From: "Drake" Subject: Re: How to be a jerk off in one minute...! Date: Tue, 1 May 2001 11:34:57 -0700 Message-ID: "PixelCat" wrote in message news:X1DH6.1952$9w6.162442@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net... | "AcK!" wrote | | Wow, I haven't seen a post from you in a long time. Where you reading this? | | > On Tue, 01 May 2001 15:50:57 GMT, "PixelCat" | wrote: | | > >ROFLOL. | | > >In tech support, we call that TPTLBTKATC. | | > That's a new acronym for me, could you please explain? | | The Problem That Lies Between The Keyboard And The Chair. Almost as bad as the ID 10T prob. From: jared@intNOSPAMvelt.com (Jared of Europa) Subject: Re: How to be a jerk off in one minute...! Date: Tue, 01 May 2001 14:49:15 GMT Message-ID: <3af6cb7e.7690413@news.tokyo.att.ne.jp> On Sun, 29 Apr 2001 01:00:59 GMT, OrionCA wrote: >>Actually, I've always wondered why it was okay to say "shucks" or "fudge" when it wasn't okay to >>say "shit" or "fuck." Since you're obviously implying the latter with the former, it seemed just >>as "wrong" to me. I don't really see swearing as wrong at all, though. > >In the Christian ethic there are no 'points' for sins: You either >commit one or you don't. It isn't, "Darn is a 1 pointer and "Damn" is >a 5 pointer, the F-word is worth a cool 50!", *ANY* sin unrepented >puts you in Hell. This concept bothers people because it means >swiping a coke out of the machine w/o paying put you on the same moral >level with, say, Jeffrey Dalmer. Well, that's true: Hell doesn't >have cheap seats. I thought hell had different levels for different types of sin. Then again, I'm not an expert (*refers to "hell", not to "sin*) and the seven levels may just be something Dante made up. Saying "Darn" might put you in the cheap seat, ie. stuck inside a coffin for eternity, whereas false preachings may land you head first in the pool of boiling blood, or perhaps stealing will find you on the business end of a pitchfork. Take your pick. -*- Decorators, visit Famous Houses of Britannia: http://fhb.intvelt.com We are not made, for Labour and Trade that Fools on each other impose From: "PixelCat" Subject: Re: How to be a jerk off in one minute...! Message-ID: Date: Tue, 01 May 2001 15:50:57 GMT "OrionCA" wrote > Here's an even easier way to be a jerk: Change the subject line and > start a new thread, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Get a real newsreader, one that threads properly, on the References: line. > then fail to quote any relevant text to show why > you think the poster should fuck off with the spam. Hm. I figured he was demonstrating how to be a jerk by flaming. > "I don't understand it. When I raised the tax from > 100% to 200% in Scara Brae revenues went from 107,000/day > to -1000. You wouldn't think raising taxes a little bit > would impact revenues so much: It must be a bug." > - Faction leader, complaining on OSI's forums. ROFLOL. In tech support, we call that TPTLBTKATC. -- So much for a crossbow tank rush. - Jason Kozak From: kruposki@yahoospa.com (AcK!) Subject: Re: How to be a jerk off in one minute...! Message-ID: <3aeedf1e.3322954@news1.on.sympatico.ca> Date: Tue, 01 May 2001 16:07:10 GMT On Tue, 01 May 2001 15:50:57 GMT, "PixelCat" wrote: >ROFLOL. > >In tech support, we call that TPTLBTKATC. That's a new acronym for me, could you please explain? >So much for a crossbow tank rush. >- Jason Kozak LOL!!!! TTYL ... Life is a series of interrelated delusions. kruposki@yahoospa.com remove "spa" to email From: "PixelCat" Subject: Re: How to be a jerk off in one minute...! Message-ID: Date: Tue, 01 May 2001 18:14:15 GMT "AcK!" wrote Wow, I haven't seen a post from you in a long time. Where you reading this? > On Tue, 01 May 2001 15:50:57 GMT, "PixelCat" wrote: > >ROFLOL. > >In tech support, we call that TPTLBTKATC. > That's a new acronym for me, could you please explain? The Problem That Lies Between The Keyboard And The Chair. 0 -- So much for a crossbow tank rush. - Jason Kozak From: Frederick.C.Strathmeyer@Dartmouth.EDU (Frederick C. Strathmeyer) Subject: Re: How to be a jerk off in one minute...! Date: 2 May 2001 10:05:14 -0400 Message-ID: <44321831@dasher.Dartmouth.EDU> --- jared@nospam.com wrote: I thought hell had different levels for different types of sin. --- end of quote --- Hell is a place for those who believe in it. The lowest depths of hell are reserved for those people who believe in it only because they think they'll go there if they don't. From: "Walter Mather" Subject: Re: How to be a jerk off in one minute...! Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 10:37:55 -0400 Message-ID: Sins fall into two basic categories, mortal (serious) & venial (varying degrees of seriousness, but not mortal). Either, unrepented, is not good for your soul, but unrepented (and there are correct and incorrect ways to repent) mortal sin is what gets you a ticket to the eternal wasteland. This is probably fruitless to expound on this here, but what the heck, maybe you actually care where your soul resides after you buy the big one and the worst that'll happen to me is a deluge of flaming crap (Isn't it interesting that the analogy of "flames" is used when people ridicule you on these forums ?). Anyway, afterlife is eternal in one place or the other. Always amazes me how some people can even entertain the idea that something as complex as the human soul can just cease to exist after the physical body dies. They're usually the ones that also think whatever it is that makes us a human being doesn't start until sometime after we take that first breath on our own. In any event, when something is true is is objective and not subjective - in other words, it doesn't matter a rat's ass what you or anyone else believes, if something is true, it is so in spite of what anyone thinks (world round vs flat comes to mind). That being said, you WILL go someplace after your body dies and as with everything you do during your lifetime, you have free choice to repent at the final judgement at the hour of death. It's a little more complicated, but that's the gist of it. Once the decision has been made which direction you're going, that's it. If you're not going to hell, then, depending on your state of grace at the time of death, you'll most likely do "time" (totally inaccurate term, since time doesn't exist after death, but it's all we've got) in purgatory ( ahh I can smell the flames coming now), where you will be "purged" of all imperfections before continuing on to the place where all souls are met to go when they are created. Hoped this shed some light on the issue. Oh, and by the way, this post is not a direct reply to the message below, but more to the thread in general. If you read it and got this far, thanks for your time and keep an open mind about the state of your soul. Walt "Jared of Europa" wrote in message news:3af6cb7e.7690413@news.tokyo.att.ne.jp... > On Sun, 29 Apr 2001 01:00:59 GMT, OrionCA > wrote: > > >>Actually, I've always wondered why it was okay to say "shucks" or "fudge" when it wasn't okay to > >>say "shit" or "fuck." Since you're obviously implying the latter with the former, it seemed just > >>as "wrong" to me. I don't really see swearing as wrong at all, though. > > > >In the Christian ethic there are no 'points' for sins: You either > >commit one or you don't. It isn't, "Darn is a 1 pointer and "Damn" is > >a 5 pointer, the F-word is worth a cool 50!", *ANY* sin unrepented > >puts you in Hell. This concept bothers people because it means > >swiping a coke out of the machine w/o paying put you on the same moral > >level with, say, Jeffrey Dalmer. Well, that's true: Hell doesn't > >have cheap seats. > > I thought hell had different levels for different types of sin. Then > again, I'm not an expert (*refers to "hell", not to "sin*) and the > seven levels may just be something Dante made up. > > Saying "Darn" might put you in the cheap seat, ie. stuck inside a > coffin for eternity, whereas false preachings may land you head first > in the pool of boiling blood, or perhaps stealing will find you on the > business end of a pitchfork. Take your pick. > > > -*- > Decorators, visit Famous Houses of Britannia: http://fhb.intvelt.com > > We are not made, for Labour and Trade > that Fools on each other impose From: Little WhiteDove Subject: Re: How to be a jerk off in one minute...! Date: Wed, 02 May 2001 11:23:11 -0400 Message-ID: <020520011123110230%dovey_atlantic@yahoo.com> In article , Walter Mather wrote: |If you read it and got this far, thanks for your time and keep |an open mind about the state of your soul. Yeah Kiiriil. I might try some of it in a salad for lunch (in hopes that Italian dressing will cover up some of the stench). -Little WhiteDove Badb Catha, Lia Fail Empire Atlantic From: "Walter Mather" Subject: Re: How to be a jerk off in one minute...! Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 11:53:41 -0400 Message-ID: Ouch ! Isn't it interesting how an opinion (just words mind you) can bring out this kind of a response in someone. Why do you suppose that is and where do you suppose that comes from ? Walt "Little WhiteDove" wrote in message news:020520011123110230%dovey_atlantic@yahoo.com... > In article , Walter Mather > wrote: > > |If you read it and got this far, thanks for your time and keep > |an open mind about the state of your soul. > > Yeah Kiiriil. I might try some of it in a salad for lunch (in hopes > that Italian dressing will cover up some of the stench). > > -Little WhiteDove > Badb Catha, Lia Fail Empire > Atlantic From: Katherine Subject: Re: How to be a jerk off in one minute...! Message-ID: Date: Wed, 02 May 2001 16:59:53 GMT On Wed, 2 May 2001 11:53:41 -0400, "Walter Mather" expounded: >Ouch ! Isn't it interesting how an opinion (just words mind you) can bring >out this kind of a response in someone. Why do you suppose that is and >where do you suppose that comes from ? Because it's been an ongoing joke for several weeks that Kiril traded his soul to Dove in exchange for some bandages. 'Twas merely a jest. In regards to the whole afterlife thing, I believe there is an afterlife, but not that there is a heaven/hell for the soul to be assigned to. I think the good/bad aspect is a simplistic human concept, and as you say, a soul is far too complex to fit neatly into a pigeonhole of either/or in that fashion. There's also the matter of how it would arrive in either place; what is a hell-worthy sin in one religion can be a laudable action in another--or even in the same religion if the circumstances are right. One's view of the afterlife seems largely determined by one's view of the supreme being(s) that govern our existence. I enjoy discovering other peoples' views on both; I feel like it helps me broaden my own notion of what creation is. Katherine, Grandmaster Healer Ciaran, Lia Fail Empire (Atlantic) Hosting Dr. Dolittle's Stories From: "PixelCat" Subject: Re: How to be a jerk off in one minute...! Message-ID: Date: Thu, 03 May 2001 18:15:53 GMT "Polychromic" wrote in message news:v203fts2tnvv9u3lr658jmpaemudevtiqk@4ax.com... > On Thu, 03 May 2001 15:45:32 GMT, "PixelCat" > wrote: > >"Acid Queen" wrote in message > >news:MPG.155a595a38079ec698ae1a@news.alt.net... > >> Headers re-set. Copy of your post with full headers sent to your server. > >> Do what you want in your little cesspit, but x-posting to a group that > >> has politely pointed out you are off topic violates your TOS. > >Explain how asking what Corewars is is OT in r.g.corewar, k? > Maybe you have to write your posts in redcode? I haven't looked at redcode in years. Can I program in Vax ASM instead? :) -- So much for a crossbow tank rush. - Jason Kozak From: Sascha Zapf Subject: pMARS Date: Thu, 03 May 2001 18:29:41 +0200 Message-ID: <3AF18775.3EC0F2C2@netcologne.de> Hi, is there somebody who has Compiled pMARS 0.9.2 from Sourceforge.. I have tried it under Windows95 and Linux but nothing. Can some give me a little How-to or send me the binaries for Linux with X TIA Sascha From: Daniel Malboeuf Subject: Ahh stop the insanity Date: 3 May 2001 19:34:35 -0400 Message-ID: <20010503143041.2775.qmail@web10401.mail.yahoo.com> You people are crazy stop this right now not only is it annoying it's cluttering up my mail box with useless religion non-sense, and to the Roman Catholic religion expert there(Walt or whetever he calls himself)there is no such thing as purgatory Jesus paid for our sins in full when he died on the cross all we have to do is believe in that and we're saved. Now every one calm down I'm going to go make my self a sandwich and when I come back every thing had better of stoped with the whole jerk off thing. Dan "Cheep weed" Malboeuf __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices http://auctions.yahoo.com/ From: pak21@cam.ac.uk (Philip Kendall) Subject: Re: pMARS Date: 3 May 2001 21:42:31 +0100 Message-ID: <9csfrn$51v$1@kern.srcf.societies.cam.ac.uk> In article <3AF18775.3EC0F2C2@netcologne.de>, Sascha Zapf wrote: > >is there somebody who has Compiled pMARS 0.9.2 from Sourceforge.. I certainly have. >I have tried it under Windows95 and Linux but nothing. I can't believe you got "nothing" -- what (more specifically) was the problem? If the Linux version couldn't find the X libs, have you tried my autoconf patch (also on SourceForge)? >Can some give me a little How-to or send me the binaries for Linux with >X I'll happily send you my binaries, but I doubt they'll be much use to you unless you've got an Alpha running a bizarre mix of Debian stable and unstable! :-) Cheers, Phil -- Philip Kendall http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~pak21/ From: "JL1" Subject: Re: How to be a jerk off in one minute...! Message-ID: Date: Thu, 3 May 2001 22:28:26 +1000 So I go away on business for 4 days and this is the best flame you've got. (Quit it, your killing me...with laughter that is). Ah children, children, children. I must admit though some of the conversation on the thread has become rather interesting......re evil etc :) "Todd Bailey" wrote in message news:terdjnmlu4cn4e@corp.supernews.com... JL1 wrote in message news:jAIG6.13535$482.68526@newsfeeds.bigpond.com... > Re > 1. I agree to disagree, nuff said > 2. Yes I realise that now....It still doesn't answer the Q of why it made to this forum in the first > place. >>>> Hey shit happens. <<<<< > And you are living proof! ;-) From: ransom@localhost.localdomain (Ransom Smith) Subject: Re: Ahh stop the insanity Message-ID: Date: Fri, 04 May 2001 03:44:34 GMT On 3 May 2001 19:34:35 -0400, Daniel Malboeuf wrote: >You people are crazy stop this right now not only is >it annoying it's cluttering up my mail box with >useless religion non-sense, and to the Roman Catholic >religion expert there(Walt or whetever he calls >himself)there is no such thing as purgatory Jesus paid >for our sins in full when he died on the cross all we >have to do is believe in that and we're saved. Now >every one calm down I'm going to go make my self a >sandwich and when I come back every thing had better >of stoped with the whole jerk off thing. > Careful examination of the headers will reveal that we are but innocent bystanders. Some lout has started a cross-posted flame war, and we're taking fire for it, though I don't expect any of us had anything to do with it. We just got spammed, and everybody who replied to the spam was courteous enough to include us in their wonderful, insightful thought-process. Please don't hastily blame us. We're a cool bunch. Especially me. :-) Stick around, I'm sure we'll come up with something to say about corewar. Corewar? What? Oh, THAT corewar. (In the newsgroup name, even.) Well, Un___Ortant 1.1 is in 8th place on the beginner hill, and I'm not doing too bad, eh? My next project is Yet Another remake of Limb-Rending Incisors. I'm sure you'll all hear when it comes out... -- [http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=5913] [foehg@burtonian.com] [http://www.koth.org/] [http://www.nethack.org/] [http://www.slashdot.org/] I reserve the right to be normal, at any time and without notice. From: pak21@cam.ac.uk (Philip Kendall) Subject: Re: Ahh stop the insanity Date: 4 May 2001 09:41:31 +0100 Message-ID: <9ctpvr$8ui$1@kern.srcf.societies.cam.ac.uk> In article <20010503143041.2775.qmail@web10401.mail.yahoo.com>, Daniel Malboeuf wrote: [snip rant] To be honest, this is precisely what killfiles are for -- I haven't seen any of this stuff at all. This may be trickier if you're reading r.g.cw via the mailing list mirror, and probably even trickier still if you're using Yahoo! for your mail service, but... Phil -- Philip Kendall http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~pak21/ From: "Paul Khuong" Subject: RE: Ahh stop the insanity Date: 4 May 2001 09:42:09 -0400 Message-ID: yahoo has email blocking. and corewar-l is kind enough to put the sender'S real email address and name in the from field 8) > -----Original Message----- > From: corewar-l@koth.org [mailto:corewar-l@koth.org]On Behalf Of Philip > Kendall > Sent: 4 mai, 2001 05:30 > To: Multiple recipients of list COREWAR-L > Subject: Re: Ahh stop the insanity > > > In article <20010503143041.2775.qmail@web10401.mail.yahoo.com>, > Daniel Malboeuf wrote: > > [snip rant] > > To be honest, this is precisely what killfiles are for -- I haven't seen > any of this stuff at all. This may be trickier if you're reading r.g.cw > via the mailing list mirror, and probably even trickier still if you're > using Yahoo! for your mail service, but... > > Phil > > -- > Philip Kendall > http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~pak21/ _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com From: Kiril Threndor Subject: Re: How to be a jerk off in one minute...! Date: Fri, 4 May 2001 14:00:45 +0100 Message-ID: In article <020520011123110230%dovey_atlantic@yahoo.com>, Little WhiteDove writes >Yeah Kiiriil. I might try some of it in a salad for lunch (in hopes >that Italian dressing will cover up some of the stench). > >-Little WhiteDove >Badb Catha, Lia Fail Empire >Atlantic How many souls do I have? Madcat was trying to convince me that I have one on each shard. You conned the Atlantic one out of me and now her and Myrex have been bidding against each other for my Europa one, I shudder to think what they want to do with it. -- ________________________________________________ Kiril Threndor OGD http://ogd.syix.com/ Message-ID: From: anton@paradise.net.nz (Anton Marsden) Subject: Core War Frequently Asked Questions (rec.games.corewar FAQ) Date: 05 May 2001 10:27:18 GMT 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 - MultiWarrior 94 05/07/01 Date: 9 May 2001 16:57:34 -0400 Message-ID: <200105070400.AAA14883@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 05/07/01 -=- 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 : Sun May 6 18:06:01 EDT 2001 # Name Author Score Age 1 QuiVa John Metcalf 35 151 2 fclear Brian Haskin 33 42 3 D-clearM Ken Espiritu 27 58 4 Her Majesty P.Kline 24 77 5 Foo John Metcalf 19 12 6 sp 1.0 Stefan Foerster 19 2 7 Pitbull Christian Schmidt 17 14 8 Friction Ken Espiritu 17 30 9 Scan Test Tester 12 17 10 sp 3.0 Stefan Foerster 8 1 11 Kurara Lukasz Adamowski 8 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - 94 No Pspace 05/07/01 Date: 9 May 2001 16:58:59 -0400 Message-ID: <200105070400.AAA14896@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 05/07/01 -=- 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 May 6 18:14:18 EDT 2001 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 34/ 18/ 47 Son of Vain Oversby/Pihlaja 150 84 2 34/ 24/ 42 Quicksilver Michal Janeczek 144 257 3 42/ 39/ 19 Behemot Michal Janeczek 144 318 4 33/ 23/ 44 Olivia Ben Ford 143 223 5 41/ 42/ 18 Eraser II Ken Espiritu 139 452 6 31/ 25/ 45 Uninvited John Metcalf 137 177 7 29/ 21/ 50 nPaper II Paul-V Khuong 137 495 8 35/ 34/ 30 Keyser Soze Anton Marsden 137 196 9 40/ 43/ 17 G2-b David Moore 137 281 10 34/ 32/ 34 Blacken Ian Oversby 136 742 11 22/ 10/ 67 The Phantom Menace Anton Marsden 134 195 12 39/ 44/ 17 Jinx Christian Schmidt 134 458 13 29/ 27/ 44 Vain Ian Oversby 132 6 14 29/ 25/ 46 Jade Ben Ford 132 564 15 38/ 46/ 16 Phantasm 50 Robert Macrae 130 3 16 28/ 27/ 45 Qtest Christian Schmidt 129 17 17 27/ 26/ 47 Brigadeer M Joonas Pihlaja 129 88 18 27/ 27/ 46 Pulp Ian Oversby 128 9 19 38/ 47/ 15 ctest P.Kline 128 11 20 39/ 51/ 11 atest c P.Kline 127 1 21 16/ 53/ 31 Kurara Lukasz Adamowski 78 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - ICWS Experimental 94 05/07/01 Date: 9 May 2001 17:00:23 -0400 Message-ID: <200105070400.AAA14889@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 05/07/01 -=- 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 May 6 10:11:28 EDT 2001 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 42/ 32/ 25 Black Moods Ian Oversby 152 80 2 44/ 39/ 17 Greetings From Asbury Par JKW 148 44 3 34/ 22/ 44 KAT v5 Dave Hillis 146 16 4 38/ 33/ 28 Ogre Christian Schmidt 143 32 5 27/ 15/ 57 Katafutr Michal Janeczek 139 24 6 33/ 30/ 37 Big I.F.F.S. Dave Hillis 137 13 7 31/ 25/ 44 Damage Inflicted Robert Macrae 137 23 8 32/ 30/ 38 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 133 84 9 35/ 42/ 23 Pagan John K W 129 138 10 15/ 7/ 78 Denial David Moore 124 25 11 29/ 34/ 37 test CS 124 41 12 14/ 5/ 81 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 123 101 13 15/ 7/ 78 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 123 153 14 21/ 20/ 59 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 122 106 15 12/ 5/ 83 Black Box v1.1 JKW 119 47 16 16/ 18/ 66 Purple v0.1 Christian Schmidt 113 105 17 22/ 32/ 45 Disaster Area 2.10 Stefan Foerster 112 10 18 20/ 28/ 52 Disaster Area 2.8 Stefan Foerster 111 11 19 19/ 35/ 47 qsmclear 1.1 Stefan Foerster 103 3 20 20/ 37/ 43 Disaster Area 2.18 Stefan Foerster 103 1 21 19/ 37/ 44 qsimclear 1.1 Stefan Foerster 101 2 From: Dave Badger Subject: Birthday? Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 08:24:47 -0400 Message-ID: <3B0518F5@MailAndNews.com> Is it corewar's 18th birthday this month? If so, happy birthday to corewar :-) Does anyone know what the exact date is? I might just celebrate with a little drink down the local. Regards, Dave Badger. ------------------------------------------------------------ Get your FREE web-based e-mail and newsgroup access at: http://MailAndNews.com Create a new mailbox, or access your existing IMAP4 or POP3 mailbox from anywhere with just a web browser. ------------------------------------------------------------ From: William R. Buckley Subject: Re: Birthday? Message-ID: Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 16:39:59 -0700 I am disappointed by the lack of knowledge regarding the history of CoreWar that is implied by Dave Badger's posting. CoreWar was first reported in the May, 1984 issue of Scientific American, though Dr. A. K. Dewdney (professor emeritus of the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada) and a student of his developed the game some time earlier. This is one of the consequences which I expected to occur upon the demise of the ICWS. In addition, there were three other articles which mention CoreWar in Scientific American: March, 1985 (wherein you will find the first program which Scientific American ever published in its entirety - which I and a professor of mine from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California, USA), January, 1987, and I leave the other for you to discover. William R. Buckley Director Emeritus, International Core Wars Society On Thu, 10 May 2001 08:24:47 -0400, Dave Badger wrote: >Is it corewar's 18th birthday this month? >If so, happy birthday to corewar :-) > >Does anyone know what the exact date is? >I might just celebrate with a little drink down the local. > >Regards, >Dave Badger. > >------------------------------------------------------------ > Get your FREE web-based e-mail and newsgroup access at: > http://MailAndNews.com > > Create a new mailbox, or access your existing IMAP4 or > POP3 mailbox from anywhere with just a web browser. >------------------------------------------------------------ From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - ICWS Experimental 94 05/14/01 Date: 14 May 2001 08:14:37 -0400 Message-ID: <200105140400.AAA04056@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 05/14/01 -=- 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 May 6 10:11:28 EDT 2001 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 42/ 32/ 25 Black Moods Ian Oversby 152 80 2 44/ 39/ 17 Greetings From Asbury Par JKW 148 44 3 34/ 22/ 44 KAT v5 Dave Hillis 146 16 4 38/ 33/ 28 Ogre Christian Schmidt 143 32 5 27/ 15/ 57 Katafutr Michal Janeczek 139 24 6 33/ 30/ 37 Big I.F.F.S. Dave Hillis 137 13 7 31/ 25/ 44 Damage Inflicted Robert Macrae 137 23 8 32/ 30/ 38 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 133 84 9 35/ 42/ 23 Pagan John K W 129 138 10 15/ 7/ 78 Denial David Moore 124 25 11 29/ 34/ 37 test CS 124 41 12 14/ 5/ 81 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 123 101 13 15/ 7/ 78 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 123 153 14 21/ 20/ 59 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 122 106 15 12/ 5/ 83 Black Box v1.1 JKW 119 47 16 16/ 18/ 66 Purple v0.1 Christian Schmidt 113 105 17 22/ 32/ 45 Disaster Area 2.10 Stefan Foerster 112 10 18 20/ 28/ 52 Disaster Area 2.8 Stefan Foerster 111 11 19 19/ 35/ 47 qsmclear 1.1 Stefan Foerster 103 3 20 20/ 37/ 43 Disaster Area 2.18 Stefan Foerster 103 1 21 19/ 37/ 44 qsimclear 1.1 Stefan Foerster 101 2 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - 94 No Pspace 05/14/01 Date: 14 May 2001 08:14:32 -0400 Message-ID: <200105140400.AAA04060@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 05/14/01 -=- 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 May 13 19:57:36 EDT 2001 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 35/ 17/ 48 Son of Vain Oversby/Pihlaja 152 92 2 43/ 38/ 18 Behemot Michal Janeczek 149 326 3 35/ 23/ 42 Quicksilver Michal Janeczek 147 265 4 33/ 18/ 49 nPaper II Paul-V Khuong 147 503 5 34/ 23/ 43 Olivia Ben Ford 146 231 6 33/ 27/ 40 ytest d P.Kline 140 3 7 35/ 31/ 34 Blacken Ian Oversby 139 750 8 32/ 25/ 43 Uninvited John Metcalf 139 185 9 40/ 43/ 16 G2-b David Moore 138 289 10 40/ 43/ 17 Eraser II Ken Espiritu 137 460 11 31/ 26/ 43 Vain Ian Oversby 137 14 12 23/ 10/ 67 The Phantom Menace Anton Marsden 137 203 13 36/ 35/ 29 Keyser Soze Anton Marsden 136 204 14 30/ 25/ 45 Jade Ben Ford 136 572 15 30/ 25/ 45 Qtest Christian Schmidt 136 25 16 39/ 45/ 17 Jinx Christian Schmidt 132 466 17 39/ 46/ 15 Phantasm 50 Robert Macrae 131 11 18 27/ 24/ 49 Brigadeer M Joonas Pihlaja 131 96 19 38/ 47/ 14 ctest P.Kline 129 19 20 20/ 63/ 17 haki Fredrik Ohrstrom 77 1 21 2/ 2/ 0 haki Fredrik Ohrstrom 8 2 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - MultiWarrior 94 05/14/01 Date: 14 May 2001 08:14:41 -0400 Message-ID: <200105140400.AAA04052@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 05/14/01 -=- irc.KOTH.org is up! Meetings held in #corewars -=- Tons of new features on www.KOTH.org/koth.html pages -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG Multiwarrior 94 CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Mon May 7 11:56:45 EDT 2001 # Name Author Score Age 1 QuiVa John Metcalf 42 151 2 D-clearM Ken Espiritu 38 58 3 fclear Brian Haskin 37 42 4 Foo John Metcalf 27 12 5 Friction Ken Espiritu 23 30 6 Pitbull Christian Schmidt 20 14 7 sp 1.0 Stefan Foerster 15 2 8 Scan Test Tester 14 17 9 Her Majesty P.Kline 13 77 10 sp 3.0 Stefan Foerster 12 1 11 Leach Omega 2 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - Standard 05/14/01 Date: 14 May 2001 08:14:45 -0400 Message-ID: <200105140400.AAA04048@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 05/14/01 -=- 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 : Sun May 13 17:34:36 EDT 2001 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 33/ 21/ 45 Freight Train David Moore 146 75 2 32/ 21/ 47 Test Alexander (Sasha) Wa 142 14 3 32/ 23/ 45 sIMPly.Red v0.95 Leonardo Humberto 140 32 4 31/ 22/ 47 Guardian Ian Oversby 140 74 5 36/ 36/ 28 PacMan David Moore 135 104 6 37/ 39/ 24 Stasis David Moore 135 182 7 39/ 45/ 15 Foggy Swamp Beppe Bezzi 133 71 8 24/ 17/ 59 EV Paper John K Wilkinson 132 88 9 38/ 46/ 16 Blur '88 Anton Marsden 131 112 10 35/ 38/ 27 Tangle Trap David Moore 131 148 11 27/ 23/ 50 Shish-Ka-Bob Ben Ford 130 30 12 25/ 20/ 55 Test I Ian Oversby 130 131 13 35/ 42/ 23 Beholder's Eye V1.7 W. Mintardjo 128 350 14 38/ 47/ 15 ssss ssss 128 1 15 25/ 22/ 53 Evoltmp 88 John K W 127 125 16 15/ 3/ 82 ]enigma[ Michal Janeczek 126 3 17 33/ 39/ 28 Stillborn Bomber v0.2 mjp 126 15 18 36/ 48/ 16 Iron Gate Wayne Sheppard 125 400 19 29/ 33/ 37 Frog Sticker P.Kline 125 24 20 37/ 49/ 15 ig Wayne Sheppard 125 2 21 24/ 24/ 53 sic Leonardo H. Liporati 123 4 From: "Sakari Vaelma" Subject: pMARS? err... where i write warrior? Message-ID: Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 09:40:51 GMT Yeah, when i run pMARS it say "no warrior file specied". So, where i write warriors? what extension? And where i need pMARS if i need to send warrior to Koth? I'm very interested about learning this game, but i haven't found good, basic tutorials. Someone plz help me!! Thank you already, -Sakke From: Ilmari Karonen Subject: Re: pMARS? err... where i write warrior? Date: 20 May 2001 15:27:47 GMT Message-ID: <990371347.7096@itz.pp.sci.fi> In article , Sakari Vaelma wrote: >Yeah, when i run pMARS it say "no warrior file specied". If you just type "pmars" on the command line and hit enter, it should print a description of what options it expects. Something like: pMARS v0.9.2, 25/12/00, corewar simulator with ICWS'94 extensions Copyright (C) 1993-95 Albert Ma, Na'ndor Sieben, Stefan Strack and Mintardjo Wangsaw Usage: pmars [options] file1 [files ..] The special file - stands for standard input Options: -r # Rounds to play [1] -e Enter debugger -s # Size of core [8000] -b Brief mode (no source listings) -c # Cycles until tie [80000] -V Verbose assembly -p # Max. processes [8000] -k Output in KotH format -l # Max. warrior length [100] -8 Enforce ICWS'88 rules -d # Min. warriors distance -f Fixed position series -F # Fixed position of warrior #2 -o Sort result output by score -S # Size of P-space [1/16th core] -P Permutate starting positions -= $ Score formula $ [(W*W-1)/S] -@ $ Read options from file $ Note the lines that say "Usage: pmars [options] file1 [files ..]". That means that after typing "pmars", you need to give zero or more options and then at least one file name, like this: pmars -b -r 100 rave.red aeka.red >So, where i write warriors? what extension? Anywhere you like, any extension you like. The example warriors that come with pMARS are in a directory named "warriors" and have ".red" as their extension. Many people seem to prefer ".txt" instead. >And where i need pMARS if i need to send warrior to Koth? You use pMARS on your own computer to test the warrior. Once you think it's good enough, you send it to the hill. >I'm very interested about learning this game, but i haven't found good, >basic tutorials. Someone plz help me!! I'd like to suggest my own tutorial (see link below) but it doesn't really answer any of the questions you asked. Maybe a new tutorial might be a good idea. I wonder if I'll find time to write one.. -- Ilmari Karonen - http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/ Join the Core War Imp Ring: http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/cgi-bin/impring From: Lukasz Adamowski Subject: Re: pMARS? err... where i write warrior? Date: 20 May 2001 17:34:35 -0400 Message-ID: On Sun, 20 May 2001, Sakari Vaelma wrote: > Yeah, when i run pMARS it say "no warrior file specied". So, where i write > warriors? what extension? And where i need pMARS if i need to send warrior > to Koth? I'm very interested about learning this game, but i haven't found > good, basic tutorials. Someone plz help me!! > > Thank you already, > > -Sakke Hi! The answers to your questions are: Warriors are written in any ASCII editor (notepad, vi, pico etc.) and files doesn't have to have any extentions, but we (well... actually I) use usually ".red". You don't need to run pMARS at all to send your warrior to the KOTH, but I suggest checking if your warrior works properly. So pMARS can be useful. Many links to manuals, tutorials and archives you can find on KOTH (www.koth.org). And if you want to learn something about pMARS, read its documentation ("pmars.doc"). There are some Redcode references in "redcode.ref" also very useful, but it's not a tutorial. Greetings! Lukasz From: "Sakari Vaelma" Subject: Re: pMARS? err... where i write warrior? Message-ID: Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 11:58:16 GMT Thanks! I have programmed before, so i know some stuff (asm too... well for my TI-83+, but that red looks pretty similar). I have good idea about warrior now, so be careful!!! :) -Sakke From: "Paul Khuong" Subject: RE: pMARS? err... where i write warrior? Date: 21 May 2001 12:18:54 -0400 Message-ID: well, corewar sure ain't on a Z80, but it's a bit alike. You'll want to check oitu the instruction modifiers, though. > -----Original Message----- > From: corewar-l@koth.org [mailto:corewar-l@koth.org]On Behalf Of Sakari > Vaelma > Sent: 21 mai, 2001 08:30 > To: Multiple recipients of list COREWAR-L > Subject: Re: pMARS? err... where i write warrior? > > > > Thanks! I have programmed before, so i know some stuff (asm > too... well for > my TI-83+, but that red looks pretty similar). I have good idea about > warrior now, so be careful!!! :) > > -Sakke > _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - 94 No Pspace 05/21/01 Date: 21 May 2001 12:18:58 -0400 Message-ID: <200105210400.AAA11357@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 05/21/01 -=- 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 May 20 23:31:37 EDT 2001 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 32/ 18/ 50 Son of Vain Oversby/Pihlaja 145 107 2 41/ 39/ 20 Behemot Michal Janeczek 144 341 3 41/ 40/ 19 Eraser II Ken Espiritu 141 475 4 31/ 23/ 45 Quicksilver Michal Janeczek 139 280 5 41/ 43/ 17 G2-b David Moore 139 304 6 36/ 33/ 31 Keyser Soze Anton Marsden 138 219 7 31/ 25/ 43 ytest m P.Kline 138 1 8 40/ 42/ 18 Jinx Christian Schmidt 138 481 9 28/ 20/ 53 nPaper II Paul-V Khuong 136 518 10 32/ 32/ 36 Blacken Ian Oversby 133 765 11 29/ 25/ 45 Olivia Ben Ford 133 246 12 39/ 45/ 16 Phantasm 50 Robert Macrae 133 26 13 39/ 46/ 16 ctest P.Kline 132 34 14 28/ 25/ 48 Uninvited John Metcalf 130 200 15 20/ 10/ 70 The Phantom Menace Anton Marsden 129 218 16 26/ 26/ 48 Qtest Christian Schmidt 127 40 17 26/ 26/ 48 Jade Ben Ford 126 587 18 26/ 28/ 46 Vain Ian Oversby 125 29 19 23/ 26/ 51 Brigadeer M Joonas Pihlaja 120 111 20 35/ 52/ 13 JGFTest00Q Gino Oblena 117 10 21 6/ 24/ 70 sptst Stefan Foerster 87 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - Standard 05/21/01 Date: 21 May 2001 12:19:11 -0400 Message-ID: <200105210400.AAA11345@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 05/21/01 -=- 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 : Sun May 20 14:57:49 EDT 2001 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 38/ 21/ 42 Freight Train David Moore 154 75 2 36/ 21/ 43 Test Alexander (Sasha) Wa 151 14 3 36/ 23/ 41 sIMPly.Red v0.95 Leonardo Humberto 149 32 4 35/ 22/ 43 Guardian Ian Oversby 148 74 5 39/ 35/ 26 PacMan David Moore 143 104 6 40/ 38/ 22 Stasis David Moore 142 182 7 29/ 17/ 55 EV Paper John K Wilkinson 141 88 8 42/ 43/ 15 Foggy Swamp Beppe Bezzi 141 71 9 38/ 36/ 26 Tangle Trap David Moore 139 148 10 29/ 20/ 51 Test I Ian Oversby 139 131 11 39/ 40/ 21 Beholder's Eye V1.7 W. Mintardjo 139 350 12 31/ 23/ 46 Shish-Ka-Bob Ben Ford 139 30 13 41/ 44/ 15 Blur '88 Anton Marsden 138 112 14 19/ 3/ 77 ]enigma[ Michal Janeczek 136 3 15 40/ 45/ 15 Iron Gate Wayne Sheppard 135 400 16 29/ 22/ 49 Evoltmp 88 John K W 135 125 17 36/ 37/ 27 Stillborn Bomber v0.2 mjp 135 15 18 40/ 46/ 14 ig Wayne Sheppard 134 2 19 39/ 46/ 15 ssss ssss 132 1 20 32/ 33/ 35 Frog Sticker P.Kline 132 24 21 2/ 98/ 0 The Great Escape Sebman 7 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - MultiWarrior 94 05/21/01 Date: 21 May 2001 12:19:06 -0400 Message-ID: <200105210400.AAA11349@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 05/21/01 -=- 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 : Sun May 20 23:33:16 EDT 2001 # Name Author Score Age 1 QuiVa John Metcalf 33 158 2 fclear Brian Haskin 31 49 3 Xord Monominer XOSC:01 Gino Oblena 31 4 4 Her Majesty P.Kline 29 84 5 Scan Test Tester 28 24 6 Friction Ken Espiritu 25 37 7 Pitbull Christian Schmidt 22 21 8 D-clearM Ken Espiritu 17 65 9 Foo John Metcalf 16 19 10 sptst Stefan Foerster 9 1 11 pTestvi C Gino Oblena 8 2 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - ICWS Experimental 94 05/21/01 Date: 21 May 2001 12:19:02 -0400 Message-ID: <200105210400.AAA11353@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 05/21/01 -=- 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 May 20 23:54:11 EDT 2001 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 42/ 32/ 26 Black Moods Ian Oversby 151 80 2 36/ 20/ 44 KAT v5 Dave Hillis 151 16 3 44/ 39/ 18 Greetings From Asbury Par JKW 149 44 4 39/ 33/ 28 Ogre Christian Schmidt 145 32 5 29/ 15/ 56 Katafutr Michal Janeczek 142 24 6 35/ 29/ 37 Big I.F.F.S. Dave Hillis 141 13 7 31/ 25/ 44 Damage Inflicted Robert Macrae 138 23 8 32/ 30/ 38 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 134 84 9 36/ 41/ 23 Pagan John K W 131 138 10 23/ 19/ 58 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 128 106 11 30/ 33/ 37 test CS 127 41 12 15/ 6/ 78 Denial David Moore 124 25 13 15/ 7/ 78 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 123 153 14 13/ 5/ 82 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 122 101 15 12/ 5/ 83 Black Box v1.1 JKW 119 47 16 15/ 18/ 66 Purple v0.1 Christian Schmidt 112 105 17 21/ 30/ 49 Disaster Area 2.10 Stefan Foerster 112 10 18 19/ 26/ 55 Disaster Area 2.8 Stefan Foerster 111 11 19 23/ 35/ 42 Disaster Area 2.18 Stefan Foerster 110 1 20 17/ 33/ 50 qsmclear 1.1 Stefan Foerster 102 3 21 7/ 43/ 50 sptst Stefan Foerster 71 0 From: ransom@localhost.localdomain (Ransom Smith) Subject: Re: Unsubscribing Message-ID: Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 12:42:47 GMT On Sun, 29 Apr 2001 10:39:57 -0400, Nathan F Russell wrote: >Stephen Anthony Uy wrote: > >>How do I unsubscribe? I've tried to unsubscribe repeatedly, but apparently >>the listserv doesn't want to let me go. >> >>-Steve > >Whether you are "subscribed" to a newsgroup is a setting on your >client only. > >You should consult its documentation. > >Nathan Yeah, but some people don't come here through, a newsfeed. He's probably on the listserv (note the use of the term 'listserv' in his comment...) This really does need to be unsubscribed from. Unfortunately, the method escapes me. Maybe it was sending an unsubscribe and your email address to pizza, either somewhere in the subject line, or with a semicolon command or something. Not like all that was any help. -- [http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=5913] [foehg@burtonian.com] [http://www.koth.org/] [http://www.nethack.org/] [http://www.slashdot.org/] I reserve the right to be normal, at any time and without notice. From: Ilmari Karonen Subject: Re: Unsubscribing Date: 21 May 2001 18:31:00 GMT Message-ID: <990469740.11002@itz.pp.sci.fi> In article , Ransom Smith wrote: > >Yeah, but some people don't come here through, a newsfeed. He's probably >on the listserv (note the use of the term 'listserv' in his comment...) > >This really does need to be unsubscribed from. > >Unfortunately, the method escapes me. Send mail to listproc@koth.org. Put "unsubscribe corewar-l" in the message body. More info at http://www.koth.org/newsgroup.htm -- Ilmari Karonen - http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/ Join the Core War Imp Ring: http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/cgi-bin/impring From: "Robert Macrae" Subject: Re: pMARS? err... where i write warrior? Date: 24 May 2001 12:46:04 -0400 Message-ID: <001601c0e35e$570ee9c0$2100a8c0@HomePC> > Thanks! I have programmed before, so i know some stuff (asm too... well for > my TI-83+, but that red looks pretty similar). I have good idea about > warrior now, so be careful!!! :) Write it, test it, wonder why it doesn't work, submit it, wonder why it doesn't win, achieve enlightenment, repeat... At some stage you will get stuck, and then you should consider publishing your warrior to the newsgroup. Comments can be a big help, if only in revealing their authors' blind spots! Robert Macrae Message-ID: From: anton@paradise.net.nz (Anton Marsden) Subject: Core War Frequently Asked Questions (rec.games.corewar FAQ) Date: 25 May 2001 15:49:23 GMT 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 - ICWS Experimental 94 05/28/01 Date: 28 May 2001 02:29:59 -0400 Message-ID: <200105280400.AAA16493@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 05/28/01 -=- irc.KOTH.org is up! Meetings held in #corewars -=- Tons of new features on www.KOTH.org/koth.html pages -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG ICWS Experimental 94 CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Sat May 26 14:31:20 EDT 2001 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 43/ 32/ 25 Black Moods Ian Oversby 155 81 2 35/ 20/ 46 KAT v5 Dave Hillis 149 17 3 44/ 39/ 17 Greetings From Asbury Par JKW 149 45 4 38/ 33/ 29 Ogre Christian Schmidt 143 33 5 28/ 15/ 57 Katafutr Michal Janeczek 142 25 6 32/ 30/ 37 Big I.F.F.S. Dave Hillis 135 14 7 31/ 30/ 39 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 133 85 8 29/ 24/ 47 Damage Inflicted Robert Macrae 133 24 9 34/ 42/ 24 Pagan John K W 127 139 10 15/ 6/ 78 Denial David Moore 124 26 11 29/ 34/ 38 test CS 124 42 12 14/ 5/ 82 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 122 102 13 20/ 18/ 61 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 122 107 14 14/ 7/ 79 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 122 154 15 12/ 5/ 83 Black Box v1.1 JKW 120 48 16 19/ 25/ 56 Disaster Area 2.8 Stefan Foerster 112 12 17 21/ 30/ 49 Disaster Area 2.10 Stefan Foerster 112 11 18 15/ 18/ 66 Purple v0.1 Christian Schmidt 112 106 19 17/ 32/ 51 qsmclear 1.1 Stefan Foerster 103 4 20 14/ 28/ 58 sptst Stefan Foerster 100 1 21 9/ 31/ 60 pmix (q^b) Stefan Foerster 87 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - Standard 05/28/01 Date: 28 May 2001 02:30:07 -0400 Message-ID: <200105280400.AAA16485@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 05/28/01 -=- 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 : Sun May 20 14:57:49 EDT 2001 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 38/ 21/ 42 Freight Train David Moore 154 75 2 36/ 21/ 43 Test Alexander (Sasha) Wa 151 14 3 36/ 23/ 41 sIMPly.Red v0.95 Leonardo Humberto 149 32 4 35/ 22/ 43 Guardian Ian Oversby 148 74 5 39/ 35/ 26 PacMan David Moore 143 104 6 40/ 38/ 22 Stasis David Moore 142 182 7 29/ 17/ 55 EV Paper John K Wilkinson 141 88 8 42/ 43/ 15 Foggy Swamp Beppe Bezzi 141 71 9 38/ 36/ 26 Tangle Trap David Moore 139 148 10 29/ 20/ 51 Test I Ian Oversby 139 131 11 39/ 40/ 21 Beholder's Eye V1.7 W. Mintardjo 139 350 12 31/ 23/ 46 Shish-Ka-Bob Ben Ford 139 30 13 41/ 44/ 15 Blur '88 Anton Marsden 138 112 14 19/ 3/ 77 ]enigma[ Michal Janeczek 136 3 15 40/ 45/ 15 Iron Gate Wayne Sheppard 135 400 16 29/ 22/ 49 Evoltmp 88 John K W 135 125 17 36/ 37/ 27 Stillborn Bomber v0.2 mjp 135 15 18 40/ 46/ 14 ig Wayne Sheppard 134 2 19 39/ 46/ 15 ssss ssss 132 1 20 32/ 33/ 35 Frog Sticker P.Kline 132 24 21 2/ 98/ 0 The Great Escape Sebman 7 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - 94 No Pspace 05/28/01 Date: 28 May 2001 02:30:03 -0400 Message-ID: <200105280400.AAA16497@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 05/28/01 -=- irc.KOTH.org is up! Meetings held in #corewars -=- Tons of new features on www.KOTH.org/koth.html pages -=- *FAQ* page located at: www.KOTH.org/corewar-faq.html Current Status of the KOTH.ORG 94 No Pspace CoreWar Hill: Last battle concluded at : Sat May 26 14:05:38 EDT 2001 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 32/ 19/ 49 Son of Vain Oversby/Pihlaja 145 122 2 41/ 40/ 19 Behemot Michal Janeczek 143 356 3 29/ 18/ 53 nPaper II Paul-V Khuong 140 533 4 31/ 24/ 45 Quicksilver Michal Janeczek 138 295 5 30/ 23/ 47 Inky Ian Oversby 138 12 6 33/ 30/ 36 Blacken Ian Oversby 137 780 7 35/ 34/ 31 Keyser Soze Anton Marsden 136 234 8 29/ 23/ 48 Olivia Ben Ford 135 261 9 39/ 43/ 18 G2-b David Moore 135 319 10 39/ 43/ 18 Jinx Christian Schmidt 134 496 11 30/ 26/ 45 Revival Fire P.Kline 133 1 12 38/ 43/ 19 Eraser II Ken Espiritu 133 490 13 20/ 10/ 69 The Phantom Menace Anton Marsden 130 233 14 38/ 45/ 17 Phantasm 50 Robert Macrae 130 41 15 28/ 25/ 47 Uninvited John Metcalf 130 215 16 28/ 26/ 46 Vain Ian Oversby 129 44 17 27/ 25/ 48 Qtest Christian Schmidt 128 55 18 27/ 27/ 47 test RF B1 Gino Oblena 127 3 19 25/ 25/ 50 Brigadeer M Joonas Pihlaja 126 126 20 37/ 48/ 16 ctest P.Kline 126 49 21 7/ 41/ 51 pmix (q^b) Stefan Foerster 73 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - MultiWarrior 94 05/28/01 Date: 28 May 2001 02:30:11 -0400 Message-ID: <200105280400.AAA16489@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 05/28/01 -=- 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 : Sun May 27 08:01:57 EDT 2001 # Name Author Score Age 1 fclear Brian Haskin 33 53 2 QuiVa John Metcalf 32 162 3 D-clearM Ken Espiritu 30 69 4 sptst Stefan Foerster 29 1 5 Pitbull Christian Schmidt 24 25 6 Friction Ken Espiritu 24 41 7 Her Majesty P.Kline 21 88 8 Xord Monominer XOSC:01 Gino Oblena 19 8 9 Foo John Metcalf 17 23 10 Scan Test Tester 9 28 11 Radium 3 Petru Paler Subject: irc.koth.org Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 14:48:20 +0200 Message-ID: <9f6fn3$iai$1@news.huji.ac.il> is this server really being used? i checked, and it was empty (no channels active) Amir Livne