From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Re: What are the enviroment settings for round 4? Date: 1 Nov 2000 19:27:03 -0500 Message-ID: <4.1.20001101174426.00a96a60@pop-server> >> Ah, I didn't specify explicitly, but yea, all the settings are '94 >standard. >> pmars.exe -d 100 -c 80000 -p 8000 -l 100 >> >OK, and how many rounds? You haven't wrote about it neither. It's >necessary for me for testing. > Lukasz Um how could the number of rounds possibly be important to your testing? It will be somewhere between 200 and 2000, I think. -jkw From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Round 3 Results Date: 1 Nov 2000 21:15:48 -0500 Message-ID: <4.1.20001101184602.00a9b310@pop-server> Confession #1: I was being a little bit evil and misleading when I talked about the scores in the 140 range, hehe. I fully expected someone to get a scanner (possibly like HSA or Harmony) with scores in the 180 range, which P.Kline actually did. I also expected someone to discover my warriors' brainwashing vulnerability... However, I did NOT notice ahead of time that my warrior had a horrible pspace bug in it! ACK! Confession #2: I kinda threw this sucker together, and it was my first ever use of the p^3 pspace engine. This pspace bug may have caused some warriors to get dramatically different scores during testing, heh... but what can I say... that's life. :) Anyway, my warrior's at the bottom... careful examination will reveal that if you are lucky enough to make me store a #4 or #5 in my pstate, I'm dead for the rest of the rounds. (I haven't read through all the warriors, but I already see two of them brainwashing with #5... heh...) For this reason I'm running 5 sets of 250 rounds each, in order to get some sort of realistic average. Congratulations to David Moore, who scored 99.8% of the maximum possible score of 3750! Way to viciously exploit my pspace bug, you ungodly bastage! :^) Name S NS David Moore 3742 1000 Christian Schmidt 3642 973 Michal Janeczek 2859 764 Leonardo H. Liporati 2803 749 Robert Macrae 2383 636 P.Kline 2167 579 Magnus Paulsson 1980 529 John Metcalf 1789 478 Dave Hillis 1699 454 Ben Ford 1676 447 Steve Gunnell 1588 424 Lukasz Adamowski 1519 405 Ilmari Karonen 1226 327 Andy Nevermind 961 256 Josh Yeager 749 200 Jeremy Chin 155 41 ---- ;redcode-x2 ;name Black Box v1 ;author JKW ;assert (CORESIZE == 55440) && (MAXPROCESSES == 10000) d equ 34117 hideboot equ 20000 org think PSTATE equ 100 think ldp.a #0, in ldp.a #PSTATE, table mod.ba *in, table stp.b *table, #PSTATE table jmp }0, 175 dat w0, 50 dat w1, 177 dat w1, 192 in dat 0, 6 spl 1, 5 spl 1, 7 for 50 dat 0,0 rof ; evol paper/imps w0 mov evol evoli: spl #d, bstep-1 mov b1, >2 add.f evoli, j j: jmp imp2-(d*14), {+1+bstep dat 0, 0 dat 0, 0 dat 0, 0 dat 0, 0 dat 0, 0 dat 0, 0 b1 dat <1, 1 imp2 mov.i #d, *0 for 50 dat 0,0 rof ; anti-scanner suicidal stone with pretty good core coverage w1 mov Subject: 2-dimensional corewar again Message-ID: <3g1M5.574$G7.20262@news.cwxpoint.at> Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 00:02:14 +0100 After some remarks from Ilmari Karonen who found the assembler of the original proposal too hard to read, I redesigned instruction set. I think this makes warriors much easier to read and it also reduces the need to do self-modification everywhere. Well, here you are: --------------------------------- Flatcode 0.1 - description Basic difference to redcode While redcode works in a one-dimensional core that resembles a common computers memory, flatcode has a two-dimensional memory. All addresses consist of an X and a Y, where each component follows the well-known modulo math of redcode. Also all data values are in the same format and so may be treated as a number or a relative address as usual. General instruction format Instructions consist of the opcode (with a modifier) and _one_ 2-dimensional data. That means there are is no B field as in redcode. The data is treated as an atom an can only be modified as a whole (but I already think of a SWP instruction). The opcodes have as modifier the move direction: L, R, U, or D This specifies by which value the program counter for the current thread should be incremented (-1,0 1,0 -1,0 or 1,0) after executing the instruction (of course only if this has not been a jumping or thread stopping instruction) I will write instructions in the following notation: . X,Y for example: D.PUT 0,1 (this will be an imp moving downwards) Operands All instructions contain just one (two-dimensional) data value, that can be used as a relative pointer to an operand, there must be at least one implizit operand in order to perform most operations. One possibility would have been to introduce an internal register (the accumulator) for data transfer and all operations. I did not like this very much, because it would require very much loading and storing of the accumulator. Also its value would have been invisible to other threads. Instead of this, I came to the idea of defining a "home" cell for each thread. The home cell is determined by an extra pointer (very much like the programm pointer) that each thread maintains. The programm can set the position of the home cell any time, and from this moment the home cell is used as implizit operand in all instructions. At program start the programm pointer and the home pointer point to the same cell. Opcodes Most instructions use direct addressing. For extra addressing modes special instructions are used (to avoid the usage of symbols like # or @) HOM sets the home location for the current thread. After the location has been set (program pointer relative) it will not be modified until the next HOM instruction. GET fetches the instruction (opcode and data) from the relative position and stores it into the home cell GTP uses the data field from the instruction on the relative position and uses it as a relative pointer. The instruction from this location is move to the home cell. (just like the indirect addressing (@) in redcode) PUT stores the instruction from the near operand to the home cell PTP like GTP. Moves the value from the home cell to the position being determined by indirect addressing. ADD, SUB, MUL gets the data from the instruction on the relative position and does a component-wise add/sub/mul operation to the data in the home cell ADI adds the data from the instruction itself to the data in the home location (like immediate addressing (#) in redcode) DAT stops the thread. SPL starts a new thread at the relative position. The home location of the new thread is also set to this position. JMP jumps to relative position. JXZ,JYZ performs the jump if the data in the home location has a X or Y part of zero. JXN,JYN same but for values being not zero JMZ jumps if X and Y are both zero JMN jumps if either X or Y is not zero Examples Imp R.PUT 1,0 This imp works because it always copies the instruction from its home location just ahead of itself. Probably these imps are much more dangerous than in redcode, because they do _not_ turn their victims into imps themselves: Having a different home location, the PUT will probably result in a DAT instruction being placed in front of the other thread. Greatest hope for their opponent is the inability of imps to reach the whole core since they move only one-dimensional. Bomber A 2-dimensional "dwarf" would look somewhat like: D.HOM 1,0 DAT 4,0 D.PTP 1,-1 L.ADI 0,4 R.ADI 4,0 U.JXN -1,-1 Starting with the HOM instruction, the dward would bomb the whole core in the pattern (relative to the DAT): 4,0 8,0 12,0 .... 0,4 4,4 8,4 ... Of course this warrior only works if the coresize is divisible by four. Visualisation As the core is two-dimensional, the display of the game state on the computer screen comes very natural. Also I expect the warriors to form nicer patterns. This would give the jury in a tournament the possibility to give an extra price to the most beautyful warrior ;-) From: "Reinhard Grafl" Subject: Re: 2-dimensional corewar again Message-ID: Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 00:05:55 +0100 Oops, I mixed up the names! Of course I ment the remarks of Lukasz Adamowski who did some proposals for simplications. From: "Robert Macrae" Subject: Re: Round 3 Results Date: 2 Nov 2000 08:35:23 -0500 Message-ID: <017a01c044a7$cf38b080$1e97bc3e@dell98> > Anyway, my warrior's at the bottom... careful examination > will reveal that if you are lucky enough to make me store > a #4 or #5 in my pstate, I'm dead for the rest of the rounds. I managed 250/250 wins storing #0, but unfortunately I stopped testing there! Robert From: Lukasz Adamowski Subject: Re: What are the enviroment settings for round 4? Date: 2 Nov 2000 08:41:28 -0500 Message-ID: On Wed, 1 Nov 2000 jkw@koth.org wrote: > >OK, and how many rounds? You haven't wrote about it neither. It's > >necessary for me for testing. > > Lukasz > > Um how could the number of rounds possibly be important to your > testing? It will be somewhere between 200 and 2000, I think. > > -jkw > Time! I don't have too much time so cannot run fights with many rounds. I wanted to know number of rounds that is representative to fights in round 4. Lukasz From: Lukasz Adamowski Subject: Re: 2-dimensional corewar again Date: 2 Nov 2000 17:13:06 -0500 Message-ID: It sounds interesting too, but I'm not sure about HOM opcode. Wouldn't it be better to use some kind of register instead of HOM cell? Lukasz BTW Befunge sources are really twisted! I love enigmatic programming languages! From: jkw@koth.org Subject: kofacoto Date: 2 Nov 2000 18:37:42 -0500 Message-ID: <4.1.20001102171032.00a93d20@pop-server> By the way, the first play-off round will be 1 on 1 battles under '94 rules. Each person that makes the playoffs will submit their warrior, and the 2 will fight each other. Winner goes on... I think I'll probably run groups of 2000 rounds. And if any matchups are really close, I'll run another group of 2000 for them. I should be able to announce on Mon/Tues who is in the playoffs vs who. I've decided there will be 8 playoff spots... >I managed 250/250 wins storing #0, but unfortunately I stopped testing >there! > >Robert Uh, 250/250? >Time! I don't have too much time so cannot run fights with many rounds. I >wanted to know number of rounds that is representative to fights in round >4. > Lukasz Well, that may very well be, but aside from statistical uncertainty, the number of rounds shouldn't affect your score. -jkw From: "pk" Subject: RE: 2-dimensional corewar again Date: 2 Nov 2000 21:56:17 -0500 Message-ID: Have you seen the other language that's based on angles?? Pretty weird! 8) (it's in the links seciton, i tihnk) Paul aka Pika{AGUT} > -----Original Message----- > From: corewar-l@koth.org [mailto:corewar-l@koth.org]On Behalf Of Lukasz > Adamowski > Sent: 2 novembre, 2000 17:13 > To: Multiple recipients of list COREWAR-L > Subject: Re: 2-dimensional corewar again > > > It sounds interesting too, but I'm not sure about HOM opcode. Wouldn't it > be better to use some kind of register instead of HOM cell? > Lukasz > BTW Befunge sources are really twisted! I love enigmatic programming > languages! > > > From: Ben Ford Subject: Re: KOFACOTO Round 4 Rules Date: 2000/11/03 Message-ID: <8tvg94$65g$1@nnrp1.deja.com>#1/1 In article <972634234.29915@itz.pp.sci.fi>, Ilmari Karonen wrote: > In article <4.1.20001026174845.00a802c0@pop-server>, jkw@koth.org wrote: > > > >--- If everyone survives, you get 1 pt. > >--- If you/CIA survive and Jedimp dies you get 10 pts. > > > >To make it possible for me to calculate scores, I'm > >going to be running a series of 1 round battles in > >pmars, so forget about using pspace. (Not that it'd > >be useful to you anyway. Heh.) > > Actually you don't have to. You can compute the scores from the > 'Results:' lines printed by pMARS. If you have: > > Your results: ? a d ? > CIA results: ? b d ? > Jedimp results: ? c d ? > > where the question marks in the first (sole survivor) and last (death) > columns represent numbers not used in the formula, the score equals: > > 5*(a + b - c) + d Actually, there is a 'simpler' formula. Your results: a ? d ? CIA results: b ? d ? Jedimp results: ? ? d c Then the score is: 10*(c - a - b) + d Due to the nature of the round, a and b will probably be minimal, if not 0. And multiplying by 10 is easier than multiplying by 5. =) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. From: "Reinhard Grafl" Subject: Re: 2-dimensional corewar again Message-ID: Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 10:16:59 +0100 Lukasz Adamowski schrieb in Nachricht ... >It sounds interesting too, but I'm not sure about HOM opcode. Wouldn't it >be better to use some kind of register instead of HOM cell? > Lukasz >BTW Befunge sources are really twisted! I love enigmatic programming >languages! > > I also thought about it first, but I thought this tends to create slower programs since you have to do more put and get operations. Well, lets check with a simple copy loop: count:D.DAT 10,0 ; loop counter temp: D.DAT 0,0 copy: D.HOM temp gt: D.GET 10,20 ; source pointer pt: D.PUT 40,20 ; destination pointer D.HOM gt D.ADI 0,1 D.HOM pt D.ADI 0,1 D.HOM count D.SUB 1,0 D.JXN copy (10 instruction in the loop) with just a single register, this would become: count: D.DAT 10,0 gt: D.GET 10,20 pt: D.PUT 40,20 D.GET gt D.ADI 0,1 D.PUT gt D.GET pt D.ADI 0,1 D.PUT pt D.GET count D.ADI -1,0 D.PUT count D.JXN gt (12 instructions in the loop) Well, maybe you could reduce the number of operations by introducing some new instructions for the special purpose of manipulating loop counters and addresses. But the main reason for this home cell was to provide a kind of symmetry to the program pointer. The home pointer would only require to store an X,Y - pair for each thread. In a register, you must also store an opcode (since get and put would using the register). Another thing would also be possible with the home cell: Remote-controlling imps (sounds fascinating to me, but it surely depends on ones taste) From: Hillis Subject: Re: KOFACOTO Round 4 Rules Date: 2000/11/04 Message-ID: <3A04280A.B0705770@erols.com>#1/1 My GA program has used Imari's formula thousands of times in the last week. Thanks! And thanks to the others who post useful stuff like that. Dave Hillis From: Lukasz Adamowski Subject: Re: KOFACOTO Round 4 Rules Date: 2000/11/04 Message-ID: #1/1 > > >> > > >> 5*(a + b - c) + d > > > > > >Actually, there is a 'simpler' formula. > > > > > > Your results: a ? d ? > > > CIA results: b ? d ? > > > Jedimp results: ? ? d c > > > > > >Then the score is: 10*(c - a - b) + d > > > > > >Due to the nature of the round, a and b will probably be minimal, if > > >not 0. And multiplying by 10 is easier than multiplying by 5. =) > > > > That looks mathematically correct as well. I'm not sure it's actually > > simpler... especially considering that I've already written the perl > > script that generated the results from rounds 1, 2, and 3, and > whatever > > formula I use will take mere microseconds to run through the pmars > > output and generate results, heh, but ok. > > > Anyone else want to come up with another formula? :P > No, I don't have another formula, but multiplying by 10 isn't much simpler than by 5, if you are computer, because you are multiplying in binary system. Multiplying by 16 or 8 may be simpler, so why don't you change scoring rules? ;) Lukasz From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Re: KOFACOTO Round 4 Rules Date: 4 Nov 2000 00:08:05 -0500 Message-ID: <4.1.20001103225832.00ab3180@pop-server> >> >--- If everyone survives, you get 1 pt. >> >--- If you/CIA survive and Jedimp dies you get 10 pts. >> > >> >To make it possible for me to calculate scores, I'm >> >going to be running a series of 1 round battles in >> >pmars, so forget about using pspace. (Not that it'd >> >be useful to you anyway. Heh.) >> >> Actually you don't have to. You can compute the scores from the >> 'Results:' lines printed by pMARS. If you have: >> >> Your results: ? a d ? >> CIA results: ? b d ? >> Jedimp results: ? c d ? >> >> where the question marks in the first (sole survivor) and last (death) >> columns represent numbers not used in the formula, the score equals: >> >> 5*(a + b - c) + d > >Actually, there is a 'simpler' formula. > > Your results: a ? d ? > CIA results: b ? d ? > Jedimp results: ? ? d c > >Then the score is: 10*(c - a - b) + d > >Due to the nature of the round, a and b will probably be minimal, if >not 0. And multiplying by 10 is easier than multiplying by 5. =) That looks mathematically correct as well. I'm not sure it's actually simpler... especially considering that I've already written the perl script that generated the results from rounds 1, 2, and 3, and whatever formula I use will take mere microseconds to run through the pmars output and generate results, heh, but ok. Anyone else want to come up with another formula? :P -jkw From: Ben Ford Subject: Re: KOFACOTO Round 4 Rules Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2000 06:48:44 GMT Message-ID: <8u0bgc$q97$1@nnrp1.deja.com> In article <4.1.20001103225832.00ab3180@pop-server>, jkw@koth.org wrote: > >> >--- If everyone survives, you get 1 pt. > >> >--- If you/CIA survive and Jedimp dies you get 10 pts. > >> > > >> >To make it possible for me to calculate scores, I'm > >> >going to be running a series of 1 round battles in > >> >pmars, so forget about using pspace. (Not that it'd > >> >be useful to you anyway. Heh.) > >> > >> Actually you don't have to. You can compute the scores from the > >> 'Results:' lines printed by pMARS. If you have: > >> > >> Your results: ? a d ? > >> CIA results: ? b d ? > >> Jedimp results: ? c d ? > >> > >> where the question marks in the first (sole survivor) and last (death) > >> columns represent numbers not used in the formula, the score equals: > >> > >> 5*(a + b - c) + d > > > >Actually, there is a 'simpler' formula. > > > > Your results: a ? d ? > > CIA results: b ? d ? > > Jedimp results: ? ? d c > > > >Then the score is: 10*(c - a - b) + d > > > >Due to the nature of the round, a and b will probably be minimal, if > >not 0. And multiplying by 10 is easier than multiplying by 5. =) > > That looks mathematically correct as well. I'm not sure it's actually > simpler... especially considering that I've already written the perl > script that generated the results from rounds 1, 2, and 3, and whatever > formula I use will take mere microseconds to run through the pmars > output and generate results, heh, but ok. Well if you are computing the score in your head rather than using scripts, mine is easier to use, thats all. To a script, 4 variables is 4 variables. > Anyone else want to come up with another formula? :P I think any other formulas will require more than 4 variables to compute, which definately would not be simpler. =) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Re: As I said... Date: 2000/11/05 Message-ID: <4.1.20001105182400.00910d50@pop-server>#1/1 At 11:42 AM 11/5/00 -0500, you wrote: >.. I give up, my best warrior gains 7.6% score. I think there is no use >sending it to jkw. So, good luck to you! Let the best win! > Lukasz >PS I'll keep my fingers crossed for Michal Janeczek, of course. :) Heh Gunnell expressed some similar despair... I didn't attempt to write an entry for this round as a test, but I won't comment on what strategy I think will probably win... -jkw From: Lukasz Adamowski Subject: As I said... Date: 2000/11/05 Message-ID: #1/1 ... I give up, my best warrior gains 7.6% score. I think there is no use sending it to jkw. So, good luck to you! Let the best win! Lukasz PS I'll keep my fingers crossed for Michal Janeczek, of course. :) From: Lukasz Adamowski Subject: Sorry, guys... Date: 2000/11/05 Message-ID: #1/1 ... but I think I won't participate in last preliminary round. My best warrior gains only about 60 points in 100 rounds battle. The problem is I don't know how to win with Evil Jedimps, finding CIA is quite simple. If I don't think something good in an hour, I give up. I have some other duties. Lukasz From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Re: KOFACOTO Round 4 Rules Date: 2000/11/05 Message-ID: <4.1.20001105000659.009821b0@pop-server>#1/1 >> > Anyone else want to come up with another formula? :P >> >No, I don't have another formula, but multiplying by 10 isn't much simpler >than by 5, if you are computer, because you are multiplying in binary >system. Multiplying by 16 or 8 may be simpler, so why don't you change >scoring rules? ;) > Lukasz I seriously doubt PERL optimizes integer multiplication by shift's rather than mul's... hehe. >> My GA program has used Imari's formula thousands of times in the last >>week. Thanks! And thanks to the others who post useful stuff like that. >> >>Dave Hillis Oh lord, you wacky GA guys never cease to amaze me. :) -jkw From: anton@paradise.net.nz (Anton Marsden) Subject: Core War Frequently Asked Questions (rec.games.corewar FAQ) Date: 2000/11/05 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: Lukasz Adamowski Subject: Has there any irc meeting been lately? Date: 2000/11/06 Message-ID: #1/1 I noticed the information in weekly KOTH status, but there's no new logs in irc directory. BTW meetings are in the same time, Sunday about midnight (Central Europe Time), aren't they? Yes, I know I've got nothing to lose, that's the good point in all of it. But I'm a bit tired (especially my eyes) and have to do some homework too. Lukasz From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - Standard 11/06/00 Date: 2000/11/06 Message-ID: <200011060500.AAA27003@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 11/06/00 -=- 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 : Mon Oct 23 19:01:57 EDT 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 38/ 20/ 42 Freight Train David Moore 155 71 2 37/ 22/ 40 sIMPly.Red v0.95 Leonardo Humberto 153 28 3 36/ 20/ 43 Test Alexander (Sasha) Wa 152 10 4 36/ 22/ 43 Guardian Ian Oversby 150 70 5 41/ 36/ 24 PacMan David Moore 145 100 6 31/ 16/ 53 EV Paper John K Wilkinson 145 84 7 41/ 40/ 19 Stasis David Moore 141 178 8 30/ 19/ 50 Test I Ian Oversby 141 127 9 32/ 22/ 46 Shish-Ka-Bob Ben Ford 141 26 10 42/ 45/ 13 Iron Gate Wayne Sheppard 139 396 11 40/ 41/ 19 Beholder's Eye V1.7 W. Mintardjo 139 346 12 37/ 36/ 27 Stillborn Bomber v0.2 mjp 138 11 13 38/ 39/ 23 Tangle Trap David Moore 137 144 14 29/ 22/ 49 Evoltmp 88 John K W 137 121 15 40/ 46/ 14 Foggy Swamp Beppe Bezzi 133 67 16 34/ 36/ 30 Frog Sticker P.Kline 132 20 17 39/ 47/ 14 Blur '88 Anton Marsden 131 108 18 39/ 50/ 11 Blurstone '88 M. J. Pihlaja 129 65 19 39/ 50/ 11 Shadow Seeker John Metcalf 127 7 20 27/ 43/ 30 Twill Andy Pierce 111 1 21 10/ 63/ 28 Virual IIII: RWT Tharn 57 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - MultiWarrior 94 11/06/00 Date: 2000/11/06 Message-ID: <200011060500.AAA27007@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 11/06/00 -=- 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 Nov 2 10:06:15 EST 2000 # Name Author Score Age 1 D-clearM Ken Espiritu 35 42 2 QuiVa John Metcalf 22 135 3 Friction Ken Espiritu 22 14 4 Her Majesty P.Kline 21 61 5 fclear Brian Haskin 19 26 6 vamp/scan test b1 Ken Espiritu 18 15 7 MorphinMerlin Jeremy K 18 6 8 Dracula's Cape Ben Ford 14 20 9 SmallFry Simon Duff 10 12 10 Scan Test Tester 9 1 11 bTest a P.Kline 2 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - 94 No Pspace 11/06/00 Date: 2000/11/06 Message-ID: <200011060500.AAA27018@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 11/06/00 -=- 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 : Fri Nov 3 06:28:28 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 46/ 37/ 16 Behemot Michal Janeczek 155 44 2 45/ 42/ 13 Eraser II Ken Espiritu 148 178 3 45/ 42/ 13 G2-b David Moore 147 7 4 45/ 44/ 10 Stalker P.Kline 147 206 5 44/ 43/ 13 Jinx Christian Schmidt 145 184 6 44/ 44/ 12 Pitbull Christian Schmidt 144 54 7 43/ 44/ 14 Zooom... John Metcalf 141 357 8 40/ 41/ 19 CrazyShot Christian Schmidt 140 53 9 42/ 46/ 12 vamp/scan test b1 Ken Espiritu 139 136 10 32/ 25/ 43 nPaper II Paul-V Khuong 138 221 11 33/ 29/ 37 Omnibus John Metcalf 137 230 12 34/ 31/ 36 Mini Digitalis Christian Schmidt 137 12 13 31/ 26/ 43 Jade Ben Ford 137 290 14 35/ 33/ 32 Blacken Ian Oversby 136 468 15 27/ 22/ 51 Tie Factory Christian Schmidt 133 72 16 28/ 23/ 49 The Dark One Christian Schmidt 133 14 17 29/ 25/ 46 Uninvited John Metcalf 132 173 18 30/ 29/ 41 Experimental John Metcalf 131 177 19 27/ 24/ 48 Jaguar Christian Schmidt 131 208 20 36/ 53/ 11 RT2 Michal Janeczek 119 1 21 0/ 2/ 2 RT2 Michal Janeczek 3 2 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - ICWS Experimental 94 11/06/00 Date: 2000/11/06 Message-ID: <200011060500.AAA27014@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 11/06/00 -=- 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 : Thu Nov 2 17:45:28 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 48/ 28/ 24 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 168 37 2 49/ 32/ 19 Black Moods Ian Oversby 167 33 3 26/ 6/ 68 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 146 106 4 31/ 18/ 51 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 145 59 5 22/ 2/ 75 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 142 54 6 29/ 21/ 50 Rosebud Beppe 138 85 7 37/ 38/ 25 Stepping Stone 94x Kurt Franke 137 92 8 38/ 43/ 20 Tsunami v0.3 X Ian Oversby 133 31 9 35/ 38/ 27 Dr. Gate X Franz 132 77 10 24/ 18/ 58 Purple v0.1 Christian Schmidt 130 58 11 38/ 47/ 15 S.E.T.I. 4-X JKW 130 107 12 31/ 34/ 35 Draken Fire X Ben Ford 129 28 13 33/ 37/ 31 MorphinMerlin Jeremy K 129 20 14 18/ 8/ 74 Black Box v1 JKW 127 18 15 33/ 38/ 30 BigBoy Robert Macrae 127 131 16 36/ 44/ 20 Pagan John K W 127 91 17 31/ 35/ 33 Lithium X 8 John K Wilkinson 127 97 18 24/ 24/ 52 test Ben Ford 124 1 19 34/ 46/ 20 Memories Beppe Bezzi 121 113 20 33/ 47/ 20 Even More Advanced (read: Josef Jahn 120 21 21 25/ 60/ 14 The Brain Hungry Leonardo H. Liporati 91 0 From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Re: KOFACOTO round 3 results Date: 2000/11/07 Message-ID: <4.1.20001107162150.00aa82a0@pop-server>#1/1 Yea I covered that in my original corewar-l posting of the results. Brainwashing with #4 or #5 caused all subsequent rounds to be lost. Several warriors had the potential to get a lucky shot in, which is why I round each battle 5 times. At 03:31 PM 11/7/00 -0500, you wrote: >Yeah, I ran into that during testing as you can see by my >warrior 'test' on the experiemntal hill. No idea what caused it, but >if I slightly tweaked my qscan constants, the score goes back to >average. Which I found really odd since the qscan shouldn't be making >that much difference. > >My best guess is that the paper part of my warrior somehow got the >black box to re-execute the STP with the constants overwritten, causing >a fatal brainwash. > >In article 100000@dingo.if.pw.edu.pl>, > adamow@if.pw.edu.pl wrote: >> I had a look of raw results of round 3 and there's something strange: >some >> warriors (Ben Ford's, Dave Hillis's, John Metcalf's, Leonardo >Liporati's >> and my) have some medium scores and some rather average. Why? Were >these >> battles run with different options/settings? Or maybe there's >something >> wrong with pMARS's random generator? >> I'm a bit surprised. >> Lukasz >> BTW I did test my warrior for round 4. It gained 1483, so I wouldn't >be >> the last (if I send it;) >> >> > > >Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ >Before you buy. From: Ben Ford Subject: Re: KOFACOTO round 3 results Date: 2000/11/07 Message-ID: <8u9kr7$u9k$1@nnrp1.deja.com>#1/1 Yeah, I ran into that during testing as you can see by my warrior 'test' on the experiemntal hill. No idea what caused it, but if I slightly tweaked my qscan constants, the score goes back to average. Which I found really odd since the qscan shouldn't be making that much difference. My best guess is that the paper part of my warrior somehow got the black box to re-execute the STP with the constants overwritten, causing a fatal brainwash. In article , adamow@if.pw.edu.pl wrote: > I had a look of raw results of round 3 and there's something strange: some > warriors (Ben Ford's, Dave Hillis's, John Metcalf's, Leonardo Liporati's > and my) have some medium scores and some rather average. Why? Were these > battles run with different options/settings? Or maybe there's something > wrong with pMARS's random generator? > I'm a bit surprised. > Lukasz > BTW I did test my warrior for round 4. It gained 1483, so I wouldn't be > the last (if I send it;) > > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. From: Lukasz Adamowski Subject: KOFACOTO round 3 results Date: 2000/11/07 Message-ID: #1/1 I had a look of raw results of round 3 and there's something strange: some warriors (Ben Ford's, Dave Hillis's, John Metcalf's, Leonardo Liporati's and my) have some medium scores and some rather average. Why? Were these battles run with different options/settings? Or maybe there's something wrong with pMARS's random generator? I'm a bit surprised. Lukasz BTW I did test my warrior for round 4. It gained 1483, so I wouldn't be the last (if I send it;) From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Round 4 results! The regular season is over! Date: 2000/11/07 Message-ID: <4.1.20001106204039.00968f00@pop-server>#1/1 As I expected, a scan->vamp->spiral scanner was the winning strategy, but different people went about implimenting it in very different ways. For the final scoring totals, including who the 8 finalists are, see http://www.koth.org/kofacoto !! By the way finalists, please make sure you use the same ";author" line in the next rounds that you did in the rest of them. I had to edit several author lines in order to total the scores from all the rounds. (If I didn't give someone their points from a round, let me know immediately.) Also, please use meaningful ";assert" lines... heh, I know it's kinda late in the game now, but oh well. Name S NS Retribution by Michal Janeczek 13985 1000 myEchelon by Magnus Paulsson 13077 935 Dial 'H' for Hero! by David Moore 12401 886 Round4.2000 by P.Kline 12286 878 S A S by Robert Macrae 10594 757 The Rescue Team by Christian Schmidt 8675 620 Splitter by Ben Ford 8202 586 PM do Rio by Leonardo H. Liporati 5564 397 Saturday Afternoon Soldiers by Steve Gunnell 3219 230 lame killa by philipp stefan 2732 195 x1_47.red by Dave Hillis 1114 79 Kamikaze Crazy by Jeremy Chin 76 5 From: jkw@koth.org Subject: kofacoto and Re: WTB: old Digital DEC PDP-8 Computer Date: 2000/11/08 Message-ID: <4.1.20001108205802.00a9d920@pop-server>#1/1 Never heard of a pdp-8... but did ya'll see the episode of Futurama where the snobby robot was named TRaSh-80? hehe. Also, I've decided kofacoto playoff round #2 will be under '94x rules... -jkw At 09:31 PM 11/8/00 -0500, you wrote: > >I am looking for an old PDP-8 minicomputer like the PDP-8/E or PDP-8/M, >etc... I am also in need of any spare parts. > >If you have any of the above available then please e-mail me at >johnb@teachers.org > >john > > From: Philip Kendall Subject: pMARS and Curses display Date: 2000/11/08 Message-ID: #1/1 Hi all. I'm trying to compile pMARS (0.9.1) using the Curses display on this Solaris machine, but I'm getting: gcc -DPACKAGE=\"pmars\" -DVERSION=\"0.9.1\" -DX_DISPLAY_MISSING=1 -DSTDC_HEADERS=1 -DHAVE_FCNTL_H=1 -DHAVE_LIMITS_H=1 -DHAVE_MALLOC_H=1 -DHAVE_SYS_TIME_H=1 -DHAVE_UNISTD_H=1 -DTIME_WITH_SYS_TIME=1 -DRETSIGTYPE=void -DHAVE_SELECT=1 -DHAVE_STRERROR=1 -DHAVE_STRSTR=1 -DHAVE_STRTOL=1 -I. -I. -g -O2 -DGRAPHX -DEXT94 -c sim.c In file included from sim.c:55: curdisp.c:162: parse error curdisp.c:185: parse error gmake: *** [sim.o] Error 1 [Sorry for the length of that command line -- I'm trying hack pMARS to use automake/autoconf] The relevant lines of curdisp.c (the Curses display routines) are: #if SYSV && KEYPRESSED and #if KEYPRESSED && SYSV `SYSV' I can't see anywhere else in the sources, whilst `KEYPRESSED' is defined in uidisp.c, but only if `CURSESGRAPHX' isn't defined... Should these lines be something like #if defined(SYSV) && defined(KEYPRESS) ie if we're on a SYSV system (which I'm guessing will predefine `SYSV') and `KEYPRESS' is defined (as mentioned in the Makefile)? Cheers for any help... P -- Philip Kendall http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~pak21/ From: birk@andromeda.ociw.edu Subject: Re: pMARS and Curses display Date: 2000/11/09 Message-ID: <200011091850.KAA27579@andromeda.ociw.edu>#1/1 Philip Kendall wrote: > I think they probably should, so I've created the trivial patch > necessary (see below). I've tested this on the Solaris and Linux boxes > I have handy, but if someone could test it on a SysV box (both with > and without -DKEYPRESS), that would be useful :-) Solaris is a System-5 Unix Christoph From: Philip Kendall Subject: Re: pMARS and Curses display Date: 2000/11/09 Message-ID: #1/1 Philip Kendall writes: [Apologies for following up my own post...] > I'm trying to compile pMARS (0.9.1) using the Curses display on this > Solaris machine, but I'm getting: [snip] > Should these lines be something like > > #if defined(SYSV) && defined(KEYPRESS) I think they probably should, so I've created the trivial patch necessary (see below). I've tested this on the Solaris and Linux boxes I have handy, but if someone could test it on a SysV box (both with and without -DKEYPRESS), that would be useful :-) I've also uploaded the patch to SourceForge. Cheers, Phil [patch follows -- rcs version 1.1 is stock pMARS 0.9.1] --- curdisp.c 2000/11/08 11:58:45 1.1 +++ curdisp.c 2000/11/09 15:41:41 @@ -1,5 +1,6 @@ /* pMARS -- a portable Memory Array Redcode Simulator * Copyright (C) 1993-1996 Albert Ma, Na'ndor Sieben, Stefan Strack and Mintardjo Wangsawidjaja + * Copyright (C) 2000 Philip Kendall * * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by @@ -159,7 +160,7 @@ wrefresh(corewin); } } -#if SYSV && KEYPRESSED +#if defined(SYSV) && defined(KEYPRESS) /* PAK */ if (wgetch(corewin) != ERR) debugState = STEP; #endif @@ -182,7 +183,7 @@ nonl(); /* Handle keypad if it is supported */ -#if KEYPRESSED && SYSV +#if defined(SYSV) && defined(KEYPRESS) /* PAK */ keypad(stdscr, TRUE); #endif } -- Philip Kendall http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~pak21/ From: Planar Subject: Re: pMARS and Curses display Date: 2000/11/09 Message-ID: <8ueh62$fl9$1@ites.inria.fr>#1/1 >From: Philip Kendall >#if SYSV && KEYPRESSED >Should these lines be something like > >#if defined(SYSV) && defined(KEYPRESS) Shouldn't make much difference. If SYSV is defined, by default it is defined to 1, and if it is not defined, it is evaluated as 0 by the C preprocessor. -- Planar From: jkw@koth.org Subject: kofacoto round3 follow up, and p^3 generator Date: 2000/11/10 Message-ID: <4.1.20001110175834.00989ef0@pop-server>#1/1 (I'm posting this on http://www.koth.org/kofacoto as well.) On http://www.koth.org/pmars a placed a new version of the Perl program I used to make my p^3 warrior for round 3 of kofacoto. Look in the "Other" section to download it. The new version by default goes to the warrior in state 0 when brainwashed, but it also informs you that it's possible to reach this spot via brainwashing... pretty slick now. If you use the input which it shows by default when you run the program, you get the following output. C:\CWAR\BIG>perl p3-1.pl input.txt PSTATE equ 100 ; change this so its tougher to guess think ldp.a #0, in ldp.a #PSTATE, table mod.ba *in, table stp.b *table, #PSTATE table jmp }0, 175 dat w0, 50 dat w1, 177 dat w1, 192 in dat w0, 6 ; brainwashing with 4 will use this a-field dat w0, 5 ; brainwashing with 5 will use this a-field dat 0, 7 I used the new version, and re-ran the battles from Round 3 without the brainwashing bug. As expected, Schmidt's warrior, which relied most heavily on my warrior's bug, was hit hardest, falling from 2nd place to like 14th place. Moore's warrior still came in first with an amazing score thanks to his clairvoyant ability to figure out the exact step size of my paper! Look at this line from his warrior! What a sneaky bastard... hehe. dist equ 3520 ;distance between silk copies Anyway, here's the results when I re-ran them without the bug. - HSA-Clone by Andy Nevermind scores 193 Black Box v1.1 by JKW scores 391 Results: 9 75 166 - Oneder by Ben Ford scores 272 Black Box v1.1 by JKW scores 239 Results: 11 0 239 - HoT by Christian Schmidt scores 252 Black Box v1.1 by JKW scores 249 Results: 1 0 249 - The Truth Is Out There by David Moore scores 608 Black Box v1.1 by JKW scores 125 Results: 197 36 17 - v1_40.red by Dave Hillis scores 175 Black Box v1.1 by JKW scores 412 Results: 4 83 163 - Tie by Ilmari Karonen scores 244 Black Box v1.1 by JKW scores 262 Results: 0 6 244 - Voodoo by Jeremy Chin scores 7 Black Box v1.1 by JKW scores 736 Results: 0 243 7 - Hope by John Metcalf scores 257 Black Box v1.1 by JKW scores 254 Results: 6 5 239 - The Brain Hungry by Leonardo H. Liporati scores 169 Black Box v1.1 by JKW scores 544 Results: 44 169 37 - Rainbow Demon by Lukasz Adamowski scores 242 Black Box v1.1 by JKW scores 281 Results: 5 18 227 - mySpiral by Magnus Paulsson scores 409 Black Box v1.1 by JKW scores 310 Results: 126 93 31 - 4-line Bomb Dodger by Josh Yeager scores 164 Black Box v1.1 by JKW scores 446 Results: 8 102 140 - Reverse Engineering by Michal Janeczek scores 571 Black Box v1.1 by JKW scores 166 Results: 186 51 13 - FireHouse by P.Kline scores 436 Black Box v1.1 by JKW scores 241 Results: 121 56 73 - 55HSB by Robert Macrae scores 476 Black Box v1.1 by JKW scores 272 Results: 158 90 2 - Spray 'n Wipe by Steve Gunnell scores 329 Black Box v1.1 by JKW scores 386 Results: 98 117 35 - From: Frederick.C.Strathmeyer@Dartmouth.EDU (Frederick C. Strathmeyer) Subject: Re: Core Warrior 78 Date: 2000/11/10 Message-ID: <36963112@dasher.Dartmouth.EDU>#1/1 yay! new core warrior!! From: Philip Kendall Subject: Core Warrior 78 Date: 2000/11/10 Message-ID: [Credits for this should go to John Metcalf and David Moore as I'm just posting it -- Phil] .xX$$x. .x$$$$$$$x. d$$$$$$$$$$$ ,$$$$$$$P' `P' , . $$$$$$P' ' .d b $$$$$P b ,$$x ,$$x ,$$x ,$$b $$. Y$$$$' `$. $$$$$$. $$$$$$ $$P~d$. d$$$b d d$$$ `$$$$ ,$$ $$$$$$$b $$$P `$ $$$b.$$b `Y$$$d$d$$$' . . a . a a .aa . a `$$$ ,$$$,$$' `$$$ $$$' ' $$P$XX$' `$$$$$$$$$ .dP' `$'$ `$'$ , $''$ `$'$ `Y$b ,d$$$P `$b,d$P' `$$. `$$. , `$$P $$$' Y $. $ $ $ Y..P $ `$$$$$$$' $$$P' `$$b `$$$P `P `$' `Y'k. $. $. $. $$' $. Issue 78 7 November, 2000 _______________________________________________________________________________ Core Warrior is a newsletter promoting the game of corewar. Emphasis is placed on the most active hills - currently the '94 draft hill, the beginner hill and the '94 no-pspace hill. Coverage will follow where ever the action is. If you haven't a clue what I'm talking about then check out these five-star internet locals for more information: FAQs are available from: http://www.koth.org/corewar-faq.html http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~anton/cw/corewar-faq.html The ftp site and it's mirrors are at: ftp://ftp.csua.berkeley.edu/pub/corewar ftp://ftp.inria.fr/INRIA/Projects/para/doligez/cw/mirror ftp://www.koth.org/corewar pMARS itself is also available from: http://www.koth.org/pmars ;pMARS home page ftp://members.aol.com/ofechner/corewar ;Fechner ftp site Web pages are at: http://www.koth.org/ ;KOTH http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~pizza/koth ;Pizza http://para.inria.fr/~doligez/corewar ;Planar Newbies should check the above pages for the FAQ, language specification, guides, and tutorials. Post questions to rec.games.corewar. All new players are infinitely welcome! _______________________________________________________________________________ Greetings... It has been absolutely ages since last issue and hill activity has been minimal. Fortunately the past few months have not been uneventful - JKW has finally shared the code for Return of the Jedimp and organised the Koth Fall Corewar Tournament (Kofacoto). This issue, David Moore shows us how Combatra, his boot-distance works and also we have the code for KafuFFLe, a defensive paper/stone. -- John Metcalf _______________________________________________________________________________ Current Status of the Internet Pizza Server ICWS '94 Draft Hill: Hill Specs: coresize: 8000 max. processes: 8000 duration: after 80,000 cycles, a tie is declared. max. entry length: 100 minimum distance: 100 rounds fought: 200 instruction set: ICWS '94 Draft # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age 1 48.9/ 41.0/ 10.0 Shapeshifter Michal Janeczek 156.8 4 2 45.7/ 46.4/ 7.9 Razor Michal Janeczek 145.0 5 3 39.8/ 34.7/ 25.5 Self-Modifying Code Ben Ford 144.8 93 4 36.2/ 29.0/ 34.8 Vilex Ken Espiritu 143.4 45 5 32.6/ 23.5/ 44.0 Uninvited John Metcalf 141.7 16 6 38.9/ 36.9/ 24.2 Recycled Bits David Moore 140.9 147 7 31.5/ 23.5/ 45.0 Mini Digitalis Christian Schmidt 139.6 0 8 40.0/ 41.1/ 18.9 Combatra David Moore 138.8 5 9 39.6/ 40.8/ 19.5 G2 David Moore 138.5 0 10 37.8/ 37.3/ 24.9 Origami Harquebus mjp 138.2 41 11 28.5/ 19.2/ 52.3 Tie Factory Christian Schmidt 137.8 19 12 25.2/ 12.9/ 61.9 Cinammon John Metcalf 137.6 18 13 29.4/ 21.4/ 49.3 nPaper II Paul-V Khuong 137.4 50 14 39.5/ 42.2/ 18.3 Pitbull Christian Schmidt 136.7 9 15 36.7/ 37.4/ 25.9 Trefoil the original Steve Gunnell 135.9 38 16 27.8/ 21.3/ 50.8 Jade Ben Ford 134.3 70 17 37.5/ 41.0/ 21.5 CrazyShot Christian Schmidt 134.0 8 18 37.9/ 41.9/ 20.2 Ultima Christian Schmidt 133.9 12 19 26.3/ 19.4/ 54.3 Stylized Euphoria Ken Espiritu 133.2 37 20 24.9/ 16.7/ 58.4 Cinammon John Metcalf 133.0 43 21 27.5/ 22.2/ 50.3 EvoP 3 Ken Espiritu 132.9 50 22 24.6/ 17.6/ 57.8 Return of the Fugitive David Moore 131.6 74 23 25.7/ 20.2/ 54.1 The Dark One Christian Schmidt 131.2 2 24 26.6/ 22.4/ 50.9 Exor Ken Espiritu 130.9 50 25 27.6/ 26.5/ 45.9 Wintermute John Metcalf 128.7 34 Age since last issue: 18 ( 12 last issue, 20 the issue before ) Days since last issue: 209 ( 121 last issue, 101 the issue before ) Average age: 34 ( 34 last issue, 28 the issue before ) Average score: 138 ( 137 last issue, 137 the issue before ) Average movement: -6.0 ( -1.5 last issue, -4.2 the issue before ) Warriors surviving: 14 ( 18 last issue, 9 the issue before ) The top 25 warriors are represented by just 9 independent authors: Schmidt with 6, Espiritu, Moore and Metcalf with 4, Janeczek and Ford with 2. The remaining three authors have just 1 warrior each. ( 10 authors last issue, 10 the issue before ) Shapeshifter dominates the hill by nearly 12 points, utilising a P^3 -> dodger/stone/scanner to great effect. Janeczek's other warrior, a HSA-like scanner by the name of Razor holds second place. Only Trefoil gains rank - Wintermute drops furthest, from 4th to 25th. _______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's New (Sorted by rank and score) # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age 1 47.2/ 42.2/ 10.6 Shapeshifter Michal Janeczek 152.2 1 1 44.8/ 46.8/ 8.4 Razor Michal Janeczek 142.8 0 2 39.3/ 39.0/ 21.7 Pitbull Christian Schmidt 139.5 1 4 23.4/ 12.6/ 64.0 Cinammon John Metcalf 134.2 1 5 37.3/ 41.9/ 20.8 Behemot Michal Janeczek 132.7 0 5 38.4/ 44.7/ 16.9 Brainstorm Michal Janeczek 132.2 1 6 26.0/ 21.2/ 52.8 Uninvited John Metcalf 130.9 1 7 36.5/ 40.4/ 23.0 CrazyShot Christian Schmidt 132.6 1 8 28.9/ 25.3/ 45.7 Mini Digitalis Christian Schmidt 132.5 0 8 35.8/ 41.3/ 22.9 Combatra 2667 David Moore 130.4 1 9 37.0/ 41.7/ 21.3 G2-b David Moore 132.2 1 10 35.8/ 41.9/ 22.4 Ultima Christian Schmidt 129.6 0 12 22.5/ 17.3/ 60.2 KafuFFLe John Metcalf 127.7 1 14 36.6/ 44.6/ 18.8 goonie lite David Moore 128.6 0 17 32.9/ 36.5/ 30.7 test dm 129.3 1 17 18.2/ 13.4/ 68.4 Seven John Metcalf 122.9 1 18 37.5/ 48.1/ 14.5 Nothing New... Leonardo H. Liporati 126.9 1 18 34.2/ 42.5/ 23.3 Combatra David Moore 125.9 0 18 35.8/ 48.0/ 16.2 Burn Paper, Stomp Imps David Moore 123.6 1 19 25.1/ 21.8/ 53.1 The Dark One Christian Schmidt 128.3 1 25 28.4/ 33.3/ 38.3 Ultima Christian Schmidt 123.5 1 25 19.8/ 18.7/ 61.4 Maya John Metcalf 120.9 1 Players entering hill since last issue: 5 ( 5 last issue, 7 the issue before ) Average rank of new entries: 11 ( 17 last issue, 13 the issue before ) Michal Janeczek makes an impressive hill debut. Activity has been scarce, where is everyone? _______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's No More (Sorted by age) # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age 26 25.2/ 29.3/ 45.5 The Stormbringer Christian Schmidt 121.1 142 26 22.4/ 25.7/ 51.9 Stonewashed Christian Schmidt 119.1 78 26 33.1/ 44.3/ 22.6 myBlur2 Paulsson 121.9 41 26 21.2/ 22.7/ 56.1 Jaguar Christian Schmidt 119.6 36 26 32.3/ 44.0/ 23.7 SnooPy P.Kline 120.6 27 26 28.9/ 33.8/ 37.4 Trefoil f Steve Gunnell 123.9 25 26 35.2/ 49.7/ 15.1 Friction Ken Espiritu 120.7 19 26 24.6/ 27.9/ 47.5 Trefoil c Steve Gunnell 121.3 16 26 36.6/ 53.5/ 9.9 Iron Curtain 3 Ken Espiritu 119.8 14 26 0.6/ 0.6/ 2.8 KafuFFLe John Metcalf 4.7 9 26 22.5/ 24.3/ 53.1 Unlucky Redcoder John Metcalf 120.8 8 26 18.8/ 19.3/ 62.0 Seven John Metcalf 118.3 7 26 36.1/ 50.2/ 13.7 Resurrection Ken Espiritu 122.0 6 26 1.9/ 1.7/ 0.4 Ultima Christian Schmidt 6.2 5 26 1.5/ 2.3/ 0.2 Combatra 2667 David Moore 4.6 5 26 35.8/ 51.0/ 13.2 Nothing New... Leonardo H. Liporati 120.7 4 26 18.3/ 18.5/ 63.2 Maya John Metcalf 118.1 4 26 2.0/ 1.1/ 0.8 test dm 6.9 3 26 34.8/ 47.3/ 17.9 goonie lite David Moore 122.4 2 26 35.0/ 49.4/ 15.6 Burn Paper, Stomp Imps David Moore 120.6 2 Paulsson, Kline and Liporati leave the hill completely. Schmidt's oldest three warriors are pushed off. _______________________________________________________________________________ 94 - What's Old # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age 6 38.9/ 36.9/ 24.2 Recycled Bits David Moore 140.9 147 3 39.8/ 34.7/ 25.5 Self-Modifying Code Ben Ford 144.8 93 22 24.6/ 17.6/ 57.8 Return of the Fugitive David Moore 131.6 74 16 27.8/ 21.3/ 50.8 Jade Ben Ford 134.3 70 13 29.4/ 21.4/ 49.3 nPaper II Paul-V Khuong 137.4 50 21 27.5/ 22.2/ 50.3 EvoP 3 Ken Espiritu 132.9 50 24 26.6/ 22.4/ 50.9 Exor Ken Espiritu 130.9 50 P-warriors Recycled Bits and Self-Modifying Code look as healthy as always. Who will be next to enter the Hall of Fame? Will Return of the Fugitive survive the next 4 challenges? _______________________________________________________________________________ The Extended New Hall of Fame: * indicates the warrior is still active. Pos Name Author Age Strategy 1 Probe Anton Marsden 403 Q^2 -> Bomber 2 Blur 2 Anton Marsden 396 Scanner 3 Damage Incorporated Anton Marsden 373 Q^2 -> Bomber 4 Return Of The Jedimp John K W 357 Q^2 -> Stone/imp 5 unrequited love kafka 346 Q^2 -> Paper 6 Impish v0.2 Ian Oversby 345 Stone/imp 7 Gigolo Core Warrior staff 332 Q^2 -> Stone/imp 8 Falcon v0.3 Ian Oversby 275 P-warrior 9 Nine Seven Six M R Bremer 232 Q^2 -> Stone/imp 10 Rosebud Beppe 218 Stone/imp 11 Newt Ian Oversby 216 Q^2 -> Stone/imp 12 Q^2 Miro Anders Ivner 214 Q^2 -> Scanner/bomber 13 Instant Wolf 3.4 Edgar 205 P-warrior 14 Goldfinch P.Kline 201 P-warrior 15 Simple v0.4b Ian Oversby 197 QScan -> Stone/imp 16 Trident^2 John K W 195 Q^2 -> Stone/imp 17 ompega Steven Morrell 189 Stone/imp 18 Frogz Franz 172 Q^2 -> Paper 19 The Machine Anton Marsden 164 Scanner 20 Memories Beppe 152 Scanner 21 Recycled Bits David Moore 147 * P-warrior = Vain Ian Oversby 147 Q^2 -> Stone/imp 23 Head or Tail Christian Schmidt 142 Q^2 -> Paper = The Stormbringer Christian Schmidt 142 Q^2 -> Stone/imp 25 Electric Head Anton Marsden 140 P-warrior 26 Vigor Ken Espiritu 138 Q^2 -> Paper 27 Fixed Ken Espiritu 135 Q^2 -> Paper 28 Tiberius 3.1 Franz 130 Q^2 -> Paper 29 Ultraviolet-B Ken Espiritu 120 Q^2 -> Paper 30 obvious to those who k Robert Macrae 117 Q^2 -> Paper 31 Solomon v0.8 Ian Oversby 116 Stone and scanner 32 CC Paper 3.3 Franz 107 Q^2 -> Paper 33 mrb-test M R Bremer 106 *Unknown* 34 T.N.T. pro Maurizio Vittuari 105 Bomber = Pulp v0.5 Ian Oversby 105 Q^2 -> Paper 36 Fugitive David Moore 102 Q^2 -> Paper/imp 37 Vengeance Robert Hale 101 Q^2 -> Stone/imp 38 Jack in the box II Beppe Bezzi 100 P-warrior = Fire and Ice David Moore 100 P-warrior 40 Oblivion Ian Sutton 99 P-warrior 41 Self-Modifying Code Ben Ford 93 * P-warrior = Silver Talon 1.2 Edgar 93 Scanner 43 death by redcode Simon Wainwright 91 Q^2 -> Bomber 44 Bodge 1 Robert Macrae 85 Q^2 -> Scanner 45 Inferno 2.4 Philip Kendall 84 Qscan -> Bomber 46 Test Anton Marsden 83 *Unknown* = NCC-1701-A Philip Kendall 83 P-warrior 48 RetroQ Paul Kline 82 Q^2 -> Paper 49 Tornado 4 Beppe Bezzi 78 Bomber = Stonewashed Christian Schmidt 78 Q^3 -> Paper/stone Stormbringer perishes, sharing it's final resting place with Head or Tail. Stonewashed creeps onto the bottom of the hill displacing He Scans Again, before it too perishes. _______________________________________________________________________________ Current Status of the Internet Pizza Server Beginner Hill: Hill Specs: coresize: 8000 max. processes: 8000 duration: after 80,000 cycles, a tie is declared. max. entry length: 100 minimum distance: 100 maximum age: At age 100, warriors are retired. rounds fought: 200 instruction set: ICWS '94 Draft # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age 1 51.9/ 24.7/ 23.4 MorphinMerlin Jeremy K 179.2 25 2 52.4/ 33.6/ 14.0 Grand Mal 1.1 Ransom Smith 171.2 27 3 46.9/ 34.0/ 19.1 Seek&Destroy Ayan Chakrabarti 159.8 4 4 50.7/ 42.1/ 7.3 Kenshin d Steve Gunnell 159.3 84 5 46.8/ 34.5/ 18.7 Golden Gun Ken Hubbard 159.1 98 6 45.9/ 36.3/ 17.8 Gomjabbar V Ingo S Kacza 155.6 93 7 39.7/ 26.8/ 33.5 DiHydrogen Monoxide Josh Yeager 152.6 95 8 41.9/ 32.4/ 25.8 the boy's a time bomb aCM 151.4 89 9 41.6/ 32.5/ 25.9 jollyblu aCM 150.6 97 10 28.7/ 9.2/ 62.1 PimpKing 1.0 Simon Duff 148.2 80 11 32.8/ 20.8/ 46.4 Hyper Advanced (read: sux Josef Jahn 144.8 16 12 42.6/ 40.7/ 16.8 Even More Advanced (read: Josef Jahn 144.5 31 13 40.9/ 38.5/ 20.6 Advanced Spooner Josef Jahn 143.4 29 14 39.7/ 37.8/ 22.5 Chaos John Morahan 141.5 39 15 29.1/ 19.3/ 51.6 Arkenstone John Morahan 138.9 50 16 41.0/ 43.1/ 16.0 Heatseeker John Morahan 138.8 48 17 35.3/ 33.3/ 31.5 Mob Boyz Simon Duff 137.3 81 18 27.2/ 19.7/ 53.0 Simpleton Ayan Chakrabarti 134.7 8 19 39.1/ 43.6/ 17.3 Remorseless Ayan Chakrabarti 134.6 5 20 23.4/ 16.6/ 59.9 Fangorn John Morahan 130.2 54 21 28.3/ 32.3/ 39.4 Toofan Ayan Chakrabarti 124.3 9 22 28.3/ 36.0/ 35.7 VelvetFist Ayan Chakrabarti 120.7 6 23 34.2/ 48.8/ 17.0 h1_1.red Dave Hillis 119.6 28 24 35.4/ 55.8/ 8.7 Mini John Metcalf 115.1 49 25 17.2/ 48.8/ 34.0 Pinky And The Brain Simon Glanville 85.7 1 In the 48 successful challenges since last issue, 8 warriors have achieved retirement, 2stoned, Forgotten Lore, Caladan II, PC, Wild-Fire, da mutant, Arsonic C and FireMaster 2. _______________________________________________________________________________ Current Status of the KOTH.ORG '94 No Pspace Hill: Hill Specs: coresize: 8000 max. processes: 8000 duration: after 80,000 cycles, a tie is declared. max. entry length: 100 minimum distance: 100 rounds fought: 250 instruction set: ICWS '94 Draft, excluding ldp and stp # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 48/ 37/ 15 Behemot Michal Janeczek 159.8 33 2 46/ 42/ 12 Eraser II Ken Espiritu 150.3 167 3 46/ 42/ 13 G2 David Moore 149.5 2 4 46/ 42/ 12 Jinx Christian Schmidt 149.1 173 5 38/ 28/ 34 Mini Digitalis Christian Schmidt 148.6 1 6 46/ 44/ 10 Stalker P.Kline 148.1 195 7 39/ 32/ 29 Blacken Ian Oversby 145.9 457 8 45/ 44/ 11 Pitbull Christian Schmidt 145.8 43 9 37/ 28/ 36 Omnibus John Metcalf 145.3 219 10 44/ 43/ 12 Zooom... John Metcalf 145.1 346 11 35/ 24/ 41 nPaper II Paul-V Khuong 144.8 210 12 34/ 25/ 41 Jade Ben Ford 143.8 279 13 45/ 46/ 10 vamp/scan test b1 Ken Espiritu 143.6 125 14 33/ 23/ 44 Uninvited John Metcalf 142.5 162 15 31/ 23/ 46 The Dark One Christian Schmidt 139.8 3 16 31/ 22/ 48 Tie Factory Christian Schmidt 139.6 61 17 31/ 23/ 45 Jaguar Christian Schmidt 139.6 197 18 40/ 42/ 18 CrazyShot Christian Schmidt 139.0 42 19 33/ 28/ 39 Experimental John Metcalf 138.3 166 20 43/ 49/ 8 Kenshin Steve Gunnell 136.7 165 Old timer Boys are Back in Town perishes age 441, allowing Blacken to claim title of oldest warrior. Also gone are Ant Factory (268), Icen (246) and Evop 3 (199). Janeczek has a firm grip on the hilltop, this time with his MiniQ^3 -> Stun Bomber. _______________________________________________________________________________ Current standings of Kofacoto: #1 #2 #3 #4 Total #1 #2 #3 #4 Total Janeczek : 1000 850 764 1000 : 3614 Hillis : 342 214 454 79 : 1089 Moore : 968 402 1000 886 : 3256 Yeager : 562 253 200 . : 1015 Liporati : 728 1000 749 397 : 2874 Pihlaja : 895 . . . : 895 Macrae : 989 486 636 757 : 2868 Nevermind : . 374 256 . : 630 Kline : 922 488 579 878 : 2867 Chakrabarti : 574 31 . . : 605 Schmidt : 724 444 973 620 : 2761 Adamowski : 81 67 405 . : 553 Paulsson : 977 282 529 935 : 2723 Khuong : 538 . . . : 538 Ford : 629 74 447 586 : 1736 Metcalf : . . 478 . : 478 Gunnell : 755 245 424 230 : 1654 Kacza : 345 . . . : 345 Guenzel : 713 686 . . : 1399 Ankerl : 30 197 . . : 227 Karonen : 672 185 327 . : 1184 Chin : 138 41 . 5 : 184 Stefan : 652 247 . 195 : 1094 The preliminary rounds are over with the highest ranking 8 competitors going forward to the playoffs. Janeczek claims victory in both the White Warrior and Hostage rounds. Liporati takes first place in the '88lp Multi-Warrior, while Moore discovers Black Box's p-space weakness to succeed in the Black Warrior round. For the latest tournament info, check out the tournament's home page at: http://www.koth.org/kofacoto _______________________________________________________________________________ Extra Extra - Combatra by David Moore Redcode warriors may start with 100 instructions, but when the scanners come looking, nobody wants to be that big. Therefore, they often bootstrap a sub-program away from their original code. A while back in the Redcode Maniac's Tournament, Paul Kline capitalized on this behavior in an intriguing way. Knowing the boot distances of his scheduled opponents, his program SnowDust could search for the enormous glob of unused code left by his opponents, and then adjust to attack precisely the location of the booted module. Paul won that round by a landslide. That's a fine strategy if we know our enemy, but what if we don't have a handy table to look up its intimate details? In the '94 hill competition, we must find out during the battle. That can be hard work, but once those secrets are learned, pspace allows us to remember and exploit them. We can locate the boot code simply by scanning for it. However, learning where the warrior actually fights is harder. Scanning for it is impossible because executed instructions look just like non-executed ones. We have to trick its processes into code that conveniently reveals its hideout. What if that code was a smart bomb like this: Bomb MOV.A #MyCode-Bomb, MyCode ... MyCode STP.AB #0, #PspaceLocation At the end of the round, if MyCode is non-zero then we know where the opponent hides. Wheee! In fact, that is how my warrior Combatra works: ;strategy Start each battle with a few quick scans. If nothing ;strategy is found, then run either a core clear or a bomber. ;strategy Otherwise, assume that Combatra found the opponent's ;strategy original 100 instructions. Probe to discover where its ;strategy processes run. Remember where everything is. Compute ;strategy the bootstrap distance. Later, a scanner finds the enemy ;strategy simply by locating its enormous boot code. Combatra destroys many of the same warriors that SnowDust was designed to beat: Probe, Gigolo, Impish, CIA, blue candle, and Torch. However, its scores can vary wildly between battles of 200. Combatra's opportunistic scan might locate the enemy in the first battle, or in the 100th. Furthermore, when fighting a multi-component warrior, such as an imp/stone like The Stormbringer, the scores will differ depending on which part is probed first. For example, Combatra may happily take advantage of Stormbringer's imps, not realizing that greater rewards could be achieved if it could find the stone. In fact, Stormbringer's imp launcher happens to be positioned precisely 112*98 steps before its stone, so it is a great decoy to fool the process finder. Perhaps a different design would be less susceptible to decoys. One such alternative is included here for your amusement (below the main warrior). Perhaps a better boot-finding program could be made by hacking existing warriors instead of by requiring two specialized components. That might flatten some of the score fluctuations. An interesting phenomenen influenced the developement of Combatra. A quick bomber can brainwash a pspacer even without using STP bombs. The brainwash happens when the pspacer references data that has been bombed. For example, consider this code typical of modern pspacers: STP.B *table, #Pstate table JMP }1, 441 state1 DAT boot1, 882 If either table or state1 is bombed, then the pspacer will store junk data instead of its intended data. This will happen to a P^3 switcher like SnooPy during 5/7900 of battles with a quick bomber like Cinammon. In 200 rounds, there is an 11.9% chance that SnooPy will be brainwashed at least once. This effect increases dramatically for slower pspacers. It's tolerable for SnooPy, a machine that changes state quickly, but it can't be ignored by a long-term strategist like Combatra. One way to reduce problems is to keep the data inside of your executable instructions as much as possible. Instead of: STP.AB *pointer, #Pspace try to put the data directly into the STP instruction: STP.AB #1, #Pspace Here's the code: ;redcode-94 ;name Combatra ;author David Moore ;strategy Start each battle with a few quick scans. If nothing ;strategy is found, then run either a core clear or a bomber. ;strategy Otherwise, assume that Combatra found the opponent's ;strategy original 100 instructions. Probe to discover where its ;strategy processes run. Remember where everything is. Compute ;strategy the bootstrap distance. Later, a scanner finds the enemy ;strategy simply by locating its enormous boot code. ;assert CORESIZE==8000 && MAXLENGTH==100 org start ;---------------------------------------------------------------------- ; the core clear is used either alone or with the scanner cgate dat -1, sFirst dat <5334, <2667 dat -1, 12 clear spl #3891, sScan ; spl #3891, 18 mov -1, >cgate mov *-1, >cgate djn.a -2, cgate djn.a -3, *-1 dat 0,0 dat 0,0 dat 0,0 dat 0,0 ; scanned sDiff equ 65 ; difference between sScan and cgate after boot sStep equ 98 sFirst equ 1283 ; Boot the scanner to take advantage of the magic number sBoot mov clear, >sJump djn -2, #7 sJump djn.f start+dist-3+sDiff+1, #start+dist-3+sDiff sScan add.ab #sStep+1, @2 jmz.f sScan, bomb-3 djn.f -1, >bomb-3 dat <2667, 6-bomb ;---------------------------------------------------------------------- ; Did I find something last time? check ldp.a #pTroll, tab add.a #5, tab ; ignore small numbers tab slt.ab #0, #11 jmp compute, 9 ; (yes, go compute the boot distance) jmp bBoot, 10 ; (no, keep trolling) ; Compile all of my information into one nice number compute ldp.a #pQuick, diff diff sub.a #0, tab add.a #((start-qPtr)+tDist+5-6)-11-196, tab stp.ab tab, #pBoot stp.ab #6, #pMode ; run scanner next time jmp boot, 0 ; I'm too slow to risk booting everything now dat 0,0 dat 0,0 dat 0,0 dat 0,0 ; scanned pMode equ 271 ; overall strategy (code for one of the 11 states) pBoot equ 292 ; opponent's bootstrap distance ; intermediate results used to compute pBoot pQuick equ 433 ; what cell was quickscanned pTroll equ 454 ; what cell was occupied by the opponent start ldp.a #0, tab ldp.a #pMode, state mod.ba *tab,state; current; next loss win tie stp.b *1, #pMode ; state ; state ---- --- --- state jmp }0, 472 ; 0 check; 472= 42*11+ 10 = 52*9+ 4 = 47*10+ 2 spl #check, 472 ; 1 check; 472= 42*11+ 10 = 52*9+ 4 = 47*10+ 2 spl #bBoot, 472 ; 2 bomb ; 472= 42*11+ 10 = 52*9+ 4 = 47*10+ 2 spl #sBoot, 943 ; 3 scan ; 943= 85*11+ 8 =104*9+ 7 = 94*10+ 3 spl #bBoot, qA ; 4 bomb ;3874=352*11+ 2 =430*9+ 4 =387*10+ 4 qTable spl #cBoot, qB ; 5 clear;2705=245*11+ 10 =300*9+ 5 =270*10+ 5 spl #sBoot, qC ; 6 scan ;1536=139*11+ 7 =170*9+ 6 =153*10+ 6 spl #sBoot, 267 ; 7 scan ; 267= 24*11+ 3 = 29*9+ 6 = 26*10+ 7 spl #sBoot, 768 ; 8 scan ; 768= 69*11+ 9 = 85*9+ 3 = 76*10+ 8 spl #sBoot, 849 ; 9 scan ; 849= 77*11+ 2 = 94*9+ 3 = 84*10+ 9 jmp #cBoot, 455 ;10 clear; 455= 41*11+ 4 = 50*9+ 5 = 45*10+ 5 ;---------------------------------------------------------------------- ; program intended to "troll" the enemy into revealing its location tStep equ 98 tTime equ 2448 troll mov @0, *5 add.f 3, 4 jmz.a -2, 1 stp.ab #0, #pTroll jmp #tStep, <-tStep ; this bomb causes my foe to report its location to me mov.a #(-2-tStep*tTime), -2-(-2-tStep*tTime) ; quickscan got something! (presumably boot code) tDist equ 2100 ; difference between start and troll after boot tBoot mov Paper/Stone ;assert CORESIZE==8000 pBoot equ pGo+501 sBoot equ pBoot-755 ; still tweaking! org qGo pGo: spl 1, >sBoot-2619 mov sBoot+2759 mov sBoot-3494 ; launch stone mov {pap1, {pPos mov {pap1, {pPos pPos:djn.f pBoot+8, pap1 mov }pap1, >pap1 pap2:spl @0, pap2 mov {pap2, pStep3 mov.i #pStep2-pStep3+1,}pStep3-1 for 36 dat 0,0 rof sStp equ 703 sTim equ 1183 sFrm:spl #0, #0+6 ; stone (Uninvited) sLp: mov sBmb, @sPtr sSel:sub.x #sStp*2, @sLp sPtr:mov {3582, }sSel+2*sStp*sTim djn.f @sSel, }sPtr sBmb:dat 1 qf equ qKil ; Mini-Q^3 qs equ 222 qd equ 322 qi equ 7 qr equ 11 qGo: seq qd+qf+qs, qf+qs ; 1 djn.f qSki, {qd+qf+qs+qi seq qd+qf+6*qs, qf+6*qs ; B djn.f qFas, {qd+qf+6*qs+qi seq qd+qf+5*qs, qf+5*qs ; B-1 jmp qFas, qBmb seq qd+qf+9*qs, qf+9*qs ; A-1 djn qFas, {qFas seq qd+qf+10*qs, qf+10*qs ; A jmn qFas, {qFas seq qd+qf+3*qs, qf+3*qs ; C djn.f >qFas, {qd+qf+3*qs+qi seq qd+qf+2*qs, qf+2*qs ; C-1 jmn >qFas, {qSlo seq qd+qf+4*qs, qf+4*qs ; C+1 jmn >qFas, }qSlo seq qd+qf+12*qs, qf+12*qs ; B*C-B jmn qSlo, {qSlo seq qd+qf+15*qs, qf+15*qs ; B*C-C jmp qSlo, qBmb seq qd+qf+24*qs, qf+24*qs ; B*C+B jmn qSlo, }qSlo seq qd+qf+27*qs, qf+27*qs ; A*C-C djn qSlo, {qFas seq qd+qf+30*qs, qf+30*qs ; A*C jmn qSlo, {qFas sne qd+qf+18*qs, qf+18*qs ; B*C jmz.f pGo, qd+qf+18*qs-10 qSlo:mul #3, qKil ; C=3 qFas:mul.b qBmb, @qSlo qSki:sne >qf+23*qs, >qKil add #qd, qKil qLoo:mov *qKil, , Philip Kendall , Anton Marsden , John Metcalf and Christian Schmidt From: Philip Kendall Subject: Re: pMARS and Curses display Date: 2000/11/10 Message-ID: #1/1 Planar writes: > >From: Philip Kendall > > >#if SYSV && KEYPRESSED > > >Should these lines be something like > > > >#if defined(SYSV) && defined(KEYPRESS) > > Shouldn't make much difference. If SYSV is defined, by default it is > defined to 1, and if it is not defined, it is evaluated as 0 by the C > preprocessor. A bit more digging reveals that it does in this case -- 'curses.h', at least on this Solaris box, contains the line: #define SYSV which defines 'SYSV' to empty, rather than to "1" (as happens if -DSYSV is passed on the command line). Therefore I think we do need #if defined(SYSV) Phil -- Philip Kendall http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~pak21/ From: "pk" Subject: Re: Core Warrior 78 Date: 2000/11/11 Message-ID: #1/1 Woohooo! Good work guys! -- Paul aka Pika{AGUT} From: jkw@koth.org Subject: p^3 generator Date: 2000/11/12 Message-ID: <4.1.20001112195112.00989910@pop-server>#1/1 Hey guys I don't know if anyone's used my p^3 autogenerator, but I found a bug... if you used a state table with more than 10 states they'd be sorted out of order... The newly fixed version is obviously effective, as evidenced by the score of Greetings From Asbury Park... :) http://www.KOTH.org/lcgi-bin/current.pl?hill94x Anyway, I updated the program on http://www.KOTH.org/pmars/p3-1.pl -jkw From: "pk" Subject: RE: kofacoto round3 follow up, and p^3 generator Date: 2000/11/13 Message-ID: #1/1 Yeah, me too! (**** school ;-) Anyway, you played ina round bjoern? which one? -- Paul aka Pika{AGUT} > -----Original Message----- > From: corewar-l@koth.org [mailto:corewar-l@koth.org]On Behalf Of Bjoern > Sent: 13 novembre, 2000 18:35 > To: Multiple recipients of list COREWAR-L > Subject: Re: kofacoto round3 follow up, and p^3 generator > > > Although I only really participated in one round, I wanted to say that > it has been a really neat tournament so far. I liked the ideas for the > challenges a lot! > > > Bjoern From: bjoern@blinker.NOSPAM.net (Bjoern) Subject: Re: kofacoto round3 follow up, and p^3 generator Date: 2000/11/13 Message-ID: <3a0d6a4b.696119@news.lrz-muenchen.de>#1/1 Although I only really participated in one round, I wanted to say that it has been a really neat tournament so far. I liked the ideas for the challenges a lot! Bjoern From: jkw@koth.org Subject: kofacoto quarterfinal results Date: 2000/11/13 Message-ID: <4.1.20001113143649.00985410@pop-server>#1/1 Battle #1... Kline vs Macrae. ;name Round5.2000 ;author P.Kline ;simple pspacer Kline submitted a p^3 with HeScans and a one-shot->dclear. ;name RotF Copy ;author Robert Macrae q^4 -> silkish/imp after David Moore / Ben Ford ;Endless agonising, and I came back to the first version. ;Oh well, at least I learned to code a P^3, though it ;never quite beat this 8-/ On the surface you might expect HeScans to win out, but Macrae stuck in one of those ever-popular anti-HSA wimps. Good thinking Macrae. Dclear and HSA never had a chance. Round5.2000 by P.Kline scores 142 RotF Copy by Robert Macrae scores 349 Results: 11 80 109 Round5.2000 by P.Kline scores 143 RotF Copy by Robert Macrae scores 362 Results: 16 89 95 Victor: Macrae ------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------ Battle #2... Paulsson vs Moore ;name myMooreKiller ;author Magnus Paulsson ;Moore improved my warrior myBlur into a realy good warior ;would be a fitting way to thank him by beating him here! ;Thinking, Moore has written nice p-space warriors, some ;switch after two losses or ties. So I write my first ;p-space warrior that use mini-HSA, two losses->two rounds ;of Jed Imp (hoping that Moore will switch). ;The only problem is the small logical inconsistency that ;there is no reason to switch on ties since we're not ;fighting a hill! ;Testing gives losses to most wariors but .... :-) Paulsson submitted a p^3 (I guess it's technically a p^3) with some really weird state assignments, hehe. ;name G2 ;author David Moore ;two-shot scanner Moore submitted what I think is a one-shot scanner, which he called a two-shot scanner. Odd. :) Close battles... that little G2 program was cagey... myMooreKiller by Magnus Paulsson scores 231 G2 by David Moore scores 318 Results: 60 89 51 myMooreKiller by Magnus Paulsson scores 259 G2 by David Moore scores 295 Results: 71 83 46 myMooreKiller by Magnus Paulsson scores 283 G2 by David Moore scores 277 Results: 81 79 40 myMooreKiller by Magnus Paulsson scores 206 G2 by David Moore scores 335 Results: 49 92 59 myMooreKiller by Magnus Paulsson scores 252 G2 by David Moore scores 300 Results: 68 84 48 Victor: Moore ------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------ Battle #3... Ford vs Janeczek ;name Self-Modifying Code ;author Ben Ford ;p^3++: silk, rock, scan, burn, wipe ;heavily based on Recycled Bits by David Moore ;improved the brain with ideas from the P^3 switcher ;saved 15 instructions and 1 cycle in brains + tables ;v0.11 more constants tweaked and more instructions shaved ; and anti-combatra measure added ;nothing else seems to want to fall into place ;so going with this and will see what happens ;name Quicksilver ;author Michal Janeczek ;Q^4 -> stone/imp Janeczek submitted the only imp/stone of Round 5! Amazing! I know that's what I would've used... :) Quicksilver by Michal Janeczek scores 348 Self-Modifying Code by Ben Ford scores 210 Results: 102 56 42 Quicksilver by Michal Janeczek scores 328 Self-Modifying Code by Ben Ford scores 229 Results: 95 62 43 Janeczek's imp/stone appeared to have decent core coverage and resistance to all of Ford's p^3 components. Victor: Janeczek ------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------ Battle #4... Schmidt vs Liporati ;name 2 Crazy ;author Christian Schmidt ;scanner and stone/paper ;for the KOFACOTO quarterfinal p^3 with an old version of Mirage, combined with a classic looking stone/paper... ;name Stolen RedCode ;author Leonardo H. Liporati ;p^3++: silk, rock, scan, burn ;based on Self-Modifing Code by Ben Ford ;changed the silk by the one in Origami Harquebus by MJ Pihlaja ;changed the scanner by a mini-HSA ;deleted the wipe component removing three states and ;changing two transitions of the state machine another p^3... man everyone loves p^3's... hehe... :) 2 Crazy by Christian Schmidt scores 309 Stolen RedCode by Leonardo H. Liporati scores 243 Results: 87 65 48 2 Crazy by Christian Schmidt scores 308 Stolen RedCode by Leonardo H. Liporati scores 242 Results: 86 64 50 2 Crazy by Christian Schmidt scores 327 Stolen RedCode by Leonardo H. Liporati scores 216 Results: 90 53 57 Both warriors had components that could beat the others... looks like 2 Crazy did better because Stolen's p^3 spent too much time in its two stone components. Victor: Schmidt According to http://www.koth.org/kofacoto/totals.html the 4 survivors will face off as follows: Janeczek vs Schmidt Moore vs Macrae As a reminder, "Round 6", aka the semi-finals, will be played under standard '94x rules. The complete warriors will be posted to http://www.koth.org/kofacoto/warriors/round5 -jkw From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - MultiWarrior 94 11/13/00 Date: 2000/11/13 Message-ID: <200011130500.AAA04338@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 11/13/00 -=- 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 : Tue Nov 7 12:43:53 EST 2000 # Name Author Score Age 1 D-clearM Ken Espiritu 28 42 2 QuiVa John Metcalf 25 135 3 fclear Brian Haskin 24 26 4 vamp/scan test b1 Ken Espiritu 24 15 5 Dracula's Cape Ben Ford 24 20 6 Friction Ken Espiritu 23 14 7 Her Majesty P.Kline 23 61 8 MorphinMerlin Jeremy K 18 6 9 Scan Test Tester 9 1 10 SmallFry Simon Duff 8 12 11 The 8th King Christian Schmidt 2 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - ICWS Experimental 94 11/13/00 Date: 2000/11/13 Message-ID: <200011130500.AAA04342@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 11/13/00 -=- 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 Nov 12 04:14:01 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 51/ 36/ 13 Greetings From Asbury Par JKW 165 1 2 45/ 29/ 27 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 161 41 3 46/ 33/ 22 Black Moods Ian Oversby 159 37 4 41/ 29/ 30 Big Abuse v00 Dave Hillis 153 3 5 23/ 7/ 70 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 140 110 6 28/ 19/ 53 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 136 63 7 19/ 3/ 78 Black Box v1.1 JKW 134 4 8 19/ 4/ 77 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 134 58 9 25/ 25/ 50 Rosebud Beppe 125 89 10 29/ 36/ 35 MorphinMerlin Jeremy K 122 24 11 29/ 36/ 36 Draken Fire X Ben Ford 122 32 12 29/ 38/ 33 Lithium X 8 John K Wilkinson 120 101 13 19/ 19/ 62 Purple v0.1 Christian Schmidt 120 62 14 29/ 40/ 30 BigBoy Robert Macrae 119 135 15 31/ 43/ 26 Dr. Gate X Franz 118 81 16 32/ 48/ 20 Pagan John K W 116 95 17 30/ 45/ 24 Stepping Stone 94x Kurt Franke 115 96 18 31/ 48/ 21 Tsunami v0.3 X Ian Oversby 115 35 19 32/ 51/ 17 S.E.T.I. 4-X JKW 113 111 20 18/ 24/ 58 test Ben Ford 113 5 21 2/ 2/ 1 test JKW 6 2 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - 94 No Pspace 11/13/00 Date: 2000/11/13 Message-ID: <200011130500.AAA04347@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 11/13/00 -=- 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 : Wed Nov 8 07:30:22 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 46/ 39/ 16 Behemot Michal Janeczek 153 44 2 45/ 43/ 12 Eraser II Ken Espiritu 148 178 3 45/ 43/ 12 G2-b David Moore 147 7 4 44/ 43/ 12 Jinx Christian Schmidt 146 184 5 45/ 45/ 10 Stalker P.Kline 145 206 6 44/ 44/ 12 Pitbull Christian Schmidt 144 54 7 41/ 41/ 18 CrazyShot Christian Schmidt 142 53 8 37/ 33/ 30 Blacken Ian Oversby 142 468 9 42/ 45/ 13 Zooom... John Metcalf 140 357 10 35/ 31/ 34 Mini Digitalis Christian Schmidt 140 12 11 43/ 47/ 10 vamp/scan test b1 Ken Espiritu 139 136 12 31/ 23/ 46 The Dark One Christian Schmidt 139 14 13 33/ 28/ 39 Experimental John Metcalf 138 177 14 32/ 26/ 41 nPaper II Paul-V Khuong 138 221 15 30/ 24/ 46 Jaguar Christian Schmidt 136 208 16 29/ 22/ 49 Tie Factory Christian Schmidt 135 72 17 33/ 31/ 36 Omnibus John Metcalf 135 230 18 31/ 28/ 41 Jade Ben Ford 134 290 19 30/ 26/ 44 Uninvited John Metcalf 133 173 20 36/ 54/ 10 RT2 Michal Janeczek 118 1 21 32/ 60/ 8 Spray 'n Wipe 4x Steve Gunnell 104 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - Standard 11/13/00 Date: 2000/11/13 Message-ID: <200011130500.AAA04334@gevjon.ttsg.com>#1/1 Weekly Status on 11/13/00 -=- 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 : Mon Oct 23 19:01:57 EDT 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 38/ 20/ 42 Freight Train David Moore 155 71 2 37/ 22/ 40 sIMPly.Red v0.95 Leonardo Humberto 153 28 3 36/ 20/ 43 Test Alexander (Sasha) Wa 152 10 4 36/ 22/ 43 Guardian Ian Oversby 150 70 5 41/ 36/ 24 PacMan David Moore 145 100 6 31/ 16/ 53 EV Paper John K Wilkinson 145 84 7 41/ 40/ 19 Stasis David Moore 141 178 8 30/ 19/ 50 Test I Ian Oversby 141 127 9 32/ 22/ 46 Shish-Ka-Bob Ben Ford 141 26 10 42/ 45/ 13 Iron Gate Wayne Sheppard 139 396 11 40/ 41/ 19 Beholder's Eye V1.7 W. Mintardjo 139 346 12 37/ 36/ 27 Stillborn Bomber v0.2 mjp 138 11 13 38/ 39/ 23 Tangle Trap David Moore 137 144 14 29/ 22/ 49 Evoltmp 88 John K W 137 121 15 40/ 46/ 14 Foggy Swamp Beppe Bezzi 133 67 16 34/ 36/ 30 Frog Sticker P.Kline 132 20 17 39/ 47/ 14 Blur '88 Anton Marsden 131 108 18 39/ 50/ 11 Blurstone '88 M. J. Pihlaja 129 65 19 39/ 50/ 11 Shadow Seeker John Metcalf 127 7 20 27/ 43/ 30 Twill Andy Pierce 111 1 21 10/ 63/ 28 Virual IIII: RWT Tharn 57 0 From: birk@andromeda.ociw.edu Subject: Re: Koenigstuhl News & kofacoto quarterfinal results Date: 2000/11/14 Message-ID: <200011150101.RAA17468@andromeda.ociw.edu>#1/1 > Am I correct in thinking that individual battle scores are lost forever, > making something like http://www.KOTH.org/lcgi-bin/hugetable.pl?hill > impossible for Koenigstuhl? No, I have a big file (binary) containing all individual results. Christoph From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Re: Koenigstuhl News & kofacoto quarterfinal results Date: 2000/11/14 Message-ID: <4.1.20001114175006.009899c0@pop-server>#1/1 >Contratulations to David Moore. 'Combatra' enters the 'Open Koenigstuhl' >at rank 3! >(see http://andromeda.ociw.edu/COREWAR/koenigstuhl.html) > >Christoph Am I correct in thinking that individual battle scores are lost forever, making something like http://www.KOTH.org/lcgi-bin/hugetable.pl?hill impossible for Koenigstuhl? I wonder if it's that way with Planar's Mt Olympus. >Congragulations to all the winners of round 5 - especially Robert! > >One of the challenges I faced was having so many programs to choose from :-) > >Go MacRae!!! No kidding, Kline... looks like you've got 100 published warriors on Planar... I don't think anyone else comes close. -jkw From: birk@andromeda.ociw.edu Subject: Koenigstuhl News Date: 2000/11/14 Message-ID: <200011141907.LAA11940@andromeda.ociw.edu>#1/1 Contratulations to David Moore. 'Combatra' enters the 'Open Koenigstuhl' at rank 3! (see http://andromeda.ociw.edu/COREWAR/koenigstuhl.html) Christoph From: "Paul Kline" Subject: Re: kofacoto quarterfinal results Date: 2000/11/14 Message-ID: <8uriio$3ki@ng1.icn.state.ia.us>#1/1 Congragulations to all the winners of round 5 - especially Robert! One of the challenges I faced was having so many programs to choose from :-) Go MacRae!!! From: "Benjamin Ford" Subject: Re: kofacoto quarterfinal results Date: 2000/11/16 Message-ID: #1/1 From: jkw@koth.org >Battle #1... Kline vs Macrae. > >;name Round5.2000 >;author P.Kline >;simple pspacer > >Kline submitted a p^3 with HeScans and a one-shot->dclear. > >;name RotF Copy >;author Robert Macrae q^4 -> silkish/imp after David Moore / Ben Ford >;Endless agonising, and I came back to the first version. >;Oh well, at least I learned to code a P^3, though it >;never quite beat this 8-/ > >On the surface you might expect HeScans to win out, but >Macrae stuck in one of those ever-popular anti-HSA wimps. >Good thinking Macrae. Dclear and HSA never had a chance. I was actually trying to tune up a HSA variant that deals with the wimps, just switch to dclear instead of switching modes. But then I 'broke' HSA's contants while tuning and couldn't get it back working again so I had to scrap that plan. >------------------------------------------ >------------------------------------------ >------------------------------------------ > >Battle #3... Ford vs Janeczek > >;name Self-Modifying Code >;author Ben Ford >;p^3++: silk, rock, scan, burn, wipe >;heavily based on Recycled Bits by David Moore >;improved the brain with ideas from the P^3 switcher >;saved 15 instructions and 1 cycle in brains + tables >;v0.11 more constants tweaked and more instructions shaved >; and anti-combatra measure added >;nothing else seems to want to fall into place >;so going with this and will see what happens > >;name Quicksilver >;author Michal Janeczek >;Q^4 -> stone/imp > >Janeczek submitted the only imp/stone of Round 5! >Amazing! I know that's what I would've used... :) > >Janeczek's imp/stone appeared to have >decent core coverage and resistance to all >of Ford's p^3 components. Yeah, I didn't really want to submit a p^3, especially with the same know weaknesses of my published warriors. And just my luck to be paired against the warrior I think I'm weakest against =). But I kept on breaking anything else I tried to tune up so was kinda stuck. At least I might have some new stuff to develop for the hills now. >------------------------------------------ >------------------------------------------ >------------------------------------------ > >Battle #4... Schmidt vs Liporati > >;name 2 Crazy >;author Christian Schmidt >;scanner and stone/paper >;for the KOFACOTO quarterfinal > >p^3 with an old version of Mirage, combined >with a classic looking stone/paper... > >;name Stolen RedCode >;author Leonardo H. Liporati >;p^3++: silk, rock, scan, burn >;based on Self-Modifing Code by Ben Ford >;changed the silk by the one in Origami Harquebus by MJ Pihlaja >;changed the scanner by a mini-HSA >;deleted the wipe component removing three states and >;changing two transitions of the state machine Yeah, people actually using my code =). >another p^3... man everyone loves p^3's... hehe... :) > >Both warriors had components that could beat the >others... looks like 2 Crazy did better because >Stolen's p^3 spent too much time in its two stone >components. I'm trying to remember why the burn component is in SMC. I think its because it worked fairly well against other 'standard' p-warriors. Two stones is a bit of overkill otherwise since scanners go down easily to one. -Ben _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. From: Planar Subject: Re: Koenigstuhl News & kofacoto quarterfinal results Date: 2000/11/16 Message-ID: <8v1csc$k3c$1@ites.inria.fr>#1/1 >From: jkw@koth.org >Am I correct in thinking that individual battle scores are lost forever, >making something like http://www.KOTH.org/lcgi-bin/hugetable.pl?hill >impossible for Koenigstuhl? >I wonder if it's that way with Planar's Mt Olympus. I've got 16 megs of results from the 208909 battles. I've no idea what that might be useful for, but I'm still keeping them... -- Planar From: "Benjamin Ford" Subject: Re: kofacoto quarterfinal results Date: 2000/11/17 Message-ID: #1/1 From: jkw@koth.org > >>Moore submitted what I think is a one-shot scanner, which > >>he called a two-shot scanner. Odd. :) Close battles... > >>that little G2 program was cagey... > > > >Its a two shot scanner. The first scan modifies the scan loop to do > >blur-style bombing in the loop. The second scan jumps to the coreclear. > >Hmm I guess you're right... I looked at it moore :) closely this time >and see that it does have a brief period of blur/mirage-ish scanning. > >If you don't look closely, you'll miss that > djn.f *-4, #0 >being converted to > djn.f *-5, #0 >..causing the switch. Just to nitpick but it converts to djn.f *-5, #-1 when the switch occurs. With the absense of b-field scanners, that shouldn't make any difference however. Coincidnetily, my entry in the CIA/Jedimp round employed stages of a-field and b-field scanning to take advantage of the known properities of each warrior. >That's very interesting... I wonder if this could have a good chance >against imp/stones if it used a d-clear instead of the spl/dat clear. >I'll have to test that out. :) Drat, you just had to do that. After the suffering it took from the 'abusive' warriors, Draken Fire finally got knocked off, leaving me with nothing on the big hill. I'll have to fix that. Someone wanting to be tricky might want to try a p-spacer that boots either a d-clear or a spl/dat clear with G2, whichever is best suited for the opponent. And to repeat earlier advice, beginners may want to try getting on the big hill. Its a lot 'younger' than the other hills so it should be easier to get onto that the 94 or 94nop hills. -Ben _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. From: "Benjamin Ford" Subject: Re: more Koenigstuhl news Date: 2000/11/17 Message-ID: #1/1 Especially noteworthy about Quicksilver is it reaching the top in a field that was dominated by scanners. From: birk@andromeda.ociw.edu > > CONGRATULATIONS to MICHAL JANECZEK > > 'Quicksilver' is the new leader of the '94 Koenigstuhl! > > David Moore's 'G2' entered on rank 5. > >Christoph > >(http://andromeda.ociw.edu/COREWAR/koenigstuhl.html) _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. From: "Benjamin Ford" Subject: Re: Abuse Date: 2000/11/17 Message-ID: #1/1 I'm thinking its in part due to its own success. The warriors it is beating, it beats soundly. And with a second abusive warrior on the hill, those vulnerable programs are getting pummled and knocked off the hill very quickly. Losing Draken Fire is going to be another big blow to its standings. I remember Rubble fell very quickly once the one-shots it was abusing fell off as well. One-shots seem to be returning, perhaps its time for another clp-ing p-warrior? -Ben From: jkw@koth.org >Damn in a mere 14 challenges, Big Abuse fell from first place with a score >of 171 to 14th with a score of 121... That's gotta be the freakist >warrior >I've seen since Kline shocked us all with Die Hard... > > 1 48/ 25/ 27 Big Abuse v00 Dave Hillis 171 > 1 > >14 31/ 40/ 29 Big Abuse v00 Dave Hillis 121 >14 _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Koenigstuhl and ;assert Date: 2000/11/17 Message-ID: <4.1.20001117145544.00986da0@pop-server>#1/1 > 'Quicksilver' is the new leader of the '94 Koenigstuhl! > David Moore's 'G2' entered on rank 5. >(http://andromeda.ociw.edu/COREWAR/koenigstuhl.html) I don't see either of those two warriors on the listings...? Also, I was disheartened by the near total lack of ;assert lines in all the warriors from kofacoto, so I added a handy reference to http://www.KOTH.org/koth.html A lot of you may not even be aware you could assert yourself so much. :) -jkw From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Abuse Date: 2000/11/17 Message-ID: <4.1.20001117142943.00ab5c80@pop-server>#1/1 Damn in a mere 14 challenges, Big Abuse fell from first place with a score of 171 to 14th with a score of 121... That's gotta be the freakist warrior I've seen since Kline shocked us all with Die Hard... 1 48/ 25/ 27 Big Abuse v00 Dave Hillis 171 1 14 31/ 40/ 29 Big Abuse v00 Dave Hillis 121 14 From: birk@andromeda.ociw.edu Subject: more Koenigstuhl news Date: 2000/11/17 Message-ID: <200011171958.LAA18404@andromeda.ociw.edu>#1/1 CONGRATULATIONS to MICHAL JANECZEK 'Quicksilver' is the new leader of the '94 Koenigstuhl! David Moore's 'G2' entered on rank 5. Christoph (http://andromeda.ociw.edu/COREWAR/koenigstuhl.html) From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Re: kofacoto quarterfinal results Date: 2000/11/17 Message-ID: <4.1.20001117133257.00abf780@pop-server>#1/1 >>Moore submitted what I think is a one-shot scanner, which >>he called a two-shot scanner. Odd. :) Close battles... >>that little G2 program was cagey... > >Its a two shot scanner. The first scan modifies the scan loop to do >blur-style bombing in the loop. The second scan jumps to the coreclear. Hmm I guess you're right... I looked at it moore :) closely this time and see that it does have a brief period of blur/mirage-ish scanning. If you don't look closely, you'll miss that djn.f *-4, #0 being converted to djn.f *-5, #0 ...causing the switch. That's very interesting... I wonder if this could have a good chance against imp/stones if it used a d-clear instead of the spl/dat clear. I'll have to test that out. :) ;redcode-94 ;name G2 ;author David Moore ;assert CORESIZE==8000 ;strategy two-shot scanner ival equ 10 step equ 191 x equ (4+step) dat 0,0 ptr dat 0,0 dat 0,0 sw dat 1, 14 g2 spl #ptr+100, 14 dat 0,0 dat 0,0 clr spl #step, step mov *sw, >ptr mov *sw, >ptr djn.f -2, }g2 dat 0,0 dat 0,0 dat 0,0 dat 0,0 dat 0,0 dat 0,0 dat 0,0 mov clr, >ptr+2 add *-1, 1 main sne x, x+ival djn.f *2, *-1 mov.b main, <-4 djn.f *-4, #0 end main From: "Benjamin Ford" Subject: Re: kofacoto quarterfinal results Date: 2000/11/17 Message-ID: #1/1 From: jkw@koth.org >;name G2 >;author David Moore >;two-shot scanner > >Moore submitted what I think is a one-shot scanner, which >he called a two-shot scanner. Odd. :) Close battles... >that little G2 program was cagey... Its a two shot scanner. The first scan modifies the scan loop to do blur-style bombing in the loop. The second scan jumps to the coreclear. _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. From: "Harald Herrmann" Subject: Re: Two-dimensional corewar? Date: 2000/11/17 Message-ID: <8v3b8o$ntq$1@news.nwn.de>#1/1 i too think only using four directions would be better what's befunge? never heard of that. From: "Harald Herrmann" Subject: Re: Two-dimensional corewar? Date: 2000/11/17 Message-ID: <8v3b29$nne$1@news.nwn.de>#1/1 i like the idea of corewars very much, but i was never succesful in programming warriors. but your idea sounds interesting, at least worth a try. is there any available version of your game? BTW: what is the name of your project? -Daniel From: "Benjamin Ford" Subject: Re: kofacoto quarterfinal results Date: 2000/11/18 Message-ID: #1/1 From: > Heh, true... sorry, typo... Interesting that it's written that way... > Seems kinda wacky, I would've just done "jmp <0, -3" or something... Well, the djn method does keep the b-field clear just in case you want to use it for something else. But you can't use that "jmp <0, -3" because the first djn uses the -4 pointer. > >And to repeat earlier advice, beginners may want to try getting on the big > >hill. Its a lot 'younger' than the other hills so it should be easier to > >get onto that the 94 or 94nop hills. > > Yea it's interesting how there's such a huge difference in scores on koth's > big hill... It's been that way for 2+ years... I'm not sure if it's > the hill settings that cause it, or just the nature of the warriors people > tend to think of making for it... I think its the nature of the warriors people have sent to the hill. The hill hasn't matured enough for a stable set of warriors to take hold and keep the scores relatively even. -Ben From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Re: kofacoto quarterfinal results Date: 2000/11/18 Message-ID: <4.1.20001117225346.0098b800@pop-server>#1/1 >>Hmm I guess you're right... I looked at it moore :) closely this time >>and see that it does have a brief period of blur/mirage-ish scanning. >> >>If you don't look closely, you'll miss that >> djn.f *-4, #0 >>being converted to >> djn.f *-5, #0 >>..causing the switch. > >Just to nitpick but it converts to > djn.f *-5, #-1 >when the switch occurs. Heh, true... sorry, typo... Interesting that it's written that way... Seems kinda wacky, I would've just done "jmp <0, -3" or something... >>That's very interesting... I wonder if this could have a good chance >>against imp/stones if it used a d-clear instead of the spl/dat clear. >>I'll have to test that out. :) > >Drat, you just had to do that. After the suffering it took from the >'abusive' warriors, Draken Fire finally got knocked off, leaving me with >nothing on the big hill. I'll have to fix that. Yep it made it on to the big hill, but didnt make it onto pizza's 94 hill. Looks like pizza's 94 is totally clogged with pspaced papers and scanners... Not much for a dclear oneshot to kill... looks like I'll have to p^3 it with something if I want on... >And to repeat earlier advice, beginners may want to try getting on the big >hill. Its a lot 'younger' than the other hills so it should be easier to >get onto that the 94 or 94nop hills. Yea it's interesting how there's such a huge difference in scores on koth's big hill... It's been that way for 2+ years... I'm not sure if it's the hill settings that cause it, or just the nature of the warriors people tend to think of making for it... -jkw From: "Benjamin Ford" Subject: Re: bla and Lithium X 8 code Date: 2000/11/19 Message-ID: #1/1 From: > >You know, there isn't really a place to download a selection of warriors > >from the big hill. You can search through all of planar's archive but with > >a "big" tag, its a lot of standard warriors to sift through. Same goes for > >the tiny and lp hills. Probably contributes to the lower activity on those > >hills, hard to find other warriors to test against. > > I could write a cgi script to search for ;redcode-94x ... unfortunately > pizza ripped that redcode line to use for it's tiny hill. But I guess > it'd be better than nothing... :-/ That would be decent. Its should be enough to figure out which warriors are big and which are tiny. Maybe checking asserts as well could help. And at least the lp hill has a unique code so pulling those would be easy, From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Re: bla and Lithium X 8 code Date: 2000/11/19 Message-ID: <4.1.20001119195004.00abf690@pop-server>#1/1 >> it got pushed of earlier today or yesterday. >> >> 21 26/ 40/ 34 Lithium X 8 John K Wilkinson 112 >116 > >Pushed off at about 2 EST on Sat by MIB which has since got pushed off >itself. Heh... c'est la vie... >> I don't believe I've ever published this before. Its a fairly standard >old >> incendiary bomber, with some emphasis put on surviving djn overruns and >> bombers... > >You know, there isn't really a place to download a selection of warriors >from the big hill. You can search through all of planar's archive but with >a "big" tag, its a lot of standard warriors to sift through. Same goes for >the tiny and lp hills. Probably contributes to the lower activity on those >hills, hard to find other warriors to test against. I could write a cgi script to search for ;redcode-94x ... unfortunately pizza ripped that redcode line to use for it's tiny hill. But I guess it'd be better than nothing... :-/ -jkw From: "Benjamin Ford" Subject: Re: bla and Lithium X 8 code Date: 2000/11/19 Message-ID: #1/1 From: > >Well, the djn method does keep the b-field clear just in case you want to > >use it for something else. But you can't use that "jmp <0, -3" because the > >first djn uses the -4 pointer. > > Um > jmp *-3, {0 > ? Geez dont make me go open up the warrior again to see if that's right. :) I think "jmp *-4, {0" works. But why not just use the djn, then there is no worry? You could even make it a djn.a if you wanted to leave the b-field untouched for some reason. > >I think its the nature of the warriors people have sent to the hill. The > >hill hasn't matured enough for a stable set of warriors to take hold and > >keep the scores relatively even. > > Speaking of which, Lithium was one of the oldest warriors on the hill when > it got pushed of earlier today or yesterday. > > 21 26/ 40/ 34 Lithium X 8 John K Wilkinson 112 116 Pushed off at about 2 EST on Sat by MIB which has since got pushed off itself. > I don't believe I've ever published this before. Its a fairly standard old > incendiary bomber, with some emphasis put on surviving djn overruns and > bombers... You know, there isn't really a place to download a selection of warriors from the big hill. You can search through all of planar's archive but with a "big" tag, its a lot of standard warriors to sift through. Same goes for the tiny and lp hills. Probably contributes to the lower activity on those hills, hard to find other warriors to test against. -Ben From: jkw@koth.org Subject: pizza 94 Date: 2000/11/19 Message-ID: <4.1.20001119024915.00ac4aa0@pop-server>#1/1 Man I'd forgotten how long it takes Pizza to get back results... it must be running on a 286 or something. Anyway, a new version of Black Box squeeeeeked onto the pizza hill with 73% ties... 25 17.1/ 9.7/ 73.3 Black Box JKW 124.5 1 Tie Factory? Bah! I scoff at your puny ammount of ties! Only 52%! WEAK!!! 12 26.6/ 21.4/ 52.0 Tie Factory Christian Schmidt 131.8 26 But jeez, looks like Abuse warriors come with an expiration date. Didn't that thing premier at #1 just 6 challenges ago? 23 39.9/ 54.0/ 6.1 Certain Abuse v02 Dave Hillis 125.8 6 From: jkw@koth.org Subject: re: bla and Lithium X 8 code Date: 2000/11/19 Message-ID: <4.1.20001118213707.0098c710@pop-server>#1/1 >Well, the djn method does keep the b-field clear just in case you want to >use it for something else. But you can't use that "jmp <0, -3" because the >first djn uses the -4 pointer. Um jmp *-3, {0 ? Geez dont make me go open up the warrior again to see if that's right. :) >I think its the nature of the warriors people have sent to the hill. The >hill hasn't matured enough for a stable set of warriors to take hold and >keep the scores relatively even. Speaking of which, Lithium was one of the oldest warriors on the hill when it got pushed of earlier today or yesterday. 21 26/ 40/ 34 Lithium X 8 John K Wilkinson 112 116 I don't believe I've ever published this before. Its a fairly standard old incendiary bomber, with some emphasis put on surviving djn overruns and bombers... ;redcode-94x ;name Lithium X 8 ;author John K Wilkinson ;assert CORESIZE == 55440 ;strategy v8 - hoping to improve the way it copes with ;strategy attacks from djn overruns org bootstrap step equ 134 count equ 2000 d equ 2667 BOOTDIST equ 12300 dat }1, >1 for 51 dat sm2*3777, #sm2*4177 rof for 41 dat sm2*3777, #sm2*4177 rof bootstrap mov {bootptr, step+1 ; mov half of the incendiary dat -10-341, 26+4 ;4 is just in case of djn overruns sp2 spl #-1-step,-step ; spl half of the incendiary sub #step+step,1 msm2 mov sm2, *tgt2-step-2 ;+(step*2000) msp2 mov sp2, @msm2 tgt2 jmz sp2+1, #0 clr2 mov @1, >-24 ;sm2-13 cp2 djn.b clr2, {sp2 bootptr dat 0, BOOTDIST for 85 dat sm2*3777, #sm2*4177 rof dat >1, }1 From: anton@paradise.net.nz (Anton Marsden) Subject: Core War Frequently Asked Questions (rec.games.corewar FAQ) Date: 2000/11/19 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: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - 94 No Pspace 11/20/00 Date: 20 Nov 2000 00:08:57 -0500 Message-ID: <200011200500.AAA10866@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 11/20/00 -=- 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 : Fri Nov 17 18:33:58 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 39/ 23/ 39 Quicksilver Michal Janeczek 155 30 2 44/ 39/ 17 Behemot Michal Janeczek 148 91 3 43/ 43/ 14 Jinx Christian Schmidt 144 231 4 43/ 43/ 14 Eraser II Ken Espiritu 144 225 5 44/ 45/ 11 Stalker P.Kline 142 253 6 43/ 45/ 13 G2-b David Moore 141 54 7 34/ 29/ 37 Mini Digitalis Christian Schmidt 140 59 8 32/ 24/ 44 nPaper II Paul-V Khuong 140 268 9 42/ 45/ 13 Pitbull Christian Schmidt 138 101 10 35/ 32/ 33 Blacken Ian Oversby 138 515 11 39/ 42/ 20 CrazyShot Christian Schmidt 136 100 12 40/ 45/ 15 Zooom... John Metcalf 136 404 13 41/ 47/ 12 vamp/scan test b1 Ken Espiritu 135 183 14 29/ 23/ 49 The Dark One Christian Schmidt 134 61 15 28/ 23/ 49 Jaguar Christian Schmidt 132 255 16 30/ 30/ 40 Omnibus John Metcalf 131 277 17 26/ 22/ 52 Tie Factory Christian Schmidt 130 119 18 27/ 25/ 49 Uninvited John Metcalf 129 220 19 28/ 27/ 45 Jade Ben Ford 129 337 20 17/ 19/ 64 pTest P.Kline 116 1 21 32/ 57/ 11 Spray 'n Wipe 4 Steve Gunnell 107 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - MultiWarrior 94 11/20/00 Date: 20 Nov 2000 00:09:11 -0500 Message-ID: <200011200500.AAA10854@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 11/20/00 -=- 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 : Tue Nov 7 12:43:53 EST 2000 # Name Author Score Age 1 D-clearM Ken Espiritu 28 42 2 QuiVa John Metcalf 25 135 3 fclear Brian Haskin 24 26 4 vamp/scan test b1 Ken Espiritu 24 15 5 Dracula's Cape Ben Ford 24 20 6 Friction Ken Espiritu 23 14 7 Her Majesty P.Kline 23 61 8 MorphinMerlin Jeremy K 18 6 9 Scan Test Tester 9 1 10 SmallFry Simon Duff 8 12 11 The 8th King Christian Schmidt 2 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - ICWS Experimental 94 11/20/00 Date: 20 Nov 2000 00:09:01 -0500 Message-ID: <200011200500.AAA10858@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 11/20/00 -=- 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 Nov 19 15:14:48 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 52/ 29/ 20 Black Moods Ian Oversby 174 55 2 52/ 36/ 12 Greetings From Asbury Par JKW 168 19 3 45/ 30/ 25 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 161 59 4 44/ 32/ 25 Ogre Christian Schmidt 156 7 5 27/ 8/ 65 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 146 128 6 31/ 21/ 48 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 142 81 7 40/ 38/ 22 Pattel's Virus X Ben Ford 142 3 8 20/ 3/ 77 Black Box v1.1 JKW 138 22 9 37/ 37/ 26 Dr. Gate X Franz 137 99 10 37/ 40/ 23 Pagan John K W 135 113 11 19/ 3/ 78 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 134 76 12 34/ 34/ 32 MorphinMerlin Jeremy K 133 42 13 33/ 39/ 28 Random Opportunism Dave Hillis 127 2 14 24/ 21/ 55 Purple v0.1 Christian Schmidt 127 80 15 37/ 47/ 16 S.E.T.I. 4-X JKW 127 129 16 32/ 38/ 30 test CS 125 16 17 16/ 9/ 75 Scorpion Death Drop JKW 124 18 18 25/ 29/ 46 Rosebud Beppe 122 107 19 34/ 47/ 19 test CS 121 17 20 5/ 0/ 0 Test11 T2000 14 1 21 0/ 91/ 9 Duh T2000 9 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - Standard 11/20/00 Date: 20 Nov 2000 00:09:06 -0500 Message-ID: <200011200500.AAA10850@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 11/20/00 -=- 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 : Mon Oct 23 19:01:57 EDT 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 38/ 20/ 42 Freight Train David Moore 155 71 2 37/ 22/ 40 sIMPly.Red v0.95 Leonardo Humberto 153 28 3 36/ 20/ 43 Test Alexander (Sasha) Wa 152 10 4 36/ 22/ 43 Guardian Ian Oversby 150 70 5 41/ 36/ 24 PacMan David Moore 145 100 6 31/ 16/ 53 EV Paper John K Wilkinson 145 84 7 41/ 40/ 19 Stasis David Moore 141 178 8 30/ 19/ 50 Test I Ian Oversby 141 127 9 32/ 22/ 46 Shish-Ka-Bob Ben Ford 141 26 10 42/ 45/ 13 Iron Gate Wayne Sheppard 139 396 11 40/ 41/ 19 Beholder's Eye V1.7 W. Mintardjo 139 346 12 37/ 36/ 27 Stillborn Bomber v0.2 mjp 138 11 13 38/ 39/ 23 Tangle Trap David Moore 137 144 14 29/ 22/ 49 Evoltmp 88 John K W 137 121 15 40/ 46/ 14 Foggy Swamp Beppe Bezzi 133 67 16 34/ 36/ 30 Frog Sticker P.Kline 132 20 17 39/ 47/ 14 Blur '88 Anton Marsden 131 108 18 39/ 50/ 11 Blurstone '88 M. J. Pihlaja 129 65 19 39/ 50/ 11 Shadow Seeker John Metcalf 127 7 20 27/ 43/ 30 Twill Andy Pierce 111 1 21 10/ 63/ 28 Virual IIII: RWT Tharn 57 0 From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Re: p^3 generator Date: 2000/11/21 Message-ID: <4.1.20001120231212.0098b850@pop-server>#1/1 Heh uh yea... took less time to make the program than it would have to get out a calculator and type all that stuff in. Anyone actually used it other than me? -jkw At 11:30 PM 11/20/00 -0500, you wrote: >YOU wrote a p^3 generator?? HEY!!! >That was MY long-standing never-finished secret project. >Sigh... > From: "Ransom Smith" Subject: Re: p^3 generator Message-ID: Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 03:13:27 GMT YOU wrote a p^3 generator?? HEY!!! That was MY long-standing never-finished secret project. Sigh... From: M Joonas Pihlaja Subject: Opportunity is knocking Date: 2000/11/22 Message-ID: #1/1 > The current ICWS '94 Draft hill: > # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age > 1 48.1/ 44.9/ 7.0 Not the way I play it. No Dave Hillis 151.3 1 > 2 42.2/ 36.3/ 21.5 Combatra David Moore 148.0 19 > 3 48.2/ 48.6/ 3.2 Is this a game of chance? Dave Hillis 147.8 2 Hillis scores 70+ percent against the most defensive warriors in the business? Woah! > 24 34.0/ 39.5/ 26.5 Recycled Bits David Moore 128.5 161 > 25 33.1/ 38.9/ 28.0 Self-Modifying Code Ben Ford 127.3 107 Oooh... how tempting. Just one shot away. From: lcgxge@hotmail.com Subject: The Perfect Christmas Gift 3192 Date: 2000/11/22 Message-ID: #1/1 Two days ago I ordered 10 pieces of paper money from 10 different countries from a company called Perth Numismatics. Lo and behold they arrived today and they are very nice and colourful. They even have a bill from Antarctica. I didn't even know they existed. These are perfect for stocking stuffers or people who are hard to buy for. The website address is www.perthmoney.com Good luck and Merry Christmas Cynthia Reeves wbdlpvduvmhzghzuflpzypgwzlzeyocvipqmwsh From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Re: p^3 generator Date: 2000/11/22 Message-ID: <4.1.20001122154420.00aca820@pop-server>#1/1 Heh I think it's great! I launch ultraedit, open my warrior and "brain.txt" or something, then launch a dos window and execute "perl p3-1.pl brain.txt > t.txt" then I open up t.txt, and copy/paste the brain into my warrior... after that I just edit brain.txt, reexecute the perl program, and then re copy/paste the brain. Takes like 3 seconds to try each different p brain, after I decide what I want the logic to be, heh... At 09:01 AM 11/22/00 -0500, you wrote: >Yep, but not for anything that got as far as being submitted yet. > >Steve Gunnell > >On Wed, 22 Nov 2000, you wrote: >> Heh uh yea... took less time to make the program than it would have >> to get out a calculator and type all that stuff in. >> >> Anyone actually used it other than me? >> >> -jkw >> >> At 11:30 PM 11/20/00 -0500, you wrote: >> >YOU wrote a p^3 generator?? HEY!!! >> >That was MY long-standing never-finished secret project. >> >Sigh... >> > From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Re: KOFACOTO semi-finals results! Date: 2000/11/22 Message-ID: <4.1.20001122155156.00ac4580@pop-server>#1/1 At 10:31 AM 11/22/00 -0500, you wrote: >> FINALS! >> >> Janeczek vs Macrae >> >> '88 standard rules. Groups of 200 rounds. > >Consolation round for third prize?? Well I wasn't planning on saying anything until next week, but as I'd said many weeks ago to someone that asked me, third place is determined by the seed in the finals, ie the total score from the prelim rounds. Therefore David Moore is the 3rd place champ... :) -jkw From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Re: (more) games like corewar, bolo, crobots, omega, robot odyssey Date: 2000/11/22 Message-ID: <4.1.20001122160221.00989ce0@pop-server>#1/1 Whoa it's weird to look at a bunch of web pages that are linked to koth.org or the corewars now image I made, and I'd never even heard of any of them previously... None of those links actually have any unique stuff on em though. :/ -jkw At 08:31 AM 11/22/00 -0500, you wrote: >hello everybody, > >i just want inform you about my programming game link list at > >http://tpga.virtualave.net > >with links to games like omega, robot odyssey, crobots, corewars, etc. > >soon (maybe in 2 or 3 weeks...when my server becomes ready) there will be a >complete redesign >of the page with php and a database -> forums,chats, >project-pages,downloads, etc. > >ciao dennis (from germany) > >ps: if you know any other places where i can get related games/links ... >please let me know :-) >and if you want to be informed when i set up the new design -> just send me >an email > > > From: "Paul Kline" Subject: Re: KOFACOTO semi-finals results! Date: 2000/11/22 Message-ID: <8vgklp$fkv@ng1.icn.state.ia.us>#1/1 > FINALS! > > Janeczek vs Macrae > > '88 standard rules. Groups of 200 rounds. Consolation round for third prize?? From: "Paul Kline" Subject: Re: KOFACOTO semi-finals results! Date: 2000/11/22 Message-ID: <8vgk73$fkt@ng1.icn.state.ia.us>#1/1 > (I've never seen FireHouse before, it looks like some of the > TottiatwaE programs I wrote a while back, especially for > destroying Evolve-papers! Good pick, Jan! When did Kline > publish that?) In round 3 of this tournament? From: Steve Gunnell Subject: Re: p^3 generator Date: 2000/11/22 Message-ID: <00112220534201.12979@eldred>#1/1 Yep, but not for anything that got as far as being submitted yet. Steve Gunnell On Wed, 22 Nov 2000, you wrote: > Heh uh yea... took less time to make the program than it would have > to get out a calculator and type all that stuff in. > > Anyone actually used it other than me? > > -jkw > > At 11:30 PM 11/20/00 -0500, you wrote: > >YOU wrote a p^3 generator?? HEY!!! > >That was MY long-standing never-finished secret project. > >Sigh... > > From: "dennis l�hring" Subject: (more) games like corewar, bolo, crobots, omega, robot odyssey Date: 2000/11/22 Message-ID: <8vg1gn$akg$1@oceanus.connect.org.uk>#1/1 hello everybody, i just want inform you about my programming game link list at http://tpga.virtualave.net with links to games like omega, robot odyssey, crobots, corewars, etc. soon (maybe in 2 or 3 weeks...when my server becomes ready) there will be a complete redesign of the page with php and a database -> forums,chats, project-pages,downloads, etc. ciao dennis (from germany) ps: if you know any other places where i can get related games/links ... please let me know :-) and if you want to be informed when i set up the new design -> just send me an email From: jkw@koth.org Subject: KOFACOTO semi-finals results! Date: 22 Nov 2000 01:05:22 -0500 Message-ID: <4.1.20001121232236.00ac5390@pop-server> ;name Damage Inflicted ;author Robert Macrae ;strategy DClear/Imp, Scanner ; One day I will learn to write a decent Silk. ; In the meantime, just hope that David has gone for ; something aggressive... ; sadly, there is little reason for him to do so. ; The idea was to have these aggressive components ; appearing occasionally from behind a robust silk/imp; ; the combination should have been quite tough to handle. ; However, the SI never materialised so I have to rely ; on David 1) Not playing a strong Silk/Imp, and ; 2) Not playing a scanner that can beat my 64proc, 2point ; imp. Most scanners can :-( ; How about a wimpy Silk + Stone/Imp + bomb-dodger, please? ; ---------------------------------------------------- ; Stalker for big core ; with overlapping scans, trail will always (?) be detected but ; here it is after 5800 cycles -- academic, I suspect. ;name Denial ;author David Moore ;strategy ineffective imp/stone ;strategy (13pt A-imps, 19pt B-imps) ;stone stolen from QuickSilver and modified ============================================================== ============================================================== ============================================================== Dclear/imp is the perfect strategy for safely beating a bombing stone with a tiny ammount of imps! I'm surprised Macrae went with mirrord imps! Bold move Macrae! :) Winner: Macrae! Denial by David Moore scores 217 Damage Inflicted by Robert Macrae scores 325 Results: 3 39 208 Denial by David Moore scores 231 Damage Inflicted by Robert Macrae scores 294 Results: 2 23 225 ============================================================== ============================================================== ============================================================== ;name Katafutr ;author Michal Janeczek ; Switch between paper with imps, incendiary bomber and ; Paul Kline's FireHouse ;name Rock'n'Roll ;author Christian Schmidt ; Well, I guess Janeczek will come with an ; unexpected strategy, so I really don't know ; what to do. There was not much time, so that ; I have finaly choosen a two component p-warrior ; strongly based on jkw's Black Box, but with ; a simpler p^2 brain ;-) ; It should slightly win against most warriors, ; especially against multi component p-warriors. ============================================================== ============================================================== ============================================================== Both authors submitted p^3 warriors with Evolve-style paper components. However Jan had a strong anti-imp scanner, FireHouse on his side... (I've never seen FireHouse before, it looks like some of the TottiatwaE programs I wrote a while back, especially for destroying Evolve-papers! Good pick, Jan! When did Kline publish that?) Winner: Janeczek! Katafutr by Michal Janeczek scores 390 Rock'n'Roll by Christian Schmidt scores 240 Results: 90 40 120 Katafutr by Michal Janeczek scores 366 Rock'n'Roll by Christian Schmidt scores 246 Results: 76 36 138 ============================================================== ============================================================== ============================================================== FINALS! Janeczek vs Macrae '88 standard rules. Groups of 200 rounds. Sorry for the delay in getting the results back, but it shouldn't be a problem for you two experts to get some warriors in by next Sunday, the 26th. :) Good luck! From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Re: Freight Train and the '88 hill Date: 22 Nov 2000 01:05:18 -0500 Message-ID: <4.1.20001121235117.00abd450@pop-server> At 12:34 AM 11/22/00 -0500, you wrote: >Noticed that not only is Freight Train king of the '88 hill, it also >beats every other warrior on the hill. Pretty impressive. Damn them's fightin' words! -jkw From: Ben Ford Subject: Freight Train and the '88 hill Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 04:04:42 GMT Message-ID: <8vfgkn$qro$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Noticed that not only is Freight Train king of the '88 hill, it also beats every other warrior on the hill. Pretty impressive. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. From: David Matthew Moore Subject: Re: kofacoto quarterfinal results Date: 22 Nov 2000 05:07:33 GMT Message-ID: <8vfkal$2tb0$1@msunews.cl.msu.edu> Benjamin Ford wrote: >>;name G2 >>;author David Moore >>;two-shot scanner >> > Its a two shot scanner. The first scan modifies the scan loop to do > blur-style bombing in the loop. The second scan jumps to the coreclear. That's "how" it scans twice but you forgot to mention "why" It's designed to get around those length 100 decoys that bootstrappers leave behind. The blur wipes over that stuff, so the second scan can ignore it. David. From: David Matthew Moore Subject: Re: Freight Train and the '88 hill Date: 22 Nov 2000 05:22:57 GMT Message-ID: <8vfl7h$2tb0$2@msunews.cl.msu.edu> Ben Ford wrote: > Noticed that not only is Freight Train king of the '88 hill, it also > beats every other warrior on the hill. I am more impressed by Dave Hillis's whipping of Cinammon, Stylized Euphoria, and nPaper on '94 pizza. I think he got over 80% wins against all of those. WTF? From: "Benjamin Ford" Subject: Re: abusive warriors Date: 2000/11/23 Message-ID: #1/1 Just thinking that actually sharing it might be better done as an article in the next issue of Core Warrior rather than just a simple post. That would help get the next issue out quicker I would think as well. Then issue 80 should come out fairly soon as well since it should have an updated index since 40. Right now I'm thinking its (q-)scanning going into some indirect thru-bombing. Something within the realm of possibility of a GA to come up with. Perhaps even using some specialized bombs like nPaper to further increase the indirect bombing. And the 2nd clue might be indicating that one is a-indirect and the other is b-indirect. Also seems to have some pspace component to it and includes brainwashing. Suspecions of pspace come from that it hasn't been submitted to the 94nop hill and Fugitive does well against it and the only thing to distinguish it from the other silk-imps is the brainwashing done by the qscan. The brainwashing bit is due to the scores of SMC and RB which both brainwash to paper with a 0 and in both cases, the paper is always switched out of, even if it wins, so something has to be forcing them to stay paper. A strange thing is my current test project scores 60% wins and 40% ties against Chance but just a standard number of wins. While that win total isn't weird, the tie total is. However, against No, its scoring about 70% wins and the rest evenly split between ties and losses. Those results are fairly standard for the type of the warrior. Knowing the innovation I came up with really lends credence to the indirect thru-bombing idea as well as making me suspect the difference between the two being one is a-indirect and the other is b-indirect. From: "Hillis" > When working with evolving warriors finally led me to find something > that was actually relevant to winning contests, I knew I had to share it > with the group. In keeping with the spirit of the game, naturally I had > to share it by rattling a couple of hills and making a tricky puzzle. > I'll also have to show the warriors before too long. > But first, a couple more hints. > 1. It's an analysis kind of thing. I still don't write redcode very > well, but I do know how to look at a hill and figure out what's going on > with it. > 2. The 2 warriors that I just submitted to the pizza 94 hill had very > similar starts, but their lives will diverge quickly. > 3. "Is this a game of chance?" really is identical to "Certain Abuse > v02". > > Dave Hillis > From: "Benjamin Ford" Subject: Re: Opportunity is knocking Date: 2000/11/23 Message-ID: #1/1 From: "Steve Gunnell" > On Thu, 23 Nov 2000, you wrote: > > > The current ICWS '94 Draft hill: > > > # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age > > > 1 48.1/ 44.9/ 7.0 Not the way I play it. No Dave Hillis 151.3 1 > > > 2 42.2/ 36.3/ 21.5 Combatra David Moore 148.0 19 > > > 3 48.2/ 48.6/ 3.2 Is this a game of chance? Dave Hillis 147.8 2 > > > > Hillis scores 70+ percent against the most defensive warriors in > > the business? Woah! > > Hmmm, given the good scores Hillis gets against published warriors versus the > abysmal scores he gets with unpublished warriors, I would say he is in the > precision killing game. As soon as his prefered targets move on his warriors > will be history just like the 'abuse' programs. I don't think so. For the warriors that "No" beats, Mini Return of the Jedimmp, Uninvited, and EvoP 3 are unpublished. Also, published stuff like Combatra, 2 Crazy, Return of the Fugitive, and G2 aren't crushed (or in RotF's case, the program seems to be working ok but gets killed as often as its killed). Can make a similar case for "Chance". So I don't think he is trying to precision scan against published warriors. From: Steve Gunnell Subject: Re: Opportunity is knocking Date: 2000/11/23 Message-ID: <00112405371700.24734@eldred>#1/1 On Thu, 23 Nov 2000, you wrote: > > The current ICWS '94 Draft hill: > > # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age > > 1 48.1/ 44.9/ 7.0 Not the way I play it. No Dave Hillis 151.3 1 > > 2 42.2/ 36.3/ 21.5 Combatra David Moore 148.0 19 > > 3 48.2/ 48.6/ 3.2 Is this a game of chance? Dave Hillis 147.8 2 > > Hillis scores 70+ percent against the most defensive warriors in > the business? Woah! Hmmm, given the good scores Hillis gets against published warriors versus the abysmal scores he gets with unpublished warriors, I would say he is in the precision killing game. As soon as his prefered targets move on his warriors will be history just like the 'abuse' programs. > > > 24 34.0/ 39.5/ 26.5 Recycled Bits David Moore 128.5 161 > > 25 33.1/ 38.9/ 28.0 Self-Modifying Code Ben Ford 127.3 107 > > Oooh... how tempting. Just one shot away. > > Steve Gunnell From: Hillis Subject: abusive warriors Date: 2000/11/23 Message-ID: <3A1D4A41.44C0851D@erols.com>#1/1 When working with evolving warriors finally led me to find something that was actually relevant to winning contests, I knew I had to share it with the group. In keeping with the spirit of the game, naturally I had to share it by rattling a couple of hills and making a tricky puzzle. I'll also have to show the warriors before too long. But first, a couple more hints. 1. It's an analysis kind of thing. I still don't write redcode very well, but I do know how to look at a hill and figure out what's going on with it. 2. The 2 warriors that I just submitted to the pizza 94 hill had very similar starts, but their lives will diverge quickly. 3. "Is this a game of chance?" really is identical to "Certain Abuse v02". Dave Hillis From: "Benjamin Ford" Subject: Re: Opportunity is knocking Date: 2000/11/23 Message-ID: #1/1 Yeah, really weird. Each time its submitted, it seems to prey on several warriors and mostly leave the other ones alone. On the big hill, one version happened to crush all the incenedary bombers. One on the 94 hill crushed most of the papers. Another on the big hill hit scanners like SETI. Well, due to the hills it has been submitted to, its obviously using p-space. And with each submission scoring well against different types of warriors so its nothing traditional. However, it does seem to take advantage more of things with slower boots. Maybe some bizarre thing involving a (q)scan into an F-number calculator. And with its scores against SMC and RB, I'm thinking its brainwashing with #0. From: > Yea I don't understand it... neither of those abusive things have ever > scored more than 100 pts against any of my stuff. Those programs are > bizarre. > > At 09:52 PM 11/22/00 -0500, you wrote: > > > >> The current ICWS '94 Draft hill: > >> # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age > >> 1 48.1/ 44.9/ 7.0 Not the way I play it. No Dave Hillis 151.3 1 > >> 2 42.2/ 36.3/ 21.5 Combatra David Moore 148.0 19 > >> 3 48.2/ 48.6/ 3.2 Is this a game of chance? Dave Hillis 147.8 2 > > > >Hillis scores 70+ percent against the most defensive warriors in > >the business? Woah! > > > >> 24 34.0/ 39.5/ 26.5 Recycled Bits David Moore 128.5 161 > >> 25 33.1/ 38.9/ 28.0 Self-Modifying Code Ben Ford 127.3 107 > > > >Oooh... how tempting. Just one shot away. > > > > From: "Benjamin Ford" Subject: Re: 94/test: test challenge results Date: 2000/11/23 Message-ID: #1/1 Argh, trying to reclaim some spots on the hill with Jade. So I replace its 'bad q4' with the smaller and faster (by .5 cycles) q4 from rotf and it scores worse. Some things just don't make sense. > 15 23.9/ 21.3/ 54.8 test test 126.5 1 > 22 22.0/ 21.2/ 56.8 test test 122.9 1 From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Re: 94: High Times v1.3 vs. Is this a game of chance? Date: 2000/11/23 Message-ID: <4.1.20001122224749.00ac5340@pop-server>#1/1 You resubmitted a warrior that was pushed off like 7 challenges ago and now it's back at #1? Damn... -jkw At 05:32 PM 11/22/00 -0800, you wrote: >A challenger has arrived on the ICWS '94 Draft hill! Vital statistics: >Program "Is this a game of chance?" (length 100) by "Dave Hillis" >(contact address "dbhillis@erols.com"): >;strategy - The name comes from a W.C. Fields movie >;strategy - This is an abusive warrior >;strategy - Actually it is identical to Certain Abuse v02 >;strategy - which recently died at a tragically young age > >The current ICWS '94 Draft hill: > # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age > 1 50.8/ 46.0/ 3.2 Is this a game of chance? Dave Hillis 155.6 1 From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Re: Opportunity is knocking Date: 2000/11/23 Message-ID: <4.1.20001122225040.00aca690@pop-server>#1/1 Yea I don't understand it... neither of those abusive things have ever scored more than 100 pts against any of my stuff. Those programs are bizarre. At 09:52 PM 11/22/00 -0500, you wrote: > >> The current ICWS '94 Draft hill: >> # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age >> 1 48.1/ 44.9/ 7.0 Not the way I play it. No Dave Hillis 151.3 1 >> 2 42.2/ 36.3/ 21.5 Combatra David Moore 148.0 19 >> 3 48.2/ 48.6/ 3.2 Is this a game of chance? Dave Hillis 147.8 2 > >Hillis scores 70+ percent against the most defensive warriors in >the business? Woah! > >> 24 34.0/ 39.5/ 26.5 Recycled Bits David Moore 128.5 161 >> 25 33.1/ 38.9/ 28.0 Self-Modifying Code Ben Ford 127.3 107 > >Oooh... how tempting. Just one shot away. > > > From: Christian Schmidt Subject: Re: Opportunity is knocking Date: 2000/11/23 Message-ID: <3A1CF422.DE956B88@mail.uni-mainz.de>#1/1 Yeah, I have absolute no clue what kind of warriors Hillis uses. It seems to me that it is a complete new strategy ;-) Surprisingly, some of my warriors scores very well against those warriors. It looks like, that they are very vulnerable against carbonite-styled stones. Funny, funny, funny.... M Joonas Pihlaja schrieb: > > > The current ICWS '94 Draft hill: > > # %W / %L / %T Name Author Score Age > > 1 48.1/ 44.9/ 7.0 Not the way I play it. No Dave Hillis 151.3 1 > > 2 42.2/ 36.3/ 21.5 Combatra David Moore 148.0 19 > > 3 48.2/ 48.6/ 3.2 Is this a game of chance? Dave Hillis 147.8 2 > > Hillis scores 70+ percent against the most defensive warriors in > the business? Woah! > > > 24 34.0/ 39.5/ 26.5 Recycled Bits David Moore 128.5 161 > > 25 33.1/ 38.9/ 28.0 Self-Modifying Code Ben Ford 127.3 107 > > Oooh... how tempting. Just one shot away. > > From: "Ian Oversby" Subject: Re: Core Warrior 78 Date: 2000/11/26 Message-ID: <8vrrds$p9f$1@lure.pipex.net>#1/1 Where is it then? Frederick C. Strathmeyer wrote in message news:36963112@dasher.Dartmouth.EDU... > yay! new core warrior!! From: jkw@koth.org Subject: KOFACOTO is over! Date: 2000/11/27 Message-ID: <4.1.20001127204610.00aceef0@pop-server>#1/1 KOFACOTO is over! Janeczek submitted a imp/paper with a Jedimp style imp launcher, similar to EV Paper from the '88 hill... Macrae submitted a more standard paper, but with a QScan. So it's paper vs paper... but one of 'em has a QScan? Winner: QScan. :) ;redcode ;name LaterAtNight ;author Robert Macrae ;strategy Nightfall + QS ;name ]enigma[ ;author Michal Janeczek ;strategy Paper with imps ]enigma[ by Michal Janeczek scores 988 LaterAtNight by Robert Macrae scores 1027 Results: 1 14 985 Robert Macrae is the KOFACOTO champion! I will post the warriors from this round with all the others... http://www.koth.org/kofacoto 1st: Robert Macrae 2nd: Michal Janeczek 3rd: David Moore Thanks to all who participated. Robert Macrae gave me some fairly in-depth comments on his warrior choices for the finals. If anyone else would like to do so, please send them my way. -jkw From: M Joonas Pihlaja Subject: Re: Core Warrior 78 Date: 2000/11/27 Message-ID: #1/1 On Sun, 26 Nov 2000, Ian Oversby wrote: > Where is it then? I hope, here: http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=691987766&fmt=text From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - ICWS Experimental 94 11/27/00 Date: 27 Nov 2000 00:09:07 -0500 Message-ID: <200011270500.AAA12244@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 11/27/00 -=- 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 : Fri Nov 24 20:58:17 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 48/ 31/ 20 Random Reaper Dave Hillis 165 1 2 41/ 30/ 29 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 152 63 3 42/ 33/ 25 Black Moods Ian Oversby 151 59 4 45/ 39/ 16 Greetings From Asbury Par JKW 150 23 5 32/ 15/ 53 Katafutr Michal Janeczek 149 3 6 38/ 34/ 29 Ogre Christian Schmidt 141 11 7 30/ 27/ 43 Damage Inflicted Robert Macrae 134 2 8 17/ 4/ 79 Black Box v1.1 JKW 130 26 9 21/ 13/ 66 Denial David Moore 130 4 10 25/ 21/ 54 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 128 85 11 20/ 12/ 68 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 128 132 12 16/ 5/ 79 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 127 80 13 30/ 38/ 32 Dr. Gate X Franz 123 103 14 27/ 35/ 38 test CS 119 20 15 29/ 44/ 27 Pattel's Virus X Ben Ford 114 7 16 20/ 28/ 52 Rosebud Beppe 112 111 17 18/ 24/ 58 Purple v0.1 Christian Schmidt 112 84 18 28/ 45/ 26 Pagan John K W 111 117 19 30/ 51/ 19 S.E.T.I. 4-X JKW 108 133 20 22/ 39/ 39 MorphinMerlin Jeremy K 106 46 21 10/ 16/ 74 Scorpion Death Drop JKW 104 22 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - MultiWarrior 94 11/27/00 Date: 27 Nov 2000 00:09:20 -0500 Message-ID: <200011270500.AAA12238@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 11/27/00 -=- 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 : Tue Nov 7 12:43:53 EST 2000 # Name Author Score Age 1 D-clearM Ken Espiritu 28 42 2 QuiVa John Metcalf 25 135 3 fclear Brian Haskin 24 26 4 vamp/scan test b1 Ken Espiritu 24 15 5 Dracula's Cape Ben Ford 24 20 6 Friction Ken Espiritu 23 14 7 Her Majesty P.Kline 23 61 8 MorphinMerlin Jeremy K 18 6 9 Scan Test Tester 9 1 10 SmallFry Simon Duff 8 12 11 The 8th King Christian Schmidt 2 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - 94 No Pspace 11/27/00 Date: 27 Nov 2000 00:09:12 -0500 Message-ID: <200011270500.AAA12251@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 11/27/00 -=- 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 Nov 26 19:41:19 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 40/ 23/ 37 Quicksilver Michal Janeczek 156 35 2 47/ 38/ 15 Behemot Michal Janeczek 156 96 3 36/ 22/ 41 Olivia Ben Ford 150 1 4 45/ 43/ 12 Eraser II Ken Espiritu 148 230 5 38/ 28/ 34 Mini Digitalis Christian Schmidt 148 64 6 45/ 43/ 13 Jinx Christian Schmidt 146 236 7 45/ 44/ 11 G2-b David Moore 146 59 8 34/ 22/ 44 nPaper II Paul-V Khuong 145 273 9 45/ 46/ 10 Stalker P.Kline 144 258 10 44/ 45/ 11 Pitbull Christian Schmidt 143 106 11 37/ 32/ 32 Blacken Ian Oversby 142 520 12 34/ 28/ 39 Omnibus John Metcalf 140 282 13 43/ 47/ 10 vamp/scan test b1 Ken Espiritu 140 188 14 42/ 45/ 12 Zooom... John Metcalf 140 409 15 30/ 21/ 48 The Dark One Christian Schmidt 139 66 16 40/ 42/ 18 CrazyShot Christian Schmidt 139 105 17 31/ 25/ 44 Jade Ben Ford 138 342 18 30/ 23/ 47 Uninvited John Metcalf 137 225 19 28/ 21/ 51 Tie Factory Christian Schmidt 136 124 20 29/ 23/ 48 Jaguar Christian Schmidt 135 260 21 2/ 98/ 0 0 0 7 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - Standard 11/27/00 Date: 27 Nov 2000 00:09:16 -0500 Message-ID: <200011270500.AAA12234@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 11/27/00 -=- 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 : Fri Nov 24 06:18:04 EST 2000 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 35/ 21/ 44 Freight Train David Moore 149 72 2 33/ 21/ 45 Test Alexander (Sasha) Wa 145 11 3 39/ 35/ 26 PacMan David Moore 144 101 4 33/ 22/ 45 Guardian Ian Oversby 143 71 5 33/ 22/ 45 sIMPly.Red v0.95 Leonardo Humberto 143 29 6 40/ 39/ 21 Stasis David Moore 140 179 7 26/ 16/ 57 EV Paper John K Wilkinson 137 85 8 30/ 23/ 48 Shish-Ka-Bob Ben Ford 137 27 9 38/ 40/ 21 Beholder's Eye V1.7 W. Mintardjo 136 347 10 36/ 36/ 28 Stillborn Bomber v0.2 mjp 136 12 11 27/ 20/ 54 Test I Ian Oversby 134 128 12 36/ 39/ 25 Tangle Trap David Moore 133 145 13 39/ 45/ 16 Iron Gate Wayne Sheppard 133 397 14 39/ 46/ 16 Foggy Swamp Beppe Bezzi 132 68 15 27/ 22/ 51 Evoltmp 88 John K W 132 122 16 38/ 46/ 16 Blur '88 Anton Marsden 131 109 17 25/ 23/ 52 sic Leonardo H. Liporati 128 1 18 39/ 50/ 11 Shadow Seeker John Metcalf 128 8 19 38/ 49/ 12 Blurstone '88 M. J. Pihlaja 127 66 20 30/ 34/ 36 Frog Sticker P.Kline 126 21 21 4/ 38/ 58 Robal Arek Paterek 70 0 From: jkw@koth.org Subject: KOFACOTO Date: 2000/11/28 Message-ID: <4.1.20001128184807.00b3c1a0@pop-server>#1/1 Welp all in all I think that went very well. :-) Good response from everyone, lots of interest... All of the warriors from all rounds are posted now. Also, Macrae's in-depth comments are online from rounds 5,6,7... interesting stuff... hehe. http://www.koth.org/kofacoto -jkw From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Re: Koenigstuhl Date: 2000/11/30 Message-ID: <4.1.20001130194638.00ad62d0@pop-server>#1/1 Look like a lot of changes have been made... with all those hills, it's just another good reason for people to ;assert themselves!! At 07:53 PM 11/30/00 -0500, you wrote: >> Is Koenigstuhl acting weird for anyone else? When I view it from my >> computer at work, the hill page is dated 11-22-00. However at home, >> the page is dated 10-06-00. > >You must be looking at cached pages ... the actual date on >the Koenigstuhl (http://andromeda.ociw.edu/COREWAR/koenigstuhl.html) >is 2000-11-30. >Both '94 and OPEN hills have 'G2' and 'Quicksilver' on them. > >Christoph From: birk@andromeda.ociw.edu Subject: Re: Koenigstuhl Date: 2000/11/30 Message-ID: <200012010044.QAA27454@andromeda.ociw.edu>#1/1 > Is Koenigstuhl acting weird for anyone else? When I view it from my > computer at work, the hill page is dated 11-22-00. However at home, > the page is dated 10-06-00. You must be looking at cached pages ... the actual date on the Koenigstuhl (http://andromeda.ociw.edu/COREWAR/koenigstuhl.html) is 2000-11-30. Both '94 and OPEN hills have 'G2' and 'Quicksilver' on them. Christoph From: Ben Ford Subject: Koenigstuhl Date: 2000/11/30 Message-ID: <906p4i$1f$1@nnrp1.deja.com>#1/1 Is Koenigstuhl acting weird for anyone else? When I view it from my computer at work, the hill page is dated 11-22-00. However at home, the page is dated 10-06-00. Getting additional weirdness at home in that the 94 hill is showing some newer submissions such as G2 and Quicksilver but they don't show up on the Open hill. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. From: jkw@koth.org Subject: Re: Tutorial or Document on Addressing Modes Date: 2000/11/30 Message-ID: <4.1.20001130141851.00aebee0@pop-server>#1/1 Did you look at the '94 reference? http://www.KOTH.org/info/pmars-redcode-94.txt Aside from that (which does explain everything), your best bet is to look at simple warriors. Go to http://www.koth.org/planar/by-name/complete.htm and look around. Here's two I chose kind of at random... http://www.KOTH.org/planar/rc/Stone.txt http://www.KOTH.org/planar/rc/Rave4.1.txt -jkw At 09:32 AM 11/30/00 -0500, you wrote: >Hi, > >I'm looking for a good tutorial on the addressing modes in Corewars. The >tutorials and guides on the KOTH-page warent unfortunately unsufficient for >me. >Hope, You can help me. :-) > >Ciao, >Damian. From: Damian Harmus Subject: Tutorial or Document on Addressing Modes Date: 2000/11/30 Message-ID: #1/1 Hi, I'm looking for a good tutorial on the addressing modes in Corewars. The tutorials and guides on the KOTH-page warent unfortunately unsufficient for me. Hope, You can help me. :-) Ciao, Damian.