My Chess Apps: Historical video of World Microprocessor Chess Championship, 1985

Tuesday 19 March 2013

Historical video of World Microprocessor Chess Championship, 1985

Recently somebody posted a video of the WMCC held in 1985! (link at the bottom of the page)

This video is of the World Microcomputer Chess Championship (WMCC) held in the World Trade Center, Amsterdam, 1985! Overall 16 teams participated and it was won by Mephisto! In fact, Mephisto had 3 versions running in that tournament and they took the first 3 spots! (The programs were written in Assembly language!!!)

Mephisto was designed by Richard Lang (yup the same guy who later designed Chess Genius)
Mephisto was running on a 16-bit Motorola 68000 microprocessor (back in those days, my company Motorola made microprocessors! Now it is a "software company", having outsourced the manufacturing unit to Flextronics)

On the rest day, the Dutch GM Gennadi Sosonko (2550) gave a 31 board simul including 10 computers! The simul lasted a whooping 8 hours and he scored 25.5 - 5.5

An interesting position

Blitz Monster Y - Turbostar K

Position after 61. Kc1

In this position, Turbostar played 61... Rb6? and the game ended in a draw after some moves.

Instead 61... Rxb7!! (Engines like Critter find this move and the winning line in a few seconds! ) 62. Rxb7 f2 63. Rb4+ Kf5

64. Rb5+ Ke6 (64... Kg6?? 65. h5+ and White wins) 65. Rb6+ Kf7 66. Rb7+ Kg6

and the Black pawn cannot be stopped from Queening.

Tournament Crosstable (Top 5)

Rank	Program	Country	Hardware	Score	Games	SOS	SoDOS	Title
1	Mephisto Amsterdam 1	GBR	68020 (32 bit, std. freq.)	8.0	8	29.0	29.00	Champ!
2	Mephisto Amsterdam 3	GBR	68000 (16 bit)	7.0	8	27.5	24.50
3	Mephisto Amsterdam 2	GBR	68000 (16 bit)	7.0	8	27.5	24.25
4	Princhess 6	SWE	6502 (8 bit)	4.5	8	35.0	12.50
5	Blitz Monster Y	USA	6502 (8 bit)	4.0	8	36.0	14.00