Message-ID: <3F7CD666.5070508@optonline.net> From: Edward Subject: Re: Use these update from the MS Corporation Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 01:52:04 GMT Dude you have virus. Do a virus scan! J.R. Marchetti wrote: > /* Microsoft */ All Products > | Support > | Search > | Microsoft.com Guide > > * Microsoft Home * > > > > MS User > > this is the latest version of security update, the "October 2003, > Cumulative Patch" update which eliminates all known security > vulnerabilities affecting MS Internet Explorer, MS Outlook and MS > Outlook Express as well as three new vulnerabilities. Install now to > help protect your computer from these vulnerabilities, the most serious > of which could allow an attacker to run executable on your computer. > This update includes the functionality of all previously released patches. > > > > * System requirements* Windows 95/98/Me/2000/NT/XP > * This update applies to* MS Internet Explorer, version 4.01 and later > MS Outlook, version 8.00 and later > MS Outlook Express, version 4.01 and later > * Recommendation* Customers should install the patch at the earliest > opportunity. > * How to install* Run attached file. Choose Yes on displayed dialog box. > * How to use* You don't need to do anything after installing this item. > > > Microsoft Product Support Services and Knowledge Base articles can be > found on the Microsoft Technical Support > web site. For security-related information about Microsoft products, > please visit the Microsoft Security Advisor > web site, or Contact Us. > > > Thank you for using Microsoft products. > > Please do not reply to this message. It was sent from an unmonitored > e-mail address and we are unable to respond to any replies. > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > The names of the actual companies and products mentioned herein are the > trademarks of their respective owners. > > > * Contact Us | > Legal | TRUSTe > * > �2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use > | Privacy Statement > | Accessibility > > From: chipw@mdli.com (Chip Wendell) Subject: Call for CoreWin Bug Reports and Beta Testers Date: 3 Oct 2003 12:10:32 -0700 Message-ID: CoreWin 2.0 has been out for three months now, and hopefully has seen a fair bit of use. So far, though, I've only seen a single bug reported. Much as I might like to think that CoreWin is really that solidly coded, I suspect that there might be a few bugs that have been noticed but not reported. CoreWin 2.1 is almost done, and I would like to include all bug fixes that I can into it. So, anyone who has noticed any problems with CoreWin, large or small, please let me know so I can fix them for version 2.1. In that same spirit, would anyone like to volunteer to beta-test CoreWin 2.1? You can get a sneak peek at all of the new features, including much-improved display graphics. Send me an email if you're interested. - Chip From: jamesalexc@yahoo.com (James Cook) Subject: Bombing Imps Date: 5 Oct 2003 22:01:55 -0700 Message-ID: <13823894.0310052101.286f113a@posting.google.com> This is mostly an excuse to introduce myself to the newsgroup; sorry if this is a waste of time :-P I just started playing with corewars about two days ago, and I was wondering if imps like this have been explored, and if anything useful has come of them? ;redcode-94 spl b a jmp themov b jmp themov DAT #3, #4 DAT #3, #4 themov MOV {-2, <-2 end It just copies itself like any imp, but it is two instructions long and so requires two processes. The imp can be of arbitrary length, but the code within runs at half of normal speed: ;redcode-94 ;name Imp-Dwarf ;author James Cook ;strategy moving mod-8 dwarf ;assert (CORESIZE == 8000) spl b a spl ab aa spl aab aaa jmp bomb1 aab jmp bomb2 ab spl abb aba jmp addb abb jmp copy b spl bb ba spl bab baa jmp copy bab jmp copy bb spl bbb bba jmp copy bbb jmp copy dat #6, #7 dat #6, #7 copy mov.i {-2, <-2 bomb1 mov.i -3, -4 bomb2 mov.i -4, <-1 addb add.ab #5419, -2 end Just a thought. This game seems to be about a year older than I am though, so I doubt if I've come up with anything interesting. Message-ID: From: anton@paradise.net.nz (Anton Marsden) Subject: Core War Frequently Asked Questions (rec.games.corewar FAQ) Date: 06 Oct 2003 07:42:04 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 10/06/03 Date: 6 Oct 2003 09:47:56 -0400 Message-ID: <200310060403.h96430Z3000581@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 10/06/03 -=- 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 Oct 5 00:48:45 EDT 2003 # Name Author Score Age 1 Her Majesty P.Kline 31 361 2 hawk John Metcalf 18 85 3 Child of the Core John Metcalf 15 5 4 Double D David Houston 14 14 5 The Mummy 1.02 David Houston 12 6 6 D-clearM Ken Espiritu 9 342 7 Djinn-19 Steve Gunnell 7 1 8 Dettol Test 26 Steve Gunnell 7 122 9 not king of the hill FatalC 5 87 10 Bugtown test C 58 Steve Gunnell 5 21 11 Netpaper test 1.02 David Houston 3 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - ICWS Experimental 94 10/06/03 Date: 6 Oct 2003 09:47:52 -0400 Message-ID: <200310060406.h96460RD000626@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 10/06/03 -=- 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 Sep 28 11:43:34 EDT 2003 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 42/ 44/ 13 Fire and Ice II David Moore 140 104 2 37/ 38/ 25 The X Machine Zul Nadzri 137 15 3 37/ 41/ 22 Eliminator X Zul Nadzri 134 16 4 19/ 8/ 73 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 131 273 5 24/ 18/ 59 xd100 test David Houston 129 1 6 25/ 23/ 52 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 128 226 7 34/ 39/ 27 Ogre Christian Schmidt 128 152 8 27/ 27/ 46 KAT v5 Dave Hillis 128 136 9 31/ 35/ 34 Trefoil F 13 Steve Gunnell 127 87 10 26/ 25/ 49 Olivia X Ben Ford 127 85 11 23/ 20/ 57 Katafutr Michal Janeczek 127 144 12 18/ 10/ 72 Denial David Moore 126 145 13 34/ 43/ 24 Giant Hazy Test 13 Steve Gunnell 125 31 14 19/ 15/ 66 Kin John Metcalf 124 112 15 32/ 40/ 28 Black Moods Ian Oversby 123 200 16 17/ 11/ 72 Blotter X J. Pohjalainen 123 6 17 30/ 38/ 31 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 122 204 18 22/ 21/ 58 Glenstorm John Metcalf 122 66 19 15/ 8/ 77 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 121 221 20 33/ 47/ 21 Piltdown (2003.8) Philip Thorne 119 7 21 0/ 0/ 5 xd100 test 2 David Houston 5 2 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - 94 No Pspace 10/06/03 Date: 6 Oct 2003 09:47:48 -0400 Message-ID: <200310060409.h96491Ve000663@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 10/06/03 -=- 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 Oct 5 23:36:41 EDT 2003 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 37/ 28/ 36 King of Metal Christian Schmidt 146 25 2 39/ 34/ 27 Damage Inc. (Act II) Marsden/Schmidt 144 5 3 41/ 41/ 18 Hazy Test 63 Steve Gunnell 140 771 4 44/ 48/ 8 Tuesday's Torment John Metcalf 140 16 5 30/ 24/ 46 Son of Vain Oversby/Pihlaja 137 1996 6 32/ 27/ 41 Ironic Imps Roy van Rijn 137 1 7 31/ 26/ 43 Hammerhead Lukasz Grabun 137 82 8 42/ 48/ 10 Recon 2 David Moore 137 450 9 26/ 16/ 58 Dawn 2 Roy van Rijn 136 62 10 39/ 42/ 19 Myth Christian Schmidt 136 2 11 39/ 42/ 20 Origin of Storms John Metcalf 136 3 12 31/ 28/ 41 Reepicheep Grabun/Metcalf 135 1227 13 30/ 27/ 42 Soldier of Silkland Christian Schmidt 133 8 14 39/ 45/ 16 Toxic Spirit Philip Thorne 133 681 15 38/ 44/ 18 Preserver Lukasz Grabun 133 98 16 30/ 28/ 41 devilish 2.02 test David Houston 132 143 17 29/ 26/ 46 Squire of Silkland Christian Schmidt 131 49 18 37/ 44/ 19 Another '88 Oneshot John Metcalf 129 15 19 28/ 28/ 44 Cascade 2 Roy van Rijn 129 51 20 22/ 15/ 63 unheard-of Christian Schmidt 129 327 21 6/ 30/ 64 228051-9468-skynet-eve13 bvowk 83 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - Standard 10/06/03 Date: 6 Oct 2003 09:48:00 -0400 Message-ID: <200310060400.h96400r9000534@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 10/06/03 -=- 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 Aug 24 05:55:13 EDT 2003 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 38/ 22/ 39 Quicksilver '88 Michal Janeczek 154 8 2 36/ 22/ 42 Freight Train David Moore 149 173 3 35/ 22/ 43 Test Alexander (Sasha) Wa 148 112 4 44/ 40/ 16 Tangle Trap 3 David Moore 147 1 5 34/ 23/ 43 Guardian Ian Oversby 146 172 6 41/ 41/ 18 My 1st try Christian Schmidt 141 4 7 36/ 32/ 31 vala John Metcalf 141 95 8 31/ 24/ 45 Pixie 88 Lukasz Grabun 138 2 9 42/ 47/ 11 vm5 Michal Janeczek 138 7 10 42/ 47/ 12 Foggy Swamp Beppe Bezzi 136 169 11 28/ 20/ 52 Test I Ian Oversby 135 229 12 41/ 46/ 13 Blur '88 Anton Marsden 135 210 13 30/ 25/ 45 Shish-Ka-Bob Ben Ford 135 128 14 27/ 20/ 53 EV Paper John K Wilkinson 134 186 15 39/ 44/ 17 '88 test IV John Metcalf 134 66 16 42/ 50/ 8 Scan Test C 6 Steve Gunnell 133 11 17 31/ 29/ 39 sIMPly.Red v0.95 Leonardo Humberto 133 130 18 35/ 37/ 28 Gymnosperm trickery Dave Hillis 133 59 19 37/ 42/ 22 PacMan David Moore 132 202 20 37/ 45/ 18 Stasis David Moore 129 280 21 20/ 66/ 14 LeVamp Matthieu Walraet 75 0 From: "Roy van Rijn" Subject: SoV hit 2000 Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 17:41:14 +0200 Message-ID: <1065454857.614283@halkan.kabelfoon.nl> Congratulations to Oversby and Pihlaja with hitting the 2000 age barrier! Its incredible, and I don't think a lot of warrior will ever reach that age, Reepicheep is also still going strong, and with 1231 its also a veteran IMO. Also don't forget Hazy, which is also getting older and older, very good, especialy for a scanner. But also a sad thing happend in the same fight: 21 Toxic Spirit Philip Thorne 34 46 20 122.78 685 All ups have their downsides. But I am sooo jealous, great warrior! Ciao! From: dhillismail@netscape.net (Dave Hillis) Subject: Re: Bombing Imps Date: 6 Oct 2003 20:53:19 -0700 Message-ID: <5d6847b2.0310061953.4646bca9@posting.google.com> jamesalexc@yahoo.com (James Cook) wrote in message news:<13823894.0310052101.286f113a@posting.google.com>... > This is mostly an excuse to introduce myself to the newsgroup; sorry > if this is a waste of time :-P > > I just started playing with corewars about two days ago, and I was > wondering if imps like this have been explored, and if anything useful > has come of them? > > ;redcode-94 > spl b > a jmp themov > b jmp themov > DAT #3, #4 > DAT #3, #4 > themov > MOV {-2, <-2 > end > > It just copies itself like any imp, but it is two instructions long > and so requires two processes. The imp can be of arbitrary length, > but the code within runs at half of normal speed: Hi James, I can't talk to its originality but I like it. I was surprised to see that it kills things instead of just getting ties. Wonder how it would do on the beginner hill at http://corewars.sourceforge.net/ Dave Hillis From: fizmo_master@yahoo.com (Fizmo) Subject: Re: Call for CoreWin Bug Reports and Beta Testers Date: 7 Oct 2003 00:15:40 -0700 Message-ID: <9f53b5fb.0310062315.7b7f30ca@posting.google.com> Hi, I was extensively working with CoreWin 2.0 for Redcoders Frenzy Round 12 and I didn't observe any kind of bug. It was running stable as a rock ;-) The only cumbersomely part was to write down the results, because the content of the result window isn't accessible for copy'n'past actions and there isn't any export function storing the results in a text file. This would be helpfull if CoreWin 2.0 is used to benchmark warriors. And, yes!! I would like to beta-test CoreWin 2.1. Christian chipw@mdli.com (Chip Wendell) wrote in message news:... > CoreWin 2.0 has been out for three months now, and hopefully > has seen a fair bit of use. So far, though, I've only seen a > single bug reported. Much as I might like to think that > CoreWin is really that solidly coded, I suspect that there > might be a few bugs that have been noticed but not reported. > > CoreWin 2.1 is almost done, and I would like to include all > bug fixes that I can into it. So, anyone who has noticed > any problems with CoreWin, large or small, please let me know > so I can fix them for version 2.1. > > In that same spirit, would anyone like to volunteer to beta-test > CoreWin 2.1? You can get a sneak peek at all of the new features, > including much-improved display graphics. Send me an email if > you're interested. > > - Chip From: metcalf@uboot.com (John Metcalf) Subject: Re: SoV hit 2000 Date: 7 Oct 2003 08:23:29 -0700 Message-ID: "Roy van Rijn" wrote in message news:<1065454857.614283@halkan.kabelfoon.nl>... > Congratulations to Oversby and Pihlaja with hitting the 2000 age barrier! > Its incredible, and I don't think a lot of warrior will ever reach that age, Three warriors have reached the age of 2000, with one falling short by just 7 challenges. The three which passed 2000 did so on three different hills. Congratulations once again Ian / Joonas. Pos Name Author Age Hill 1 Thermite II Robert Macrae 2262 94 2 Sphinx v2.8 W. Mintardjo 2102 88 3 Son of Vain Oversby/Pihlaja 2006 94nop 4 Impfinity v4g1 Planar 1993 94 5 +0 Stormbringer Dan Nabutovsky 1778 88 From: fizmo_master@yahoo.com (Fizmo) Subject: Redcoders Frenzy 13: The Laughing-Loser Round ***Results*** Date: 8 Oct 2003 10:54:13 -0700 Message-ID: <9f53b5fb.0310080954.534c5015@posting.google.com> .................................................................... ********************* * Redcoder's Frenzy * ********************* The ongoing corewar tournament /^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^\ | The Laughing-Loser Round | \________________________________/ This is the 13th round of the ongoing corewar tournament. Detailed information about Redcoder's Frenzy, the ongoing corewar tournament are available on Fizmo's Corewar Info Page: http://www.corewar.info/tournament/cwt.htm *********** * Results * *********** Altogether, 8 authors enter a total of 12 warriors. (_v_) _|_ | | |-----+-----| ___________ .-=========-. | {{1}} | '._==_==_=_.' \'-=======-'/ | \=/ | .-\: /-. _| .=. |_ '---------' | (|:.{3} |) | ((| {{2}} |)) \ / '-|:. |-' \| /|\ |/ '. .' \::. / \__ '`' __/ | | '::. .' _`) (`_ .' '. ) ( _/_______\_ _|___|_ _.' '._ /___________\ [_______] [_______] 2nd place Winner 3rd place ******************* **************** ****************** * Chip Wendell * * Zul Nadzri * * David Houston * ******************* **************** ****************** Congratulation to Zul Nadzri who won this round with a huge 29 point gap followed by Chip Wendall and David Houston. ----------------------------------------------------------------- # Name Author Pts % ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Tumzi Zul Nadzri 43810 100.0 2 Opening Salvo Chip Wendell 31101 71.0 3 Underling David Houston 27622 63.0 4 Like glicerine for constipation G.Labarga 26529 60.6 5 Glicerine assistant G.Labarga 21191 48.4 6 Meanie David Houston 20618 47.1 7 Entrapment Lukasz Adamowski 17432 39.8 8 Fat Bastard Roy van Rijn 15710 35.9 9 Suicidal Fuse Christian Schmidt 13075 29.8 10 No offense and can't count Roy van Rijn 9350 21.3 11 finder Will 'Varfar' 4238 9.7 12 slave for Tumzi Zul Nadzri 124 0.3 ================================================================= More detailed informations and all entries are available at the Limited Distance Round webpage: http://www.corewar.info/tournament/13.htm Congratulations to everyone who has taken part this round. I hope to see more participants in future. Round 14 will be hosted by John Metcalf. Rules and deadline will be posted soon on r.g.c. *********** * Ranking * *********** Roy van Rijn defends his first place as well as Christian Schmidt his second place. Zul Nadzri holds now the third place after winning round 13. Welcome to Chip Wendall, the only newcomer this round entering the ranking as 20th. # Author Score R7 R8 R9 R10 R11 R12 ------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 (1) Roy van Rijn 383.9 88.4 71.0 95.5 100.0 100.0 35.9 2 (2) Christian Schmidt 348.4 100.0 * 98.4 62.5 87.5* 29.8 3 (8) Zul Nadzri 268.0 x 75.3 89.7 22.4 80.6 100.0 4 (5) Dave Hillis 295.0 71.4 57.8 100.0 x 65.8 x 5 (3) German Labarga 334.3 x 75.4 97.6 61.3 x 60.6 6 (7) Philip Thorne 283.6 80.6 69.2 72.4 x 61.4 x 7 (9) Jakub Kozisek 267.5 78.4 100.0 89.1 x x x 8 (4) John Metcalf 307.9 81.9 79.5 * x 78.1 x 9 (6) Simon Duff 292.4 75.9 86.8 63.6 x x x 10 (10) Lukasz Adamowski 229.4 37.4 85.5 63.5 32.5 x 39.8 11 (14) David Houston 158.6 x x 75.6 x 83.0 63.0 12 (11) Ben Ford 169.9 87.6 x 82.3 x x x 13 (12) David Moore 167.9 69.8 x 98.1 x x x 14 (16) Will Varfar 155.4 x 36.2 60.7 * 58.5 9.7 15 (17) Joshua Hudson 150.9 44.5 55.4 x 51.0 x x 16 (13) Michal Janeczek 165.7 95.3 x x x x * 17 (15) Sascha Zapf 157.8 * x 93.2 x x x 18 (18) Simon Wainwright 148.6 x x 89.1 x x x 19 (19) Joonas Pihlaja 85.6 x x 85.6 x x x 20 (-) Chip Wendell 50.0 x x x x x 71.0 21 (20) B. Cook 50.0 x 50.0 x x x x 22 (21) Darek Leniowski 35.9 35.9 x x x x x 23 (22) Arivaalli 24.0 24.0 x x x x x 24 (23) FatalC 13.5 x x x x 13.5 x ------------------------------------------------------------------- * organizer ................................................................... From: fizmo_master@yahoo.com (Fizmo) Subject: Fizmo's Corewar Info Page ***Update*** Date: 8 Oct 2003 11:00:47 -0700 Message-ID: <9f53b5fb.0310081000.5d8e379@posting.google.com> Hi all, I've uploaded a new article to the corewar lexicon. You can find it here: http://www.corewar.info/lexicon/p-switcher.htm The Lexicon here: http://www.corewar.info/lexicon/lexicon.htm Any comments are welcome. Happy programming, Fizmo From: =?ISO-8859-2?Q?=A3ukasz_Adamowski?= Subject: Redcoders' Frenzy Date: 8 Oct 2003 15:53:05 -0400 Message-ID: <3f84694ed495f@wp.pl> Hi there! Stupid to say, but I forgot to send my second entry for 13th round. I guess it was the better one. ;] Anyway thanks God I didn't lost much. I earned 39.8 points and don't think the second would scored much more. The second case is next round. I was proposed to organize it but right now I'm not on-line. I'm writting this letter thanks to my cousin kindness. So sorry, guys, maybe next time but not now. Greets Lukasz Adamowski ----------------------------------------------------------------- Pa�dziernikowa trasa KULT'u! Toru�, Gda�sk, Bydgoszcz, Szczecin, Krak�w, Katowice, Kielce, Pozna� ... i nie tylko. Przyjd� koniecznie! < http://muzyka.wp.pl/imprezy.html?idn=733 > From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - 94 No Pspace 10/13/03 Date: 13 Oct 2003 00:26:54 -0400 Message-ID: <200310130409.h9D490Up000835@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 10/13/03 -=- 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 Oct 12 17:28:00 EDT 2003 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 38/ 25/ 37 King of Metal Christian Schmidt 152 64 2 36/ 25/ 39 Ironic Imps Roy van Rijn 148 11 3 46/ 44/ 10 Recon 2 David Moore 147 489 4 43/ 39/ 17 Hazy Test 63 Steve Gunnell 147 810 5 40/ 34/ 26 Damage Inc. (Act II) Marsden/Schmidt 146 44 6 42/ 40/ 18 Copycat not me 144 12 7 32/ 20/ 48 Netpaper test 1.08 David Houston 144 9 8 29/ 16/ 55 Dawn 2 Roy van Rijn 143 101 9 33/ 25/ 42 Reepicheep Grabun/Metcalf 142 1266 10 33/ 25/ 42 Static Miz 141 1 11 32/ 25/ 42 Soldier of Silkland Christian Schmidt 139 47 12 40/ 42/ 18 Preserver Lukasz Grabun 138 137 13 31/ 24/ 44 devilish 2.04 test David Houston 138 31 14 31/ 24/ 46 Son of Vain Oversby/Pihlaja 138 2035 15 32/ 26/ 42 Hammerhead Lukasz Grabun 137 121 16 43/ 49/ 9 Tuesday's Torment John Metcalf 137 55 17 31/ 25/ 45 Squire of Silkland Christian Schmidt 137 88 18 39/ 41/ 19 Myth Christian Schmidt 137 41 19 28/ 24/ 48 The Next Step test 1.03 David Houston 132 21 20 11/ 21/ 68 1658195-445-xt642-1-eve13 bvowk 101 2 21 2/ 98/ 0 0 0 7 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - Standard 10/13/03 Date: 13 Oct 2003 00:27:11 -0400 Message-ID: <200310130400.h9D400aC000670@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 10/13/03 -=- 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 Aug 24 05:55:13 EDT 2003 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 38/ 22/ 39 Quicksilver '88 Michal Janeczek 154 8 2 36/ 22/ 42 Freight Train David Moore 149 173 3 35/ 22/ 43 Test Alexander (Sasha) Wa 148 112 4 44/ 40/ 16 Tangle Trap 3 David Moore 147 1 5 34/ 23/ 43 Guardian Ian Oversby 146 172 6 41/ 41/ 18 My 1st try Christian Schmidt 141 4 7 36/ 32/ 31 vala John Metcalf 141 95 8 31/ 24/ 45 Pixie 88 Lukasz Grabun 138 2 9 42/ 47/ 11 vm5 Michal Janeczek 138 7 10 42/ 47/ 12 Foggy Swamp Beppe Bezzi 136 169 11 28/ 20/ 52 Test I Ian Oversby 135 229 12 41/ 46/ 13 Blur '88 Anton Marsden 135 210 13 30/ 25/ 45 Shish-Ka-Bob Ben Ford 135 128 14 27/ 20/ 53 EV Paper John K Wilkinson 134 186 15 39/ 44/ 17 '88 test IV John Metcalf 134 66 16 42/ 50/ 8 Scan Test C 6 Steve Gunnell 133 11 17 31/ 29/ 39 sIMPly.Red v0.95 Leonardo Humberto 133 130 18 35/ 37/ 28 Gymnosperm trickery Dave Hillis 133 59 19 37/ 42/ 22 PacMan David Moore 132 202 20 37/ 45/ 18 Stasis David Moore 129 280 21 20/ 66/ 14 LeVamp Matthieu Walraet 75 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - ICWS Experimental 94 10/13/03 Date: 13 Oct 2003 00:27:03 -0400 Message-ID: <200310130406.h9D460gR000803@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 10/13/03 -=- 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 : Wed Oct 8 06:28:23 EDT 2003 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 43/ 43/ 14 Fire and Ice II David Moore 142 105 2 35/ 31/ 34 Simply Intelligent Zul Nadzri 140 1 3 38/ 37/ 25 The X Machine Zul Nadzri 139 16 4 38/ 40/ 22 Eliminator X Zul Nadzri 136 17 5 26/ 18/ 56 xd100 test David Houston 133 2 6 20/ 9/ 72 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 131 274 7 19/ 10/ 70 Denial David Moore 129 146 8 26/ 24/ 50 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 128 227 9 23/ 19/ 57 Katafutr Michal Janeczek 127 145 10 31/ 35/ 34 Trefoil F 13 Steve Gunnell 127 88 11 26/ 26/ 47 Olivia X Ben Ford 126 86 12 27/ 27/ 46 KAT v5 Dave Hillis 126 137 13 16/ 8/ 76 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 124 222 14 20/ 17/ 63 Kin John Metcalf 124 113 15 32/ 40/ 28 Ogre Christian Schmidt 124 153 16 23/ 23/ 54 Glenstorm John Metcalf 123 67 17 33/ 44/ 23 Giant Hazy Test 13 Steve Gunnell 123 32 18 32/ 41/ 27 Black Moods Ian Oversby 122 201 19 30/ 39/ 31 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 122 205 20 18/ 14/ 68 Blotter X J. Pohjalainen 122 7 21 32/ 46/ 21 Piltdown (2003.8) Philip Thorne 119 8 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - MultiWarrior 94 10/13/03 Date: 13 Oct 2003 00:27:07 -0400 Message-ID: <200310130403.h9D430Pd000727@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 10/13/03 -=- 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 : Fri Oct 10 11:11:32 EDT 2003 # Name Author Score Age 1 Her Majesty P.Kline 19 365 2 hawk John Metcalf 13 89 3 Double D David Houston 12 18 4 not king of the hill FatalC 9 91 5 Child of the Core John Metcalf 9 9 6 The Mummy 1.02 David Houston 6 10 7 D-clearM Ken Espiritu 5 346 8 Djinn-19 Steve Gunnell 4 5 9 After the Spirit Hour John Metcalf 4 1 10 Bugtown test C 58 Steve Gunnell 3 25 11 Netpaper test 1.08 David Houston 2 2 From: Sascha Zapf Subject: Imp... Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 15:53:35 +0200 Message-ID: Wow, Imp on the 94nop, Dewdney would be very proud if he will see it. Hmm, just for actualizing my testsuite, please tell me want kind of imp. A or B-imp? Sascha -- Parlez vous Redcode? From: neogryzormail@mixmail.com (Neogryzor) Subject: Re: Imp... Date: 14 Oct 2003 03:33:27 -0700 Message-ID: <242debe4.0310140233.77898df0@posting.google.com> Sascha Zapf wrote in message news:... > Wow, > > Imp on the 94nop, Dewdney would be very proud if he will see it. Hmm, just > for actualizing my testsuite, please tell me want kind of imp. A or B-imp? > > Sascha It is just a mov.i #0,1 submited to ;kill a miserable warrior. So it didn't survive for long. Interesting to see that recon2 can't kill it. It moves too fast :) Neogryzor From: Sascha Zapf Subject: Happy Birthday Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 23:29:21 +0200 Message-ID: Happy Birthday, Corewarrior... First issue 16 october 1995... being a newsletter for only a handful of madman's distributed all over the world, makes him to somewhat special. may he live long.. Sascha -- Parlez vous Redcode? From: elmartinos@eml.cc (Martinus) Subject: exMARS -- Exhaust Memory Array Redcode Simulator Date: 16 Oct 2003 01:25:09 -0700 Message-ID: <7024f804.0310160025.3aa3015f@posting.google.com> Hi everybody, Finally I have some corewars news: Here you can find exMARS, yet another mars simulation utility: http://martin-ankerl.at.tf/downloads/exmars-0.01.tar.gz exMARS is a redcode simulator, just like Exhaust and pMARS. In fact, I have shamelessly taken sourcecode from pMARS, exhaust, some ideas from qMars, plus a lot of optimizations, a higher level interface for Ruby, and shaked everything very well. The resulting program has the following main features: * Uses the parser from pMARS, so no previous parsing is neccessary. At first this was my main motivation for exMARS. * Speed: 50% faster than pmars on a pentiumIII, and often more than twice as fast than pmars pentium 4 (using gcc 3.3.1, and the same compiler options). * Rewritten the code in a more object oriented way, which allows different Mars at the same time in the same program, it should also be thread save. * Ruby interface: finally a really fast mars can be used in a high level programming language. (see test.rb for an example usage) At the moment exmars is probably an alpha version. It contains almost all features I want it to have, but the programming interface will definitely change. I have only tried exMARS in Linux, because I do not have access to windows right now, a simple 'make' would do. Have a look at the Makefile for optimizations. Please let me know if you find bugs, have any ideas, etc. Martin martinankerl at eml dot cc From: =?iso-8859-1?q?will?= Subject: Re: Happy Birthday Date: 16 Oct 2003 09:08:06 -0400 Message-ID: <20031016114957.35101.qmail@web25006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> hip hip hurrah! /Will --- Sascha Zapf wrote: > Happy Birthday, > > Corewarrior... > > First issue 16 october 1995... ________________________________________________________________________ Want to chat instantly with your online friends? Get the FREE Yahoo! Messenger http://mail.messenger.yahoo.co.uk From: Beppe Bezzi Subject: Re: Happy Birthday Date: 16 Oct 2003 09:08:01 -0400 Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20031016141347.0283f368@popmail.libero.it> At 07.31 16/10/2003 -0400, Sascha Zapf wrote: >Happy Birthday, > >Corewarrior... > >First issue 16 october 1995... > >being a newsletter for only a handful of madman's distributed all over the >world, makes him to somewhat special. > >may he live long.. > >Sascha > >-- >Parlez vous Redcode? I remember it was long ago, but i wouldnt have said that long ago; i'm getting old ;) Wondering if Myers is still lurking around too. -Beppe From: fizmo_master@yahoo.com (Fizmo) Subject: Re: Happy Birthday Date: 16 Oct 2003 13:26:46 -0700 Message-ID: <9f53b5fb.0310161226.66bcead6@posting.google.com> ....happy Birthday dear Corewarrior, happy birthday to you...... > I remember it was long ago, but i wouldnt have said that long ago; i'm > getting old ;) Hi!!! Nice to read your name here on r.g.c. after such a long time ;-) > > Wondering if Myers is still lurking around too. > Yes he is, I think :) He was sometimes seen on koth's IRC channel. Had also this summer a quite spectaculare entry on the 94nop. > -Beppe Christian From: "Robert Macrae" Subject: Re: Bombing Imps Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 14:44:40 +0100 Message-ID: <3f8eaaf2$0$248$cc9e4d1f@news.dial.pipex.com> > ;redcode-94 > spl b > a jmp themov > b jmp themov > DAT #3, #4 > DAT #3, #4 > themov > MOV {-2, <-2 > end > > It just copies itself like any imp, but it is two instructions long > and so requires two processes. The imp can be of arbitrary length, > but the code within runs at half of normal speed: Thats neat. Can you rearrange it as an imp-ring or spiral? Robert Macrae From: Lukasz Grabun Subject: Re: Happy Birthday Date: 16 Oct 2003 20:26:10 GMT Message-ID: On 16 Oct 2003 09:08:01 -0400, Beppe Bezzi wrote: Oh my, oh my! > I remember it was long ago, but i wouldnt have said that long ago; i'm > getting old ;) Hi again, welcome back. :-) > Wondering if Myers is still lurking around too. He is. -- Lukasz Grabun (My CW page: http://www.astercity.net/~grabek) (reply-to field is fake, use grabek (at) acn dot waw dot pl to reply) From: fizmo_master@yahoo.com (Fizmo) Subject: Redcoders Frenzy 14: The extended '88 Round ***Rules and Deadline*** Date: 16 Oct 2003 23:28:51 -0700 Message-ID: <9f53b5fb.0310162228.4e038531@posting.google.com> ................................................................... . . . _____ _ _ . . | __ \ | | | | . . | |__) |___ __| | ___ ___ __| | ___ _ __ ___ . . | _ // _ \/ _` |/ __/ _ \ / _` |/ _ \ '__/ __| . . | | \ \ __/ (_| | (_| (_) | (_| | __/ | \__ \ . . |_| \_\___|\__,_|\___\___/ \__,_|\___|_| |___/ . . . . ______ . . | ____| . . | |__ _ __ ___ _ __ _____ _ . . | __| '__/ _ \ '_ \|_ / | | | . . | | | | | __/ | | |/ /| |_| | . . |_| |_| \___|_| |_/___|\__, | . . __/ | . . |___/ . ................................................................... The ongoing corewar tournament __ _ _ /_ | | || | | | | || |_ | | |__ _| | | | | |_| |_| .............................. . . . The Extended '88 Round . . . .............................. This is the 14th round of the ongoing corewar tournament. Detailed information are available on Fizmo's Corewar Info Page: http://www.corewar.info/tournament/cwt.htm New players and beginners are always welcome. If you have any questions regarding corewar, redcoding, tournament etc. just enter the corewar IRC channels at irc.koth.org (#corewars). Most traffic is on every sunday evening. ................................................................... . _ . . _ _ _ _| |___ ___ . . | '_| || | / -_|_-< . . |_| \_,_|_\___/__/ . . . ................................................................... Round 14 of the Redcoder Frenzy Tournament will take place using standard '88 rules, with one small extension - the LDP and STP instructions are included. The addressing modes valid for LDP and STP are indentical to those available to MOV within the '88 standard, i.e. #$@< for the a-field and $@< for the b-field. Coresize: 8000 Max. processes: 8000 Max. cycles: 80000 Max. length: 100 Min. distance: 100 Rounds: 1000 Points per win: 3 Points per tie: 1 Points per loss: 0 Now is your chance to use those specialist components, which crush their intended target, but fail miserably against almost everything else. Bomb-dodgers, anti-vamp, CLP, and more... 1000 rounds will be fought for each battle. Below is a simple switcher to get you started. Simply create two components and place the labels w1 and w2 at their entry points. ; switch on loss or tie res: ldp #0, res str: ldp pkey, 0 cmp #1, res add #4000, str stp str, pkey slt #3999, str jmp w2 pkey:jmp w1, #47 end res '88 newbie hint: DAT 0,0 is not valid code in '88. Be aware DAT #0,#0 will be detected by an opponent with a CMP-scanner. ................................................................... . _ _ _ _ . . __| |___ __ _ __| | (_)_ _ ___ . . / _` / -_) _` / _` | | | ' \/ -_) . . \__,_\___\__,_\__,_|_|_|_||_\___| . . . ................................................................... 23:59 (GMT) 08 November 2003 -------------------------------------------------------------- Please notify: You have to send your entries to John Metcalf (grumpy3039@hotmail.com) -------------------------------------------------------------- Good luck, may be the core with you! From: RagManX Subject: Re: Happy Birthday Message-ID: Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 23:40:02 GMT On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 23:29:21 +0200, Sascha Zapf wrote: >Happy Birthday, > >Corewarrior... > >First issue 16 october 1995... > >being a newsletter for only a handful of madman's distributed all over the >world, makes him to somewhat special. > >may he live long.. Wow! I had no idea corewarrior had been around that long. I started reading this group regularly not too long before that. I didn't remember the 'zine starting up that soon after I got here. Excellent. >Sascha RagManX From: neogryzormail@mixmail.com (Neogryzor) Subject: Re: Happy Birthday Date: 17 Oct 2003 04:52:40 -0700 Message-ID: <242debe4.0310170352.5de95c15@posting.google.com> "Zul Nadzri" wrote in message news:<3f8f16f8$1_2@news.tm.net.my>... > Congratulations to the contributors and thank you for all your knowledge > sharing in Corewars. The newsletter still 'in publication' because it is > organised by the people who LOVE Corewars! > > /Zul Nadzri > > "will" wrote in message > news:20031016114957.35101.qmail@web25006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com... > > hip hip hurrah! > > > > /Will > > > > --- Sascha Zapf wrote: > > > Happy Birthday, > > > > > > Corewarrior... > > > > > > First issue 16 october 1995... Yeah, congrats and thanks to all Corewarrior contributors. hurrah! Neogryzor From: neogryzormail@mixmail.com (Neogryzor) Subject: Re: Bombing Imps Date: 17 Oct 2003 05:28:56 -0700 Message-ID: <242debe4.0310170428.22c06aae@posting.google.com> jamesalexc@yahoo.com (James Cook) wrote in message news:<13823894.0310052101.286f113a@posting.google.com>... > This is mostly an excuse to introduce myself to the newsgroup; sorry > if this is a waste of time :-P Welcome! > I just started playing with corewars about two days ago, and I was > wondering if imps like this have been explored, and if anything useful > has come of them? > > ;redcode-94 > spl b > a jmp themov > b jmp themov > DAT #3, #4 > DAT #3, #4 > themov > MOV {-2, <-2 > end > > It just ... Interesting code. Experiments are never a waste of time. Most of them are not competitive enough, but can never know if you are going to discover a new strategy. This is an experiment that i wrote looooong time ago. I works like a bombing imp: ;REDCODE-94 ;NAME Blind Runner I ;AUTHOR Neogryzor ;ASSERT 1 ;STRATEGY Self-moving bomber ;STRATEGY 0.5c moving, 0.8 bombing, (0.4c bomb + 0.4c dec) INI: SPL CO2 AT: NOP AT,AT+8 ;-> can be mov.i #0,8 too or any other MOV.I {800,1601 MOV.I {1802,2603 MOV.I {2803,3604 CO2: MOV.I }AT,>AT MOV.I }AT,>AT MOV.I }AT,>AT MOV.I }AT,>AT END INI It uses 2 procs, but can be done in many ways: spl 1 spl 1 mov.i #0,>4 mov.i }-1,>-1 mov.i ... ;\ mov.i ... ;/ attack movs, try mov.i #1,<1 + mov <,< or others Some of these warriors can beat blur-ish scanners nicely, but in general they are too vulnerables. Enjoy redcoding. Neogryzor From: "Zul Nadzri" Subject: Re: Happy Birthday Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 06:08:54 +0800 Message-ID: <3f8f16f8$1_2@news.tm.net.my> Congratulations to the contributors and thank you for all your knowledge sharing in Corewars. The newsletter still 'in publication' because it is organised by the people who LOVE Corewars! /Zul Nadzri "will" wrote in message news:20031016114957.35101.qmail@web25006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com... > hip hip hurrah! > > /Will > > --- Sascha Zapf wrote: > > Happy Birthday, > > > > Corewarrior... > > > > First issue 16 october 1995... > > > ________________________________________________________________________ > Want to chat instantly with your online friends? Get the FREE Yahoo! > Messenger http://mail.messenger.yahoo.co.uk From: =?iso-8859-1?q?will?= Subject: Re: exMARS -- Exhaust Memory Array Redcode Simulator Date: 17 Oct 2003 08:37:35 -0400 Message-ID: <20031017072644.89742.qmail@web25009.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Way to go Martin! > Here you can find exMARS, yet another mars > simulation utility: > http://martin-ankerl.at.tf/downloads/exmars-0.01.tar.gz How close is it to the mods you made to Exhaust? ________________________________________________________________________ Want to chat instantly with your online friends? Get the FREE Yahoo! Messenger http://mail.messenger.yahoo.co.uk From: "Zul Nadzri" Subject: Re: Redcoders Frenzy 14: The extended '88 Round ***Rules and Deadline*** Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 21:35:27 +0800 Message-ID: <3f8ff022_1@news.tm.net.my> 88 is my weakness because I can't use PIN aka slave. I know the 88 veterans will really enjoy this round :) Any tips on how to simulate the pspace with pmars? /zul nadzri/ "Fizmo" wrote in message news:9f53b5fb.0310162228.4e038531@posting.google.com... > ................................................................... > . . > . _____ _ _ . > . | __ \ | | | | . > . | |__) |___ __| | ___ ___ __| | ___ _ __ ___ . > . | _ // _ \/ _` |/ __/ _ \ / _` |/ _ \ '__/ __| . > . | | \ \ __/ (_| | (_| (_) | (_| | __/ | \__ \ . > . |_| \_\___|\__,_|\___\___/ \__,_|\___|_| |___/ . > . . > . ______ . > . | ____| . > . | |__ _ __ ___ _ __ _____ _ . > . | __| '__/ _ \ '_ \|_ / | | | . > . | | | | | __/ | | |/ /| |_| | . > . |_| |_| \___|_| |_/___|\__, | . > . __/ | . > . |___/ . > ................................................................... > > The ongoing corewar tournament > > > __ _ _ > /_ | | || | > | | | || |_ > | | |__ _| > | | | | > |_| |_| > > > > .............................. > . . > . The Extended '88 Round . > . . > .............................. > > > This is the 14th round of the ongoing corewar tournament. Detailed > information are available on Fizmo's Corewar Info Page: > > http://www.corewar.info/tournament/cwt.htm > > New players and beginners are always welcome. If you have any > questions regarding corewar, redcoding, tournament etc. just > enter the corewar IRC channels at irc.koth.org (#corewars). Most > traffic is on every sunday evening. > > ................................................................... > . _ . > . _ _ _ _| |___ ___ . > . | '_| || | / -_|_-< . > . |_| \_,_|_\___/__/ . > . . > ................................................................... > > > Round 14 of the Redcoder Frenzy Tournament will take place using > standard '88 rules, with one small extension - the LDP and STP > instructions are included. The addressing modes valid for LDP > and STP are indentical to those available to MOV within the '88 > standard, i.e. #$@< for the a-field and $@< for the b-field. > > Coresize: 8000 > Max. processes: 8000 > Max. cycles: 80000 > Max. length: 100 > Min. distance: 100 > Rounds: 1000 > Points per win: 3 > Points per tie: 1 > Points per loss: 0 > > Now is your chance to use those specialist components, which > crush their intended target, but fail miserably against almost > everything else. Bomb-dodgers, anti-vamp, CLP, and more... > 1000 rounds will be fought for each battle. > > Below is a simple switcher to get you started. Simply create > two components and place the labels w1 and w2 at their entry > points. > > ; switch on loss or tie > > res: ldp #0, res > str: ldp pkey, 0 > cmp #1, res > add #4000, str > stp str, pkey > slt #3999, str > jmp w2 > pkey:jmp w1, #47 > end res > > '88 newbie hint: DAT 0,0 is not valid code in '88. Be aware > DAT #0,#0 will be detected by an opponent with a CMP-scanner. > > > ................................................................... > . _ _ _ _ . > . __| |___ __ _ __| | (_)_ _ ___ . > . / _` / -_) _` / _` | | | ' \/ -_) . > . \__,_\___\__,_\__,_|_|_|_||_\___| . > . . > ................................................................... > > > 23:59 (GMT) 08 November 2003 > > > -------------------------------------------------------------- > Please notify: You have to send your entries to John Metcalf > (grumpy3039@hotmail.com) > -------------------------------------------------------------- > > > Good luck, may be the core with you! From: "Robert Macrae" Subject: Re: Happy Birthday Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 22:41:44 +0100 Message-ID: <3f906222$0$6624$cc9e4d1f@news.dial.pipex.com> > Corewarrior... > > First issue 16 october 1995... > > being a newsletter for only a handful of madman's distributed all over the > world, makes him to somewhat special. > > may he live long.. > > Sascha Remarkable. Communities that get below a certain size are meant to die off, but CW seems to hang in there. Corewarrior may be part of the reason... both because it is a focal point for knowledge, and because it is an example of how a few individuals have made large contributions to the game. Simulators, hills, archives and its journal; without these CW would have vanished. With them, who knows? Robert From: Ilmari Karonen Subject: Re: Redcoders Frenzy 14: The extended '88 Round ***Rules and Deadline*** Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 18:09:44 +0300 Message-ID: Zul Nadzri wrote: > 88 is my weakness because I can't use PIN aka slave. I know the 88 veterans > will really enjoy this round :) > > Any tips on how to simulate the pspace with pmars? You mean, under '88 rules? Just replace LDP and STP with MOV, check that the code compiles with the -8 switch, and then run the original code in '94 mode. From the pMARS docs: -8 This options enforces strict compliance with the ICWS'88 standard and disables all ICWS'94 language extensions, which are flagged as syntax errors by the assembler. Since ICWS'94 is a superset of ICWS'88, this options is not necessary to run ICWS'88 warriors. -- Ilmari Karonen If replying by e-mail, substitute .net for .invalid in address. From: elmartinos@eml.cc (Martinus) Subject: Re: exMARS -- Exhaust Memory Array Redcode Simulator Date: 19 Oct 2003 13:15:31 -0700 Message-ID: <7024f804.0310191215.59d06283@posting.google.com> > How close is it to the mods you made to Exhaust? The performance should be about the same, maybe be a bit faster. The sourcecode has changed quite a lot, it is a mixture of exhaust and pmars, and I changed it to a more object oriented way: All global variables are gone, everything is contained in a big structure, which allows multiple different mars at the same time. At the moment I am not too happy with the C interface, this will shurely change. I think the ruby-interface is pretty simple yet powerful, there will be only minor changes in future. I will change the C interface to be somewhat similar to Ruby, so it will probably work like this in future: // new mars, default settings, 2 warriors mars_t* mars = mars_standard(2); mars->rounds = 200; warrior_t* w1 = mars_parse(mars, "warriors/94nop/blade.red"); warrior_t* w2 = mars_parse(mars, "warriors/94nop/reepicheep.red"); // fight warriors, stores result inside mars-structure mars_fight(mars, w1, w2); // get scores for w1, then for w2 s1 = mars_scores(mars, 0); s2 = mars_scores(mars, 1); if (s1 > s2) printf("blade is the winner!\n"); else if (s1 < s2) printf("reepicheep is the winner!\n"); else printf("tie.\n"); I plan to use exMARS in my future project, a plugin-based Genetic programming library. Martin From: fizmo_master@yahoo.com (Fizmo) Subject: Fizmo's Corewar Info Page ***Update 20.10.2003*** Date: 20 Oct 2003 05:14:52 -0700 Message-ID: <9f53b5fb.0310200414.c55293f@posting.google.com> Hi all, I've added some more web pages to the corewar lexicon at: http://www.corewar.info/lexicon/lexicon.htm Any comments are welcome. Happy programming, Fizmo From: "Zul Nadzri" Subject: Re: exMARS -- Exhaust Memory Array Redcode Simulator Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 06:44:45 +0800 Message-ID: <3f931557_2@news.tm.net.my> Looking forward to see the next version. Excellent. I'll read about Ruby in the mean time. Zul Nadzri "Martinus" wrote in message news:7024f804.0310191215.59d06283@posting.google.com... > > How close is it to the mods you made to Exhaust? > > The performance should be about the same, maybe be a bit faster. The > sourcecode has changed quite a lot, it is a mixture of exhaust and > pmars, and I changed it to a more object oriented way: All global > variables are gone, everything is contained in a big structure, which > allows multiple different mars at the same time. At the moment I am > not too happy with the C interface, this will shurely change. I think > the ruby-interface is pretty simple yet powerful, there will be only > minor changes in future. > > I will change the C interface to be somewhat similar to Ruby, so it > will probably work like this in future: > > > // new mars, default settings, 2 warriors > mars_t* mars = mars_standard(2); > mars->rounds = 200; > > warrior_t* w1 = mars_parse(mars, "warriors/94nop/blade.red"); > warrior_t* w2 = mars_parse(mars, "warriors/94nop/reepicheep.red"); > > // fight warriors, stores result inside mars-structure > mars_fight(mars, w1, w2); > > // get scores for w1, then for w2 > s1 = mars_scores(mars, 0); > s2 = mars_scores(mars, 1); > > if (s1 > s2) printf("blade is the winner!\n"); > else if (s1 < s2) printf("reepicheep is the winner!\n"); > else printf("tie.\n"); > > > I plan to use exMARS in my future project, a plugin-based Genetic > programming library. > > Martin Message-ID: From: anton@paradise.net.nz (Anton Marsden) Subject: Core War Frequently Asked Questions (rec.games.corewar FAQ) Date: 20 Oct 2003 08:17:18 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 - 94 No Pspace 10/20/03 Date: 20 Oct 2003 09:36:08 -0400 Message-ID: <200310200409.h9K490d5020571@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 10/20/03 -=- 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 Oct 19 21:22:58 EDT 2003 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 39/ 37/ 25 Damage Inc. (Act II) Marsden/Schmidt 141 59 2 41/ 43/ 16 Hazy Test 63 Steve Gunnell 140 825 3 44/ 48/ 8 Recon 2 David Moore 140 504 4 32/ 26/ 41 Ironic Imps Roy van Rijn 139 10 5 33/ 27/ 40 King of Metal Christian Schmidt 138 79 6 40/ 45/ 14 Ikarus Christian Schmidt 135 7 7 31/ 27/ 43 Static Miz 134 16 8 39/ 43/ 18 Hooligan Neogryzor 134 14 9 25/ 16/ 59 Dawn 2 Roy van Rijn 134 116 10 42/ 52/ 6 Tuesday's Torment John Metcalf 133 70 11 29/ 26/ 45 devilish 2.04 test David Houston 132 46 12 29/ 27/ 44 Reepicheep Grabun/Metcalf 132 1281 13 28/ 25/ 47 Son of Vain Oversby/Pihlaja 131 2050 14 29/ 28/ 42 Hammerhead Lukasz Grabun 131 136 15 38/ 46/ 16 Myth Christian Schmidt 131 56 16 36/ 42/ 23 Haunted John Metcalf 130 5 17 26/ 22/ 51 Netpaper test 1.08 David Houston 130 24 18 28/ 28/ 44 Soldier of Silkland Christian Schmidt 128 62 19 28/ 28/ 44 Squire of Silkland Christian Schmidt 127 103 20 25/ 24/ 51 The Next Step test 1.07 David Houston 125 1 21 0/ 0/ 4 The Next Step test 1.07 David Houston 5 2 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - ICWS Experimental 94 10/20/03 Date: 20 Oct 2003 09:37:33 -0400 Message-ID: <200310200406.h9K4606J020539@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 10/20/03 -=- 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 : Wed Oct 15 11:11:49 EDT 2003 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 39/ 36/ 25 The X Machine Zul Nadzri 142 19 2 42/ 44/ 14 Fire and Ice II David Moore 140 108 3 38/ 39/ 23 Eliminator X Zul Nadzri 138 20 4 26/ 18/ 56 xd100 test David Houston 134 5 5 36/ 38/ 26 Simply Intelligent Zul Nadzri 134 1 6 19/ 8/ 73 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 131 277 7 27/ 25/ 48 KAT v5 Dave Hillis 129 140 8 20/ 10/ 70 Denial David Moore 129 149 9 32/ 35/ 33 Trefoil F 13 Steve Gunnell 129 91 10 27/ 26/ 47 Olivia X Ben Ford 128 89 11 26/ 24/ 50 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 127 230 12 33/ 39/ 27 Black Moods Ian Oversby 127 204 13 23/ 19/ 58 Katafutr Michal Janeczek 127 148 14 33/ 40/ 27 Ogre Christian Schmidt 126 156 15 34/ 42/ 23 Giant Hazy Test 13 Steve Gunnell 126 35 16 20/ 16/ 64 Kin John Metcalf 125 116 17 16/ 8/ 76 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 125 225 18 23/ 22/ 55 Glenstorm John Metcalf 124 70 19 18/ 13/ 69 Blotter X J. Pohjalainen 123 10 20 30/ 39/ 32 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 121 208 21 0/ 5/ 0 Simply Intelligent Zul Nadzri 0 2 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - MultiWarrior 94 10/20/03 Date: 20 Oct 2003 09:38:57 -0400 Message-ID: <200310200403.h9K430mS020491@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 10/20/03 -=- 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 Oct 19 21:03:43 EDT 2003 # Name Author Score Age 1 Her Majesty P.Kline 16 365 2 Double D David Houston 15 18 3 hawk John Metcalf 13 89 4 D-clearM Ken Espiritu 12 346 5 Child of the Core John Metcalf 7 9 6 Djinn-19 Steve Gunnell 6 5 7 not king of the hill FatalC 5 91 8 After the Spirit Hour John Metcalf 5 1 9 Bugtown test C 58 Steve Gunnell 5 25 10 The Mummy 1.02 David Houston 5 10 11 The Next Step test 1.07 David Houston 0 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - Standard 10/20/03 Date: 20 Oct 2003 09:40:22 -0400 Message-ID: <200310200400.h9K4005j020442@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 10/20/03 -=- 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 Aug 24 05:55:13 EDT 2003 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 38/ 22/ 39 Quicksilver '88 Michal Janeczek 154 8 2 36/ 22/ 42 Freight Train David Moore 149 173 3 35/ 22/ 43 Test Alexander (Sasha) Wa 148 112 4 44/ 40/ 16 Tangle Trap 3 David Moore 147 1 5 34/ 23/ 43 Guardian Ian Oversby 146 172 6 41/ 41/ 18 My 1st try Christian Schmidt 141 4 7 36/ 32/ 31 vala John Metcalf 141 95 8 31/ 24/ 45 Pixie 88 Lukasz Grabun 138 2 9 42/ 47/ 11 vm5 Michal Janeczek 138 7 10 42/ 47/ 12 Foggy Swamp Beppe Bezzi 136 169 11 28/ 20/ 52 Test I Ian Oversby 135 229 12 41/ 46/ 13 Blur '88 Anton Marsden 135 210 13 30/ 25/ 45 Shish-Ka-Bob Ben Ford 135 128 14 27/ 20/ 53 EV Paper John K Wilkinson 134 186 15 39/ 44/ 17 '88 test IV John Metcalf 134 66 16 42/ 50/ 8 Scan Test C 6 Steve Gunnell 133 11 17 31/ 29/ 39 sIMPly.Red v0.95 Leonardo Humberto 133 130 18 35/ 37/ 28 Gymnosperm trickery Dave Hillis 133 59 19 37/ 42/ 22 PacMan David Moore 132 202 20 37/ 45/ 18 Stasis David Moore 129 280 21 20/ 66/ 14 LeVamp Matthieu Walraet 75 0 From: "Apache" Subject: corewars based on Perl Message-ID: Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 22:59:48 GMT Something else: I'm planning on building the the corewars environment completely in perl. Not to get things to work faster, but it will be platform independent and it will be for server-side part of a corewar website of my own. However, chances are that the instruction set will be different. In that case I'll give things completely different names. The instruction set might be more or less tierra-style or maybe even actionscript bytecode style. Actionscript is used by Macromedia's Flash's and it's virtual machine is very simple and stack oriented. Some years ago I wrote something completely with that bytecode, compiled it and put it at http://www.elje.net/mandelbrot/ Regards from Amsterdam N.B. I'd REALLY like to know how to prevent those fake MS update messages from showing up, regardless from who is sending it. I'm using Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1123 From: neogryzormail@mixmail.com (Neogryzor) Subject: Re: Redcoders Frenzy 14: The extended '88 Round ***Rules and Deadline*** Date: 22 Oct 2003 02:44:49 -0700 Message-ID: <242debe4.0310220144.452cea0c@posting.google.com> I suppouse we can enter two entries as always, right? Can we use PIN numbers) `:) Neogryzor From: Ilmari Karonen Subject: Re: corewars based on Perl Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 03:27:15 +0300 Message-ID: Apache wrote: > > Something else: I'm planning on building the the corewars environment > completely in perl. Not to get things to work faster, but it will be > platform independent and it will be for server-side part of a corewar > website of my own. An alternative approach would be to write a Perl interface layer to an existing C implementation such as exhaust. This is something I've thought of doing, but haven't got around to so far. Martin Ankerl's exMARS project is also developing along similar lines, only with Ruby instead of Perl, so it's definitely worth keeping an eye on. -- Ilmari Karonen If replying by e-mail, substitute .net for .invalid in address. From: chipw@mdli.com (Chip Wendell) Subject: CoreWin 2.1 is ready Date: 23 Oct 2003 09:15:12 -0700 Message-ID: Hi all, CoreWin 2.1 is complete! It's available now for download at http://www.geocities.com/corewin2. Come check out all the new features: - The core graphics show much more detail, with different symbols for execute, write, inc/dec, compare, and read. The level of detail is selectable. - The display topology can be either circular or rectangular. Rectangular works best for the standard 8000 size core, while circular looks better for a Big core (55440). - Warrior lists can be saved to text files, for fast loading of groups of warriors. - Custom sets of battle parameters and options can be saved to files, so (for instance) all the settings for the Big or Tiny hills can be loaded at once. - Single-warrior battles are allowed. - Self-fights are allowed. - Register variables (a-z) are supported. - Warrior lists sort manually, not automatically. This is convenient because sometimes you don't want the warrior list rearranged. - Limits on battle parameters have been expanded. In particular: - Minimum core size is now 16 - Upper limit on Max Processes is now 2,147,483,648 (2^31) - Upper limit on Min Distance is now 2,147,483,648 (2^31) - The Tournament Results window is resizable. All the versions of the user's guide have been updated, so look there for more details. Note that the old configuration file, parameters.cfg, has been replaced by a new one called default.cfg, so CoreWin 2.1 will start up with hard-coded settings until you save a new default file. Enjoy. - Chip From: "Apache" Subject: Re: corewars based on Perl Message-ID: Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 23:21:08 GMT Nowadays people could call me a Perl Purist. Everything in perl, no compilation required... I like that. For hardcore numbercrunching I defenately prefer C though. "Ilmari Karonen" wrote in message news:bn7795$rjg$1@phys-news1.kolumbus.fi... > Apache wrote: > > > > Something else: I'm planning on building the the corewars environment > > completely in perl. Not to get things to work faster, but it will be > > platform independent and it will be for server-side part of a corewar > > website of my own. > > An alternative approach would be to write a Perl interface layer to an > existing C implementation such as exhaust. This is something I've > thought of doing, but haven't got around to so far. Martin Ankerl's > exMARS project is also developing along similar lines, only with Ruby > instead of Perl, so it's definitely worth keeping an eye on. > > -- > Ilmari Karonen > If replying by e-mail, substitute .net for .invalid in address. > From: sasha-google@fiction.org (Alexander Sasha Wait) Subject: A first attempt at a "multicore"... Date: 25 Oct 2003 00:16:39 -0700 Message-ID: <82413012.0310242316.777a5a4c@posting.google.com> I've (horribly) hacked PMARS to accept a new parameter--"n"-- that determines the number of simultaneous cores executing in a "n" by "n" grid on screen. Each core is independent of the others unless a program executes a SPL instruction to one of four "special" locations. In a core of 8000 these "special" locations are located at 0, 2000, 4000, 6000 and cause a process to be launched, respectively, in the core that's up, right, down, and left from the current one. The "special" location and the location immediately following it are copied to the other core and then cleared. The corresponding "special" locations in the other cores are: 0 -> 4000, 2000 -> 6000, 4000 -> 0, 6000 -> 2000. Graphically you should imagine that cells in the core have been wrapped around a circle so that "special" locations are adjoining. A diagram: * http://non.fiction.org/lj/community/ref_corewar/3895/multicore-diag.png And, a screen-shot: * http://non.fiction.org/lj/community/ref_corewar/3895/multicore.png Run with command line: * ./pmars jmp.red mimper.red mimper.red -n 8 -F 1600 And sample program: ;name mimper first DAT #0, #0 start MOV #1, elmartinos@eml.cc (Martinus) wrote in message news:<7024f804.0310160025.3aa3015f@posting.google.com>... > Here you can find exMARS, yet another mars simulation utility: > http://martin-ankerl.at.tf/downloads/exmars-0.01.tar.gz > I'll try it. Is it graphical? (like the regular pMARS) > * Rewritten the code in a more object oriented way, which allows > different Mars at the same time in the same program, it should also > be thread save. > I really made a mess of the pMARS code to get multiple simultaneous cores running. Maybe I can do that more easily with exMARS! See http://www.livejournal.com/community/ref_corewar/3895.html Thanks! Sasha From: Lukasz Grabun Subject: Re: A first attempt at a "multicore"... Date: 26 Oct 2003 14:48:30 GMT Message-ID: On 25 Oct 2003 00:16:39 -0700, Alexander Sasha Wait wrote: > * http://non.fiction.org/lj/community/ref_corewar/3895/multicore.png > But I read this group too! And I'd love to get feedback... For God's sake, this looks like a *huge* amount of well done job. Whatever it might useful for :-) but definitely worth a look! A like the idea though I can't think of anything that would use those multiple cores. Thank you. -- Lukasz Grabun (My CW page: http://www.astercity.net/~grabek) (reply-to field is fake, use grabek (at) acn dot waw dot pl to reply) From: Hurkyl@msn.com (Hurkyl) Subject: Netpaper Date: 26 Oct 2003 18:13:52 -0800 Message-ID: <7d3e9a94.0310261813.5cd81739@posting.google.com> Netpaper is a paper/stone/imp with a unique design. It has two components; a timescape-style paper carrying a mov/mov/add bomber, and a vortex imp launcher. The full code is at the end of the post. Here is the paper. It is 10 lines long and runs on 10 processes. pap1 spl @0, {poff1 mov }pap1, >pap1 pap2 spl @0, pap2 mov bomb, >pkill mov bomb, <-1 + poff2 add #pstep, -2 + 2*poff2 mov {pap2, poff3 bomb dat >2667, >phop Three consecutive copies of the paper cooperate in order to form a traditional mov/mov/add bomber. Fizmo briefly mentions how this cooperation works in the Corewar Lexicon at http://www.corewar.info/lexicon/paper3.htm , but I'll go into it here as well. The important principle driving this is that the `spl' instructions interleave the execution of processes in different copies of the paper. Suppose 10 processes execute the line labelled `pap2'. After execution, there will be 10 processes queued on the `pap2' line of the copy and there will be 10 processes queued on the line following the `pap2', and these 20 processes will alternate; mov - spl - mov - spl - ... For the next group of processor cycles, the `spl' instruction in the copy will have generated 10 more processes, and they will interleave as mov - mov - spl - mov - mov - spl - ... To summarize, the 10 processes executing a line in a parent copy of the paper will be interleaved with 10 processes of its child executing the previous line, and with the 10 processes of its grandchild executing two lines before it. When the parent process is executing the `add' line, this interleaved execution occurs 10 times in this order pap + 4: add #pstep, -2 + 2*poff2 pap + 3 + poff2: mov bomb, >pkill pap + 2 + 2*poff2: mov bomb, <-1 + poff2 Which behaves just like an ordinary mov/mov/add bomber! The postincrement and predecrement are there to do linear bombing when these three lines aren't aligned. This happens near the beginning before there are three copies of the paper to cooperate, and it also happens later on because the timescape replication modifies the value of `poff2', so future copies may not be aligned properly. The netpaper, by itself, gets some decent scores, but it loses far too often. I tried some paper launched imps, but they didn't seem to help. However, a vortex imp-launcher worked quite nicely. The results of optimization show that only light imps are necessary. The version of Netpaper in this post (1.07) kills the imp launcher around 3800 cycles; the version on the hill kills it around 1500 cycles! Finally, tack on a Q^4.5 and a boot, and we have Netpaper! The version on the hill differs from this version only in the constants. ;redcode-94nop ;name Netpaper test 1.07 ;author David Houston ;strategy Q^4.5 ;strategy boot ;strategy Paper carrying mov/mov/add bomber ;strategy Vortex launched imps ;password Weirding ;kill Netpaper ;assert CORESIZE == 8000 org qgo zero i for 0 rof ;----------------------------------------------------- qtab3 equ qbomb qbomb dat >qoff, >qc2 ;----------------------------------------------------- ; Vortex imps imessa equ 6028 imessb equ 2102 istep equ 2667 imessc equ 7213 impl spl #0, pap1 pap2 spl @0, pap2 mov bomb, >pkill mov bomb, <-1 + poff2 add #pstep, -2 + 2*poff2 mov {pap2, poff3 bomb dat >2667, >phop dat -100, qptr, qptr + qz + (qb2-1) jmp q2, Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - 94 No Pspace 10/27/03 Date: 27 Oct 2003 04:03:38 -0500 Message-ID: <200310270509.h9R590vI012095@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 10/27/03 -=- 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 Oct 26 13:24:43 EST 2003 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 37/ 26/ 37 Ironic Imps Roy van Rijn 148 16 2 41/ 35/ 24 Damage Inc. (Act II) Marsden/Schmidt 147 65 3 37/ 27/ 36 King of Metal Christian Schmidt 147 85 4 43/ 42/ 15 Hazy Test 63 Steve Gunnell 145 831 5 35/ 25/ 41 devilish 2 David Houston 145 5 6 35/ 26/ 39 Static Miz 145 22 7 30/ 16/ 54 Dawn 2 Roy van Rijn 144 122 8 34/ 23/ 43 Son of Vain Oversby/Pihlaja 144 2056 9 35/ 26/ 40 The Next Step David Houston 144 3 10 35/ 27/ 38 Hammerhead Lukasz Grabun 143 142 11 34/ 26/ 40 Reepicheep Grabun/Metcalf 142 1287 12 42/ 44/ 13 Ikarus Christian Schmidt 140 13 13 44/ 48/ 8 Recon 2 David Moore 140 510 14 31/ 23/ 46 Netpaper David Houston 139 4 15 40/ 42/ 18 Hooligan Neogryzor 139 20 16 44/ 50/ 6 Tuesday's Torment John Metcalf 139 76 17 33/ 27/ 39 Soldier of Silkland Christian Schmidt 139 68 18 32/ 27/ 42 Squire of Silkland Christian Schmidt 137 109 19 38/ 40/ 22 Haunted John Metcalf 136 11 20 40/ 45/ 15 Demolition Man Christian Schmidt 134 1 21 2/ 98/ 0 0 0 7 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - Standard 10/27/03 Date: 27 Oct 2003 04:09:59 -0500 Message-ID: <200310270500.h9R500T0011933@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 10/27/03 -=- 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 Oct 26 01:00:44 EDT 2003 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 36/ 22/ 42 Quicksilver '88 Michal Janeczek 150 12 2 42/ 37/ 21 Tangle Trap 3 David Moore 146 5 3 34/ 22/ 44 Freight Train David Moore 145 177 4 33/ 22/ 45 Test Alexander (Sasha) Wa 144 116 5 32/ 23/ 45 Guardian Ian Oversby 141 176 6 39/ 39/ 22 My 1st try Christian Schmidt 139 8 7 40/ 40/ 20 '88 test IV John Metcalf 139 70 8 41/ 44/ 14 vm5 Michal Janeczek 138 11 9 41/ 45/ 14 Foggy Swamp Beppe Bezzi 138 173 10 42/ 47/ 11 Scan Test C 6 Steve Gunnell 137 15 11 40/ 44/ 16 Blur '88 Anton Marsden 137 214 12 30/ 24/ 46 Pixie 88 Lukasz Grabun 136 6 13 33/ 32/ 35 vala John Metcalf 133 99 14 35/ 39/ 26 PacMan David Moore 131 206 15 25/ 20/ 55 Test I Ian Oversby 129 233 16 29/ 28/ 43 sIMPly.Red v0.95 Leonardo Humberto 129 134 17 27/ 26/ 47 Shish-Ka-Bob Ben Ford 129 132 18 23/ 18/ 59 The Secret Entry Christian Schmidt 128 1 19 24/ 21/ 56 EV Paper John K Wilkinson 127 190 20 34/ 43/ 23 Stasis David Moore 126 284 21 2/ 46/ 53 Imp ASW 58 0 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - ICWS Experimental 94 10/27/03 Date: 27 Oct 2003 04:09:50 -0500 Message-ID: <200310270506.h9R560Y8012043@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 10/27/03 -=- 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 : Wed Oct 15 11:11:49 EDT 2003 # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 39/ 36/ 25 The X Machine Zul Nadzri 142 19 2 42/ 44/ 14 Fire and Ice II David Moore 140 108 3 38/ 39/ 23 Eliminator X Zul Nadzri 138 20 4 26/ 18/ 56 xd100 test David Houston 134 5 5 36/ 38/ 26 Simply Intelligent Zul Nadzri 134 1 6 19/ 8/ 73 Evol Cap 4 X John Wilkinson 131 277 7 27/ 25/ 48 KAT v5 Dave Hillis 129 140 8 20/ 10/ 70 Denial David Moore 129 149 9 32/ 35/ 33 Trefoil F 13 Steve Gunnell 129 91 10 27/ 26/ 47 Olivia X Ben Ford 128 89 11 26/ 24/ 50 Venom v0.2b Christian Schmidt 127 230 12 33/ 39/ 27 Black Moods Ian Oversby 127 204 13 23/ 19/ 58 Katafutr Michal Janeczek 127 148 14 33/ 40/ 27 Ogre Christian Schmidt 126 156 15 34/ 42/ 23 Giant Hazy Test 13 Steve Gunnell 126 35 16 20/ 16/ 64 Kin John Metcalf 125 116 17 16/ 8/ 76 Evolve X v4.0 John Wilkinson 125 225 18 23/ 22/ 55 Glenstorm John Metcalf 124 70 19 18/ 13/ 69 Blotter X J. Pohjalainen 123 10 20 30/ 39/ 32 Controlled Aggression Ian Oversby 121 208 21 0/ 5/ 0 Simply Intelligent Zul Nadzri 0 2 From: Koth Subject: KOTH.ORG: Status - MultiWarrior 94 10/27/03 Date: 27 Oct 2003 04:09:54 -0500 Message-ID: <200310270503.h9R530E3011986@gevjon.ttsg.com> Weekly Status on 10/27/03 -=- 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 Oct 19 21:03:43 EDT 2003 # Name Author Score Age 1 Her Majesty P.Kline 16 365 2 Double D David Houston 15 18 3 hawk John Metcalf 13 89 4 D-clearM Ken Espiritu 12 346 5 Child of the Core John Metcalf 7 9 6 Djinn-19 Steve Gunnell 6 5 7 not king of the hill FatalC 5 91 8 After the Spirit Hour John Metcalf 5 1 9 Bugtown test C 58 Steve Gunnell 5 25 10 The Mummy 1.02 David Houston 5 10 11 The Next Step test 1.07 David Houston 0 0 From: sasha-google@fiction.org (Alexander Sasha Wait) Subject: Re: A first attempt at a "multicore"... Date: 27 Oct 2003 11:11:04 -0800 Message-ID: <82413012.0310271111.6c67572c@posting.google.com> Lukasz Grabun wrote in message news:... > On 25 Oct 2003 00:16:39 -0700, Alexander Sasha Wait wrote: > > > * http://non.fiction.org/lj/community/ref_corewar/3895/multicore.png > > But I read this group too! And I'd love to get feedback... > > For God's sake, this looks like a *huge* amount of well done job. > Whatever it might useful for :-) but definitely worth a look! A like > the idea though I can't think of anything that would use those > multiple cores. > > Thank you. I'd love to see people taking their favorite corewar program and making it into a multicore version. I'll try and give an example soon. From: Hurkyl@msn.com (Hurkyl) Subject: Typo correction Date: 27 Oct 2003 17:02:02 -0800 Message-ID: <7d3e9a94.0310271702.679eda92@posting.google.com> The example of the 3 executing lines should read pap + 4: add #pstep, -2 + 2*poff2 pap + 3 + poff2: mov bomb, <-1 + poff2 pap + 2 + 2*poff2: mov bomb, >pkill From: fizmo_master@yahoo.com (Fizmo) Subject: Re: A first attempt at a "multicore"... Date: 28 Oct 2003 07:44:39 -0800 Message-ID: <9f53b5fb.0310280744.f29e196@posting.google.com> Hi, > I'd love to see people taking their favorite corewar program and > making it into a multicore version. I'll try and give an example > soon. It's really an interesting idea. Is there also a win32 executable available? Because, I am using Windows only. From: Bjoern Subject: Re: exMARS -- Exhaust Memory Array Redcode Simulator Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 23:45:48 +0100 Message-ID: Alexander Sasha Wait wrote: [...] > I really made a mess of the pMARS code to get multiple simultaneous > cores running. Maybe I can do that more easily with exMARS! > > See http://www.livejournal.com/community/ref_corewar/3895.html This should be in an upcoming competition, I guess ;-) -- Let's not weep for their evil deeds, but for their lack of imagination (Nick Cave) From: sasha-google@fiction.org (Alexander Sasha Wait) Subject: Re: exMARS -- Exhaust Memory Array Redcode Simulator Date: 29 Oct 2003 10:25:34 -0800 Message-ID: <82413012.0310291025.2e982b58@posting.google.com> Bjoern wrote in message news:... > Alexander Sasha Wait wrote: > > [...] > > > I really made a mess of the pMARS code to get multiple simultaneous > > cores running. Maybe I can do that more easily with exMARS! > > > > See http://www.livejournal.com/community/ref_corewar/3895.html > > This should be in an upcoming competition, I guess ;-) I'd like a few people to try it out before I post a contest. There are some details that could use discussion. For example, should the multicore wrap around? (I.e. cores at the edges communicate with cores on the opposite edge. Currently they do not but I think I will make it wrap in the next version.) Should the "ports" (special locations) be cleared after they are copied? I thought this was a good idea, implemented it, but it doesn't seem necessary. "multicore-0.0.2.tgz" will be out shortly. And hopefully a windows only executable too. If you are interested, please, check my LiveJournal community: http://www.livejournal.com/community/ref_corewar/ I will, of-course, continue to read and post here! From: sasha-google@fiction.org (Alexander Sasha Wait) Subject: Re: A first attempt at a "multicore"... Date: 29 Oct 2003 10:27:34 -0800 Message-ID: <82413012.0310291027.38bd5ad@posting.google.com> fizmo_master@yahoo.com (Fizmo) wrote in message news:<9f53b5fb.0310280744.f29e196@posting.google.com>... > Hi, > > > I'd love to see people taking their favorite corewar program and > > making it into a multicore version. I'll try and give an example > > soon. > > It's really an interesting idea. Is there also a win32 executable > available? Because, I am using Windows only. "multicore-0.0.2.tgz" will be out shortly. And hopefully a windows only executable too. If you are interested, please, check my LiveJournal community: http://www.livejournal.com/community/ref_corewar/ I will, of-course, continue to read and post here! From: martinus@lion.cc (Martin) Subject: Re: exMARS -- Exhaust Memory Array Redcode Simulator Date: 29 Oct 2003 13:10:24 -0800 Message-ID: <24b9a48b.0310291310.37554033@posting.google.com> > I'll try it. Is it graphical? (like the regular pMARS) No, no graphics at the moment. When I have time, I will make it possible add a callback function which is automatically called every iteration, this would make a simple and powerful interface for any visualization. I think of something cool looking using OpenGL to create a nice looking screensaver, the only problem is that I do not have enough time... Martin From: Sascha Zapf Subject: Re: exMARS -- Exhaust Memory Array Redcode Simulator Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:06:22 +0100 Message-ID: Martin wrote: >> I'll try it. Is it graphical? (like the regular pMARS) > > No, no graphics at the moment. When I have time, I will make it > possible add a callback function which is automatically called every > iteration, this would make a simple and powerful interface for any > visualization. I think of something cool looking using OpenGL to > create a nice looking screensaver, the only problem is that I do not > have enough time... > > Martin Oh, one mars with graphics is enough..exmars is good like it is...fast...faster ...the... The only thing i miss is the -l parameter... Sascha -- Parlez vous Redcode?