH.org/irc_logs/ I was idling in #corewars and some people came in and talked so I saved it and uploaded it, heh... if anyone happens to have saved any log of any previous conversation/meeting, email it to me and I'll put it in there... -jkw From: Steve Gunnell Subject: Re: Question Date: 2000/01/13 Message-ID: <387E9128.6A3274DC@ccis.adisys.com.au>#1/1 You will only get the holding pen response from pizza at the moment. The pizza hills stopped processing on Jan 8th. I have sent mail to Thomas but he is probably having a holiday at the moment. Steve Gunnell M Joonas Pihlaja wrote: > On Thu, 13 Jan 2000, Lukasz Adamowski wrote: > > > Where should I send my warrior if I want it to fight on beginners hill? Is > > beginner hill on KOTH or pizza server? I only know that I should write > > ;redcode-b in first line of letter. Am I right? > > > > Lukasz > > Yes you're right. The -b hill is on pizza. You send your > warrior to "pizza@ecst.csuchico.edu" with a subject line of > "koth". The ;redcode line tells the server which hill you want > to submit to. From: M Joonas Pihlaja Subject: Re: Question Date: 2000/01/13 Message-ID: #1/1 On Thu, 13 Jan 2000, Lukasz Adamowski wrote: > Where should I send my warrior if I want it to fight on beginners hill? Is > beginner hill on KOTH or pizza server? I only know that I should write > ;redcode-b in first line of letter. Am I right? > > Lukasz Yes you're right. The -b hill is on pizza. You send your warrior to "pizza@ecst.csuchico.edu" with a subject line of "koth". The ;redcode line tells the server which hill you want to submit to. For detailed info. on the pizza server's commands see http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~pizza/koth/commands.html Also in the FAQ available from: http://www.koth.org/corewar-faq.html e.g. ;redcode-b verbose ;name imp ;author A. K. Dewdney ;strategy go for the ties! ;assert 1 org start start mov 0,1 end The "end" is important if you have a .signature or your service forces trailing babble (Deja, etc.). Joonas From: "Philipp Offermann" Subject: to expensive waiting online Date: 2000/01/13 Message-ID: <85lfrh$ljq$1@news03.btx.dtag.de>#1/1 I have to admit that I forgot about the meeting and connected or so an hour too late. As no one was there at this time I went offline again. But anyway it's not possible for me hanging online waiting for several hour because I have to pay a time-dependend fee. Therefore it is too expensive waiting online doing nothing. > it will probably only be successful if people log on at least one > to twelve hours before hand and idle online in order to establish a presence. From: Ilmari Karonen Subject: Re: KOTH update... Date: 2000/01/13 Message-ID: <85lc7i$8us$1@tron.sci.fi>#1/1 On 13 Jan 2000 08:53:43 -0500, jkw (jkw@koth.org) wrote: : About a year ago a small debate raged on whether people should be able to see how : a warrior scored against the other warriors on a hill. I recently got the go-ahead : from Tuc to add that info to the KOTH standings... http://www.KOTH.org/koth.html ... : It's still under development, but if anyone notices any bugs, or has feature : suggestions, let me know... Would anyone be interested in implementing something like the IMT#2 scoring matrix at http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/corewar/imt2/imtmat.html for the hills? (I just realized that there's no link to that page. I'll have to fix that.) -- Ilmari Karonen - http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/ "Crypt is a ONE WAY function, like a Roach Motel. Passwords go in, but they don't come out." -- MegaZone in c.i.w.a.cgi From: Lukasz Adamowski Subject: about logs Date: 2000/01/13 Message-ID: #1/1 I think it's good idea, but it may be a lot of work at it. I saw first log published on KOTH and I see some people are starting interesting Corewar. Bravo! Lukasz From: Lukasz Adamowski Subject: Re: KOTH update... Date: 2000/01/13 Message-ID: #1/1 Thanx, jkw. It will be useful to see what strategies are good or bad against other strategies. Lukasz From: Philip Kendall Subject: Re: Question Date: 2000/01/13 Message-ID: #1/1 Lukasz Adamowski writes: > Where should I send my warrior if I want it to fight on beginners hill? Is > beginner hill on KOTH or pizza server? Pizza (I think this is in the FAQ) Send mail to `pizza@ecst.csuchico.edu' with a subject line of `koth' (all without the quotes, of course!) > I only know that I should write ;redcode-b in first line of letter. Am I right? Yes. (Actually, it doesn't have to be the very first line, but everything before the ;redcode-[whatever] line will be ignored) Hope this helps, Phil -- / Philip Kendall (pak21@cam.ac.uk pak21@kendalls.demon.co.uk) \ \ http://www.kendalls.demon.co.uk/pak21/index.html / From: Lukasz Adamowski Subject: Question Date: 2000/01/13 Message-ID: #1/1 Where should I send my warrior if I want it to fight on beginners hill? Is beginner hill on KOTH or pizza server? I only know that I should write ;redcode-b in first line of letter. Am I right? Lukasz From: jkw Subject: KOTH update... Date: 2000/01/13 Message-ID: <4.1.20000113010238.009b0960@pop-server>#1/1 About a year ago a small debate raged on whether people should be able to see how a warrior scored against the other warriors on a hill. I recently got the go-ahead from Tuc to add that info to the KOTH standings... http://www.KOTH.org/koth.html ... It's still under development, but if anyone notices any bugs, or has feature suggestions, let me know... -jkw From: jkw Subject: Re: to expensive waiting online Date: 2000/01/14 Message-ID: <4.1.20000114081103.009bc2a0@pop-server>#1/1 >There seems to be absolutely no order to the display of how warriors did >against the given warrior. Would be nice to be sorted on some rational >method. Yea that's on the koth.org to-do list... >Would anyone be interested in implementing something like the IMT#2 scoring >matrix at http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/corewar/imt2/imtmat.html for the hills? Now that's something I hadn't thought of doing... kinda pretty though. Good idea, that's next on the list, hehe... :) >I have to admit that I forgot about the meeting and connected or so an hour >too late. As no one was there at this time I went offline again. >But anyway it's not possible for me hanging online waiting for several hour >because I have to pay a time-dependend fee. Therefore it is too expensive >waiting online doing nothing. I totally forgot that there are people out there without unlimited net access... that's a horrible restriction when it comes to anything concerning online meetings, heh. -jkw From: jkw Subject: more koth updates Date: 2000/01/15 Message-ID: <4.1.20000115013139.009b1300@pop-server>#1/1 Thanks to Ilmari for the idea... www.KOTH.org now has 'Huge Array' formatted data on all it's hills... Oh the various hills, I think http://www.KOTH.org/lcgi-bin/hugetable.pl?hill94x probably looks the coolest, since the 94x hill has the most diverse warrior scores of any hill around... (Stepping Stone 94x sure has a nice handshake... :) -jkw From: "Benjamin Ford" Subject: Re: irc logs Date: 2000/01/16 Message-ID: <20000117040159.33331.qmail@hotmail.com>#1/1 From: "Screamer" > > I just tossed up a directory on koth.org where I'm going to put irc logs > > from irc.koth.org #corewars ... > > > > http://www.KOTH.org/irc_logs/ > >It would be nice if you could set the MIME type of .log files to text/plain >so they appear within the browser and do not *have* to be saved to be >viewed. Weird, I don't have to save them to view them, they appear right in the browser for me. Using IE5 if that matters. Surprised the 1-15 log is there, there isn't much of anything relevent in that discussion. -Ben ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - MultiWarrior 94 01/17/00 Date: 2000/01/17 Message-ID: <200001170500.AAA04110@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 01/17/00 -=- irc.KOTH.org is up! Meetings held in #corewars -=- Tons of new features on www.KOTH.org/koth.html pages -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG Multiwarrior 94 CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Thu Jan 13 01:03:25 EST 2000 # Name Author Score Age 1 QuiVa John Metcalf 40 117 2 Silly Lil' Stone Simon Duff 36 12 3 Vagrant 0.3 Simon Duff 29 16 4 BiShot v1.0 Christian Schmidt 28 92 5 WingShot Ben Ford 28 1 6 Her Majesty P.Kline 27 43 7 D-clearM Ken Espiritu 26 24 8 FireStarter Simon Duff 24 11 9 fclear Brian Haskin 21 8 10 Dracula's Cape Ben Ford 20 2 11 Scatterphi Pierre Abbat 0 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - 94 No Pspace 01/17/00 Date: 2000/01/17 Message-ID: <200001170500.AAA04123@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 01/17/00 -=- irc.KOTH.org is up! Meetings held in #corewars -=- Tons of new features on www.KOTH.org/koth.html pages -=- *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 Jan 15 02:58:47 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 33/ 19/ 47 nPaper II Paul-V Khuong 147 56 2 34/ 20/ 46 Uninvited John Metcalf 147 8 3 32/ 19/ 49 EvoP 3 Ken Espiritu 145 52 4 44/ 42/ 14 Stalker P.Kline 145 41 5 34/ 26/ 40 Experimental John Metcalf 143 12 6 33/ 23/ 44 Omnibus John Metcalf 143 65 7 43/ 43/ 14 Eraser II Ken Espiritu 142 13 8 31/ 19/ 50 Jade Ben Ford 142 125 9 28/ 14/ 58 Cinammon John Metcalf 141 21 10 42/ 43/ 15 Boys are Back in Town 1.1 Philip Kendall 141 318 11 34/ 29/ 37 Blacken Ian Oversby 140 303 12 42/ 44/ 14 Jinx Christian Schmidt 140 19 13 30/ 20/ 51 Jaguar Christian Schmidt 140 43 14 41/ 44/ 15 Zooom... John Metcalf 139 192 15 32/ 27/ 41 Ant Factory Christian Schmidt 138 151 16 43/ 49/ 9 Kenshin Steve Gunnell 137 11 17 31/ 26/ 43 Icen Ben Ford 137 150 18 41/ 47/ 12 Win! David Moore 135 291 19 31/ 35/ 34 ttest P.Kline 127 1 20 37/ 48/ 15 Qshot Christian Schmidt 126 62 21 15/ 84/ 1 My Sucky Warrior John Q. Redcoder 46 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - Standard 01/17/00 Date: 2000/01/17 Message-ID: <200001170500.AAA04106@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 01/17/00 -=- irc.KOTH.org is up! Meetings held in #corewars -=- Tons of new features on www.KOTH.org/koth.html pages -=- *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 Jan 8 05:54:25 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 38/ 21/ 41 Freight Train David Moore 155 62 2 36/ 21/ 43 Test Alexander (Sasha) Wa 151 1 3 36/ 24/ 40 sIMPly.Red v0.95 Leonardo Humberto 147 19 4 34/ 24/ 42 Guardian Ian Oversby 144 61 5 39/ 42/ 19 Stasis David Moore 137 169 6 27/ 18/ 55 EV Paper John K Wilkinson 137 75 7 38/ 39/ 23 PacMan David Moore 137 91 8 39/ 42/ 20 Beholder's Eye V1.7 W. Mintardjo 136 337 9 40/ 46/ 14 Foggy Swamp Beppe Bezzi 135 58 10 40/ 46/ 14 Blur '88 Anton Marsden 135 99 11 35/ 35/ 30 Frog Sticker P.Kline 135 11 12 36/ 38/ 26 Stillborn Bomber v0.2 mjp 134 2 13 29/ 25/ 47 Shish-Ka-Bob Ben Ford 133 17 14 27/ 22/ 52 Test I Ian Oversby 132 118 15 39/ 47/ 13 Iron Gate Wayne Sheppard 132 387 16 36/ 41/ 23 Tangle Trap David Moore 132 135 17 40/ 49/ 11 Blurstone '88 M. J. Pihlaja 131 56 18 27/ 24/ 49 Evoltmp 88 John K W 130 112 19 35/ 41/ 25 Leapfrog David Moore 128 90 20 35/ 43/ 22 Kitchen Sink Robert Macrae 128 60 21 30/ 53/ 17 Silly Scan John Metcalf 107 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - ICWS Experimental 94 01/17/00 Date: 2000/01/17 Message-ID: <200001170500.AAA04115@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 01/17/00 -=- irc.KOTH.org is up! Meetings held in #corewars -=- Tons of new features on www.KOTH.org/koth.html pages -=- *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 : Sat Jan 15 03:07:18 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 54/ 32/ 15 Black Moods Ian Oversby 176 7 2 48/ 29/ 23 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 167 11 3 39/ 16/ 45 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 163 33 4 33/ 6/ 61 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 159 80 5 29/ 3/ 68 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 156 28 6 33/ 20/ 47 Rosebud Beppe 146 59 7 38/ 37/ 25 Dr. Gate X Franz 139 51 8 36/ 33/ 31 Draken Fire X Ben Ford 138 2 9 26/ 16/ 58 Sphere v0.2 Christian Schmidt 135 22 10 36/ 40/ 24 Stepping Stone 94x Kurt Franke 133 66 11 35/ 37/ 27 BigBoy Robert Macrae 133 105 12 26/ 19/ 55 Purple v0.1 Christian Schmidt 133 32 13 39/ 49/ 12 S.E.T.I. 4-X JKW 129 81 14 30/ 31/ 39 Self-Modifying Code X Ben Ford 129 1 15 36/ 45/ 19 Pagan John K W 128 65 16 32/ 36/ 32 Lithium X 8 John K Wilkinson 127 71 17 36/ 46/ 18 Memories Beppe Bezzi 126 87 18 35/ 45/ 20 Tsunami v0.3 X Ian Oversby 125 5 19 36/ 49/ 14 WingShot Ben Ford 123 3 20 33/ 52/ 15 BiShot Christian Schmidt 115 19 21 20/ 78/ 2 My Sucky Warrior John Q. Redcoder 63 0 From: jkw Subject: irc logs / IRC meeting Date: 2000/01/17 Message-ID: <4.1.20000117024618.00917f00@pop-server>#1/1 >It would be nice if you could set the MIME type of .log files to text/plain >so they appear within the browser and do not *have* to be saved to be >viewed. > >Screamer I renamed them all to *.txt... that should fix it. >Weird, I don't have to save them to view them, they appear right in the >browser for me. Using IE5 if that matters. > >Surprised the 1-15 log is there, there isn't much of anything relevent in >that discussion. > >-Ben Yea it works fine in Netscape, too... As for the 1-15 log, shrug, might as well, hehe... As for the IRC meeting, there was a fairly decent 3hr discussion on Sunday, I was asleep but you can check out the log in the http://www.KOTH.org/irc_logs/ directory... By the way, lipo, you need to get yerself an irc client rather than just telneting in, hehe. -jkw From: "Screamer" Subject: Re: irc logs Date: 2000/01/17 Message-ID: <85ttgb$sdt$1@news.netcologne.de>#1/1 > I just tossed up a directory on koth.org where I'm going to put irc logs > from irc.koth.org #corewars ... > > http://www.KOTH.org/irc_logs/ It would be nice if you could set the MIME type of .log files to text/plain so they appear within the browser and do not *have* to be saved to be viewed. Screamer ___ We are Pentium of Borg. Division is futile, you will be approximated. From: "Leonardo H. Liporati" Subject: Re: irc logs / IRC meeting Date: 2000/01/18 Message-ID: <003601bf612d$1d65d9e0$0d4d10ac@ispent>#1/1 jkw wrote: [...snip...] >directory... By the way, lipo, you need to get yerself an irc client rather >than just telneting in, hehe. > >-jkw > Ok, ok, I confess. The first computer I touched my hands was a mainframe. I hate graphical interfaces. I hate huge programs. I love to be in the control of "what is happening behind the courtains". By the way, I just downloaded an IRC client (VIRC'97). This thing "weights" about 2.5Mb against 76Kb of the telnet client. Anyway, I will try to master it before the next meeting. Telnet is good, its problem is not to buffer the input lines, this way the DELETE/BACKSPACE key doesn�t work when talking to the IRC server. I am sorry for the noise in the log. Bye, Leonardo (lipo). From: Lukasz Adamowski Subject: Re: irc logs / IRC meeting Date: 2000/01/19 Message-ID: #1/1 On Tue, 18 Jan 2000, Leonardo H. Liporati wrote: > > Ok, ok, I confess. > The first computer I touched my hands was a mainframe. I hate graphical > interfaces. I hate huge programs. I love to be in the control of "what is > happening behind the courtains". > > Bye, Leonardo (lipo). > I agree with lipo. I love working in text mode! I love non-protected CPU working mode! I love pMARS because of its interface! But... IRC clients are easier to work (not only those with graphical interface). Lukasz From: anton@paradise.net.nz (Anton Marsden) Subject: Core War Frequently Asked Questions (rec.games.corewar FAQ) Date: 2000/01/20 Message-ID: Archive-name: games/corewar-faq Last-Modified: September 4, 1999 Version: 4.2 URL: http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~anton/cw/corewar-faq.html Copyright: (c) 1999 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. A plain text version of this document is posted every two weeks. The latest hypertext version is available at http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~anton/cw/corewar-faq.html and the latest plain text version is available at http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~anton/cw/corewar-faq.txt. This document is currently being maintained by Anton Marsden (anton@paradise.net.nz). Last modified: Sat Sep 4 00:22:22 NZST 1999 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To Do * Add the new No-PSpace '94 hill location * Add online location of Dewdney's articles * Make question 17 easier to understand. Add a state diagram? * 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 primary location of FAQ (again!) * Changed Philip Kendall's home page address. * Updated list server information * Changed primary location of FAQ * Vector-launching code was fixed thanks to Ting Hsu. * Changed the location of Ryan Coleman's paper (LaunchPad -> Launchpad) * Changed pauillac.inria.fr to para.inria.fr ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Table of Contents 1. What is Core War 2. Is it "Core War" or "Core Wars"? 3. Where can I find more information about Core War? 4. Core War has changed since Dewdney's articles. Where do I get a copy of the current instruction set? 5. What is ICWS'94? Which simulators support ICWS'94? 6. What is the ICWS? 7. What is 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 virtual computer called MARS (for Memory Array Redcode Simulator). The object of the game is to cause all processes of the opposing program to terminate, leaving your program in sole posession of the machine. There are Core War systems available for most computer platforms. Redcode has been 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. 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 = (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 is 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 the 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. 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 �0-7167-1939-8 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 �0-7167-2144-9 .D5173 1990 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.Z. 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.Z and ftp://www.koth.org/corewar/documents/tutorial.2.Z. Steven Morrell has prepared a more practically oriented Redcode tutorial that discusses different warrior classes with lots of example code. This and 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'94 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/info/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 only 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 94 Warrior, Core Warrior is a newsletter about strategies and current standings 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.kendalls.demon.co.uk/pak21/corewar/warrior.html 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.answers (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 (koth.org 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 body 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 Koth.Org list processor. To join, send the message SUB COREWAR-L FirstName LastName to listproc@koth.org. You can send mail to corewar-l@koth.org to post even if you are not a member of the list. Responsible for the listserver is Scott J. Ellentuch (ttsg@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 koth.org. [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 points than a warrior that survives together with other warriors. Points are calculated from the formula (W*W-1)/S, where W is the total number of warriors and S the number of surviving warriors. The pMARS documentation has more information on multi-warrior scoring. The idea for an email-based Core War server came from David Lee. The original KotH was developed and run by William Shubert at Intel starting in 1991, and discontinued after almost three years of service. Currently, KotHs based on Bill's UNIX scripts but offering a wider variety of hills are are running at two sites: koth@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 overlapping services, i.e. the some of the hill types were offered by both "pizza" and "stormking". To conserve resources, the different hill types are now divided up among the sites. The way you submit warriors to both KotHs is pretty much the same. Therefore, the entry rules described below apply to both "pizza" and "stormking" unless otherwise noted. Entry Rules for King of the Hill Corewar * Write a corewar program. KotH is fully ICWS '88 compatible, EXCEPT that 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 Instr. Size Size Processes Distance Fought Set Tie Length Pizza's ICWS '94 Draft Hill Extended (Accessed with 25 8000 8000 80000 100 100 200 ICWS '94 ";redcode-94") Draft Pizza's Beginner's Extended Hill (Accessed 25 8000 8000 80000 100 100 200 ICWS '94 with ";redcode-b") Draft Pizza's Experimental Extended (Small) Hill 25 800 800 8000 20 20 200 ICWS '94 (Accessed with Draft ";redcode-x") Pizza's Limited Process (LP) Hill Extended (Accessed with 25 8000 8 80000 200 200 200 ICWS '94 ";redcode-lp") Draft Stormking's ICWS '88 Standard Hill (Accessed with 20 8000 8000 80000 100 100 250 ICWS '88 ";redcode") Stormking's ICWS '94 No Pspace Hill (Accessed with 20 8000 8000 80000 100 100 250 ICWS '94 ";redcode-94nop") Stormking's ICWS '94 Experimental Extended (Big) Hill 20 55440 55440 500000 200 200 250 ICWS '94 (Accessed with Draft ";redcode-94x") Stormking's ICWS '94 Multi-Warrior Extended Hill (Accessed 10 8000 8000 80000 100 100 200 ICWS '94 with Draft ";redcode-94m") Note: 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 assembled 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 Core 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 or 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, for 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 than 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 memory size. Off-axis scanners use some other separation. Optimal Constants (also optima-type constants) Bomb or scan increments chosen to cover core most effectively, i.e. leaving gaps of uniform size. Programs to calculate optimal constants and lists of optimal numbers are available at www.koth.org. Paper A Paper-like program is one which replicates itself many times. Part of 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 pointer rof jmn attack, found ;if we have something, get it s2 for 8 cmp start+100*(s2+6), start+100*(s2+6)+4000 mov #start+100*(s2+6)-found, found rof found jmz moveme, #0 ;skip attack if qscan found nothing attack cmp @found, start-1 ;does found points to empty space? add #4000, found ;no, so point to correct location mov start-1, @found ;move a bomb moveme jmp 0, 0 In ICWS'94, the quick scan code is more compact because of the SNE opcode: start ;'94 scan s1 for 4 sne start+400*s1, start+400*s1+100 ;check two locations seq start+400*s1+200, start+400*s1+300 ;check two locations mov #start+400*s1-found, found ;they differ so set pointer rof jmn which, found ;if we have something, get it s2 for 4 sne start+400*(s2+4), start+400*(s2+4)+100 seq start+400*(s2+4)+200, start+400*(s2+4)+300 mov #start+400*(s2+4)-found-100, found rof found jmz moveme, #0 ;skip attack if qscan found nothing add #100, -1 ;increment pointer till we get the which jmn -1, @found ;right place mov start-1, @found ;move a bomb moveme jmp 0, 0 Reflection Copy of a program or program part, positioned to make the active program invisible to a CMP-scanner. Replicator Generic for Paper. A program which makes many copies of itself, each copy also making copies. Self-Splitting Strategy of amplifying the number of processes executing a piece of code. example spl 0 loop add #10, example mov example, @example jmp loop Scanner A program which searches through core for an opponent rather than bombing blindly. Scissors A program designed to beat replicators, usually a (B-field scanning) vampire. Part of the Paper-Scissors-Stone analogy. Self-Repair Ability of a program to fix it's own code after attack. Silk A replicator which splits off a process to each new copy before actually copying the code. This allows it to replicate extremely quickly. This technique is only possible under the '94 draft, because it requires post-increment indirect addressing. Example: spl 1 mov -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 copy 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. 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: sz EQU 2667 spl 1 spl 1 jmp @vt, }0 vt dat #0, imp+0*sz ; start of vector table dat #0, imp+1*sz dat #0, imp+2*sz dat #0, imp+3*sz ; end of vector table imp mov.i #0, sz [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) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright � 1999 Anton Marsden. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: "Screamer" Subject: Re: irc logs / IRC meeting Date: 2000/01/20 Message-ID: <868i9i$t56$1@news.netcologne.de>#1/1 > Telnet is good, its problem is not to buffer the input lines, this way the > DELETE/BACKSPACE key doesn�t work when talking to the IRC server. Hm, I'd think there are telnet clients that can buffer if the user wants that... so where'd the problem be? :) ___ We are Pentium of Borg. Division is futile, you will be approximated. From: M Joonas Pihlaja Subject: Re: Question Date: 2000/01/21 Message-ID: #1/1 On Fri, 21 Jan 2000, Lukasz Adamowski wrote: > Which proces is doing first after SPL instruction: "father" or "son"? > > Lukasz The father goes first. eg. after executing X spl loc ... you'd execute the code at X+1 first, and then at loc. Joonas From: "Screamer" Subject: Re: Question Date: 2000/01/21 Message-ID: <86amkk$oou$2@news.netcologne.de>#1/1 > Which proces is doing first after SPL instruction: "father" or "son"? The instruction following the SPL is executed first, the SPL target is queued afterwards. That's why silkpapers work at all (if it was vice versa, they would be impossible.) From: "Screamer" Subject: Re: irc logs / IRC meeting Date: 2000/01/21 Message-ID: <86amkg$oou$1@news.netcologne.de>#1/1 > Oh. What about telnet on a smtp host? I think POP3 is also confused by backspaces, as is HTTP. Come to think of it, nearly every protocol besides Telnet. Anyway :-) From: someone@pc237.mechanik.tu-darmstadt.de (Christoph Handel) Subject: Re: irc logs / IRC meeting Date: 2000/01/21 Message-ID: <38888805.19360468@news.tu-darmstadt.de>#1/1 On 21 Jan 2000 09:20:57 -0500, jkw@austin.rr.com wrote: >I cannot think of any application other than telnetting to an irc server >where you'd want to buffer backspaces. That's why every unix distro Oh. What about telnet on a smtp host? Greetings Christoph -- the adress is valid for faster reply use handel at the same host From: jkw@austin.rr.com Subject: Re: irc logs / IRC meeting Date: 2000/01/21 Message-ID: <4.1.20000121060946.009b8100@pop-server>#1/1 At 11:31 PM 1/20/00 -0500, you wrote: >> Telnet is good, its problem is not to buffer the input lines, this way the >> DELETE/BACKSPACE key doesn�t work when talking to the IRC server. > >Hm, I'd think there are telnet clients that can buffer if the user wants >that... so where'd the problem be? :) I cannot think of any application other than telnetting to an irc server where you'd want to buffer backspaces. That's why every unix distro I've ever seen comes with an irc program, heh. And for those of you not on unix, www.mirc.com is the place to go, right before you /server irc.koth.org and /join #corewars ... :) From: Lukasz Adamowski Subject: Question Date: 2000/01/21 Message-ID: #1/1 Which proces is doing first after SPL instruction: "father" or "son"? Lukasz From: Lukasz Adamowski Subject: It's me once again... Date: 2000/01/23 Message-ID: #1/1 Sorry, I wrote about the meeting on Monday, but it actually was Sunday of course. It's because in Poland it was after midnight. Lukasz From: Lukasz Adamowski Subject: Question: about Intelligence Tournament Date: 2000/01/23 Message-ID: #1/1 During the meeting (that never been, 24th Jan 2000, about 10 GMT - 11.30 GMT) lipo told me about CoreWar Intelligence Tournament. Maybe someone can tell me something more about it. I'm searching DejaNews now, so I may find something... Lukasz From: Lukasz Adamowski Subject: More: about Intelligence Tournament Date: 2000/01/23 Message-ID: #1/1 I did find. WOW! Lukasz From: "Steve Turner" Subject: Re: Game developement Help Date: 2000/01/23 Message-ID: <86fu0j$2makg$1@fu-berlin.de>#1/1 Skorpion wrote in message news:388B4040.DA705392@optonline.net... > Tero Paananen wrote: > > > In <86da8u$86u$7@news.nsu.ru> "Alawar" writes: > > > > >Hi there, > > >SHPAGA Agency by Alawar Entertainment (http://www.alawar.com)proposes the > > >joint polish up of the > > >beginning game developers' games in order to distribute the final products > > >via > > >Internet channels. > > > We'll be pleased to consider your games and provide assistance with > > >promotion, > > >distribution, web-site of a game etc without any pre-payment. > > > Our goal is effective collaboration in joint games creation. For detailed > > >information please visit our site: http://www.alawar.com/shpaga/. > > > If you're only in the very start of game producing, we'll be glad to > > >help you > > >with the graphics, music etc. > > > Feel free to contact us on any questions concerning games development, > > >promotion and distribution at shpaga@alawar.com. > > > > Hi SHPAGA, > > > > I have this wonderful idea for a game, but I can't get anyone to > > fund the development. Maybe you could help. > > > > Let me give me a short summary... > > > > See, this all happens in the 21st century, the Internet is an > > established, household name everywhere. > > > > Then there's this ultra-c00l cyb3rdewd, been on the net since > > the 1980s. Real hardcore, old-school kind of a guy. > > > > He's got this problem though. He hates spammers. > > > > He daydreams about ripping their guts out and then feeding them > > to his dogs. > > > > Well, to cut to the chase, the game is all about that. You'll > > play the part of the spam-hater. The game is open-ended, like Elite. > > > > You can either be a mercenary and get paid by killing spammers, > > first the small-timers, but when you get more experienced you > > get missions to go after the likes of Spamford Wallass. > > > > Or, if you don't like the physical violence aspect, you could > > join an abuse desk, say for example at dns-host.com, or > > if you're really adventurous somewhere like Novosibirsk > > and kill spammers that way. > > > > What do you think? Do I have something here? > > > > -TPP > > Elite kicked ass! =) Yeah! From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - MultiWarrior 94 01/24/00 Date: 2000/01/24 Message-ID: <200001240500.AAA29664@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 01/24/00 -=- irc.KOTH.org is up! Meetings held in #corewars -=- Tons of new features on www.KOTH.org/koth.html pages -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG Multiwarrior 94 CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Mon Jan 17 11:45:29 EST 2000 # Name Author Score Age 1 Vagrant 0.3 Simon Duff 44 16 2 Her Majesty P.Kline 39 43 3 fclear Brian Haskin 33 8 4 BiShot v1.0 Christian Schmidt 32 92 5 QuiVa John Metcalf 31 117 6 D-clearM Ken Espiritu 30 24 7 FireStarter Simon Duff 28 11 8 WingShot Ben Ford 23 1 9 Silly Lil' Stone Simon Duff 17 12 10 Dracula's Cape Ben Ford 16 2 11 Sand-Crawler John Metcalf 14 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - ICWS Experimental 94 01/24/00 Date: 2000/01/24 Message-ID: <200001240500.AAA29671@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 01/24/00 -=- irc.KOTH.org is up! Meetings held in #corewars -=- Tons of new features on www.KOTH.org/koth.html pages -=- *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 : Sat Jan 15 03:07:18 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 54/ 32/ 15 Black Moods Ian Oversby 176 7 2 48/ 29/ 23 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 167 11 3 39/ 16/ 45 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 163 33 4 33/ 6/ 61 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 159 80 5 29/ 3/ 68 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 156 28 6 33/ 20/ 47 Rosebud Beppe 146 59 7 38/ 37/ 25 Dr. Gate X Franz 139 51 8 36/ 33/ 31 Draken Fire X Ben Ford 138 2 9 26/ 16/ 58 Sphere v0.2 Christian Schmidt 135 22 10 36/ 40/ 24 Stepping Stone 94x Kurt Franke 133 66 11 35/ 37/ 27 BigBoy Robert Macrae 133 105 12 26/ 19/ 55 Purple v0.1 Christian Schmidt 133 32 13 39/ 49/ 12 S.E.T.I. 4-X JKW 129 81 14 30/ 31/ 39 Self-Modifying Code X Ben Ford 129 1 15 36/ 45/ 19 Pagan John K W 128 65 16 32/ 36/ 32 Lithium X 8 John K Wilkinson 127 71 17 36/ 46/ 18 Memories Beppe Bezzi 126 87 18 35/ 45/ 20 Tsunami v0.3 X Ian Oversby 125 5 19 36/ 49/ 14 WingShot Ben Ford 123 3 20 33/ 52/ 15 BiShot Christian Schmidt 115 19 21 20/ 78/ 2 My Sucky Warrior John Q. Redcoder 63 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - 94 No Pspace 01/24/00 Date: 2000/01/24 Message-ID: <200001240500.AAA29675@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 01/24/00 -=- irc.KOTH.org is up! Meetings held in #corewars -=- Tons of new features on www.KOTH.org/koth.html pages -=- *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 : Sun Jan 23 19:07:17 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 43/ 43/ 14 Stalker P.Kline 143 43 2 42/ 42/ 15 Boys are Back in Town 1.1 Philip Kendall 142 320 3 42/ 43/ 15 Eraser II Ken Espiritu 141 15 4 41/ 43/ 16 Jinx Christian Schmidt 139 21 5 41/ 43/ 16 Zooom... John Metcalf 138 194 6 28/ 19/ 53 nPaper II Paul-V Khuong 138 58 7 28/ 20/ 52 Uninvited John Metcalf 137 10 8 28/ 19/ 53 EvoP 3 Ken Espiritu 136 54 9 32/ 28/ 40 Blacken Ian Oversby 135 305 10 41/ 46/ 13 Win! David Moore 135 293 11 30/ 27/ 43 Experimental John Metcalf 134 14 12 28/ 23/ 49 Omnibus John Metcalf 133 67 13 26/ 20/ 54 Jade Ben Ford 133 127 14 41/ 50/ 9 Kenshin Steve Gunnell 132 13 15 28/ 26/ 46 Icen Ben Ford 131 152 16 22/ 14/ 64 Cinammon John Metcalf 130 23 17 29/ 28/ 44 Ant Factory Christian Schmidt 129 153 18 25/ 20/ 55 Jaguar Christian Schmidt 129 45 19 37/ 46/ 17 Qshot Christian Schmidt 128 64 20 25/ 34/ 42 Keystone P.Kline 116 1 21 14/ 28/ 58 Downward Spiral 4 Simon Duff 99 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - Standard 01/24/00 Date: 2000/01/24 Message-ID: <200001240500.AAA29660@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 01/24/00 -=- irc.KOTH.org is up! Meetings held in #corewars -=- Tons of new features on www.KOTH.org/koth.html pages -=- *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 Jan 22 06:27:51 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 36/ 23/ 41 Freight Train David Moore 148 64 2 34/ 24/ 43 Test Alexander (Sasha) Wa 144 3 3 34/ 25/ 41 Guardian Ian Oversby 144 63 4 34/ 26/ 39 sIMPly.Red v0.95 Leonardo Humberto 142 21 5 38/ 37/ 25 Stillborn Bomber v0.2 mjp 140 4 6 39/ 38/ 23 PacMan David Moore 139 93 7 42/ 44/ 14 Blur '88 Anton Marsden 139 101 8 42/ 47/ 11 Blurstone '88 M. J. Pihlaja 138 58 9 41/ 45/ 14 Foggy Swamp Beppe Bezzi 138 60 10 27/ 18/ 55 EV Paper John K Wilkinson 137 77 11 39/ 41/ 20 Beholder's Eye V1.7 W. Mintardjo 137 339 12 39/ 42/ 18 Stasis David Moore 136 171 13 40/ 46/ 13 Iron Gate Wayne Sheppard 134 389 14 29/ 25/ 46 Shish-Ka-Bob Ben Ford 133 19 15 28/ 22/ 50 Test I Ian Oversby 133 120 16 37/ 41/ 22 Tangle Trap David Moore 132 137 17 38/ 48/ 14 Trivial v0.10 John Metcalf 129 1 18 27/ 26/ 48 Evoltmp 88 John K W 128 114 19 33/ 38/ 29 Frog Sticker P.Kline 128 13 20 34/ 44/ 22 Kitchen Sink Robert Macrae 123 62 21 2/ 2/ 0 Trivial v0.2 John Metcalf 7 2 From: "Wayne Sheppard" Subject: Re: Question Date: 2000/01/25 Message-ID: #1/1 Just for a bit of history... Originally it was "son" first. But SPL 0 bombs were way too powerful. Each "son" would have another "son" before any of the "father" processes got a turn. The process queue would fill up completely and then the rest of the processes got a turn. Wayne "Screamer" wrote in message news:86amkk$oou$2@news.netcologne.de... > > Which proces is doing first after SPL instruction: "father" or "son"? > > The instruction following the SPL is executed first, the SPL target is > queued afterwards. That's why silkpapers work at all (if it was vice versa, > they would be impossible.) > > From: jkw@koth.org Subject: request for info Date: 2000/01/26 Message-ID: <4.1.20000126184052.0094e8e0@pop-server>#1/1 I just added some links to http://www.KOTH.org/friends.html and reorganized http://www.KOTH.org/info.html into categories, and in the process removed many dead links, which led me to wonder if anyone knows of any corewars players pages not on the friends list, or any corewars tournament pages not linked from the koth info page. (Reply via email...) From: "Z Three Penguin" Subject: Upcoming Tournaments? Date: 2000/01/27 Message-ID: <86qosk$qta$1@bob.news.rcn.net>#1/1 Does anyone know of any upcoming CoreWar tournaments? -- -Z3Penguin ------ Z3Penguin Z3Penguin@SantaLand.com http://whitecow.peji.com/ Communication is Human, Encryption is Divine Linux. The choice of a GNU generation. Dr. Pepper and doughnuts... because breakfast is the most important meal of the day. PGP Fingerprint: A757 001D 58E3 1486 6466 BE35 4E28 A328 90CF 4E88 Obtain my PGP key from: http://whitecow.peji.com/key.asc From: Lukasz Adamowski Subject: about my GREATEST mistake ;) Date: 2000/01/27 Message-ID: #1/1 I had started to read some old "CoreWarriors" and I found silk. Now I can see that my The Shortest Worm isn't really the shortest :( However silk has only 3 instruction, it has 2 extra instructions at the begining and it's not a worm, but a paper. It's not so fast as The Shortest after some time cycles, but it is more offensive. The other hand it has (almost) no chance to win if the MAXPROCESSES is about 10 or something. I still have to learn a lot about CoreWars. I think I should rename my The Shortest Worm to The (Almost) Shortest Worm. :) Lukasz From: M Joonas Pihlaja Subject: Re: Upcoming Tournaments? Date: 2000/01/28 Message-ID: #1/1 On Thu, 27 Jan 2000, Z Three Penguin wrote: > Does anyone know of any upcoming CoreWar tournaments? Other than the continuous fierce on-going hill-style tournaments at the Pizza server and koth.org, I'm not aware of any pending tournaments. http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~pizza/koth http://www.koth.org Anybody want to volunteer to host one? Maybe a less agressive tournament where the goal is to implement some algorithm to which redcode isn't suited for. Perhaps something recursive where you have to manage your own stacks and things? Joonas From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - Standard 01/31/00 Date: 2000/01/31 Message-ID: <200001310500.AAA29624@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 01/31/00 -=- irc.KOTH.org is up! Meetings held in #corewars -=- Tons of new features on www.KOTH.org/koth.html pages -=- *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 Jan 29 07:11:04 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 37/ 23/ 40 Freight Train David Moore 150 65 2 35/ 23/ 42 Test Alexander (Sasha) Wa 147 4 3 35/ 25/ 40 Guardian Ian Oversby 145 64 4 35/ 26/ 39 sIMPly.Red v0.95 Leonardo Humberto 145 22 5 40/ 38/ 23 PacMan David Moore 142 94 6 38/ 37/ 25 Stillborn Bomber v0.2 mjp 139 5 7 28/ 18/ 54 EV Paper John K Wilkinson 138 78 8 39/ 41/ 19 Beholder's Eye V1.7 W. Mintardjo 137 340 9 41/ 46/ 13 Iron Gate Wayne Sheppard 136 390 10 39/ 43/ 18 Stasis David Moore 136 172 11 30/ 25/ 45 Shish-Ka-Bob Ben Ford 135 20 12 41/ 48/ 10 Shadow Seeker John Metcalf 135 1 13 28/ 22/ 49 Test I Ian Oversby 134 121 14 41/ 48/ 11 Blurstone '88 M. J. Pihlaja 134 59 15 40/ 47/ 14 Blur '88 Anton Marsden 132 102 16 39/ 46/ 14 Foggy Swamp Beppe Bezzi 132 61 17 36/ 41/ 22 Tangle Trap David Moore 132 138 18 27/ 25/ 47 Evoltmp 88 John K W 130 115 19 32/ 38/ 30 Frog Sticker P.Kline 127 14 20 37/ 50/ 14 Trivial v0.10 John Metcalf 124 2 21 33/ 45/ 22 Kitchen Sink Robert Macrae 121 63 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - ICWS Experimental 94 01/31/00 Date: 2000/01/31 Message-ID: <200001310500.AAA29634@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 01/31/00 -=- irc.KOTH.org is up! Meetings held in #corewars -=- Tons of new features on www.KOTH.org/koth.html pages -=- *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 Jan 30 23:06:15 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 54/ 32/ 15 Black Moods Ian Oversby 176 7 2 48/ 29/ 23 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 167 11 3 39/ 16/ 45 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 163 33 4 33/ 6/ 61 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 159 80 5 29/ 3/ 68 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 156 28 6 33/ 20/ 47 Rosebud Beppe 146 59 7 38/ 37/ 25 Dr. Gate X Franz 139 51 8 36/ 33/ 31 Draken Fire X Ben Ford 138 2 9 26/ 16/ 58 Sphere v0.2 Christian Schmidt 135 22 10 36/ 40/ 24 Stepping Stone 94x Kurt Franke 133 66 11 35/ 37/ 27 BigBoy Robert Macrae 133 105 12 26/ 19/ 55 Purple v0.1 Christian Schmidt 133 32 13 39/ 49/ 12 S.E.T.I. 4-X JKW 129 81 14 30/ 31/ 39 Self-Modifying Code X Ben Ford 129 1 15 36/ 45/ 19 Pagan John K W 128 65 16 32/ 36/ 32 Lithium X 8 John K Wilkinson 127 71 17 36/ 46/ 18 Memories Beppe Bezzi 126 87 18 35/ 45/ 20 Tsunami v0.3 X Ian Oversby 125 5 19 36/ 49/ 14 WingShot Ben Ford 123 3 20 33/ 52/ 15 BiShot Christian Schmidt 115 19 21 20/ 78/ 2 63 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - 94 No Pspace 01/31/00 Date: 2000/01/31 Message-ID: <200001310500.AAA29639@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 01/31/00 -=- irc.KOTH.org is up! Meetings held in #corewars -=- Tons of new features on www.KOTH.org/koth.html pages -=- *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 Jan 29 07:20:18 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 32/ 19/ 49 EvoP 3 Ken Espiritu 146 56 2 33/ 20/ 47 Uninvited John Metcalf 145 12 3 43/ 42/ 15 Eraser II Ken Espiritu 145 17 4 32/ 19/ 49 nPaper II Paul-V Khuong 144 60 5 43/ 42/ 15 Stalker P.Kline 144 45 6 42/ 42/ 15 Jinx Christian Schmidt 142 23 7 35/ 28/ 37 Blacken Ian Oversby 142 307 8 34/ 26/ 41 Experimental John Metcalf 142 16 9 32/ 24/ 44 Omnibus John Metcalf 141 69 10 42/ 45/ 13 Win! David Moore 140 295 11 42/ 43/ 16 Boys are Back in Town 1.1 Philip Kendall 140 322 12 41/ 43/ 16 Zooom... John Metcalf 140 196 13 27/ 14/ 59 Cinammon John Metcalf 140 25 14 29/ 20/ 51 Jade Ben Ford 139 129 15 32/ 27/ 41 Ant Factory Christian Schmidt 138 155 16 28/ 20/ 51 Jaguar Christian Schmidt 137 47 17 42/ 47/ 10 Kenshin Steve Gunnell 137 15 18 31/ 25/ 44 Icen Ben Ford 136 154 19 38/ 45/ 17 Qshot Christian Schmidt 130 66 20 32/ 44/ 24 Stillborn Bomber mjp 121 1 21 1/ 68/ 31 Splitter v1.0 Misza 34 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - MultiWarrior 94 01/31/00 Date: 2000/01/31 Message-ID: <200001310500.AAA29629@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 01/31/00 -=- irc.KOTH.org is up! Meetings held in #corewars -=- Tons of new features on www.KOTH.org/koth.html pages -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG Multiwarrior 94 CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Sat Jan 29 06:39:42 EST 2000 # Name Author Score Age 1 Vagrant 0.3 Simon Duff 53 17 2 QuiVa John Metcalf 34 118 3 BiShot v1.0 Christian Schmidt 31 93 4 D-clearM Ken Espiritu 28 25 5 WingShot Ben Ford 27 2 6 Her Majesty P.Kline 24 44 7 fclear Brian Haskin 24 9 8 Dracula's Cape Ben Ford 23 3 9 Silly Lil' Stone Simon Duff 18 13 10 Quick Hack John Metcalf 15 1 11 Splitter v1.0 Misza 3 0