HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Subject: Re: EBS Tournament
Reply-To: kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlaub)
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 22:09:08 GMT

In article <92279.132548AZNXS@ASUACAD.BITNET>, <AZNXS@ASUACAD.BITNET> writes:
> I would like to recommend the last eliminating system for the tournament.
> I think it's very usefull if there are many warrior in the tournament.
> The system is the following:

Ideally, after competition between all pars of programs is done, the score
matrix should be constructed, and then added to weighted powers of itself.  This
way, if program A beats B, and B beats C, then A gets some indirect points for
beating C, even if it didn't do well against C directly.

  Of course you need near unlimited computer resources to run a tournament that
size. :)

 |  __L__   *******************************
-|-  ___    * Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub   *
 |  | o |   * kv07@iastate.edu            *
 |/ `---'   * Iowa State University       *
/|   ___    * Math Department             *
 |  |___|   * 400 Carver Hall             *
 |  |___|   * Ames, IA  50011             *
 J  _____   *******************************
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 09:03:00 EDT
From: Jeff Raven <JAR129@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar
Subject: Re: ICWS'88 questions
 <92271.215156JAR129@psuvm.psu.edu>
 <1992Sep29.061348.29540@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>

[Let me introduce a little line numbering to make things easier.]

>01      alpha   equ     1+1
>02      beta    equ     label-3
>03      gamma   equ     label2-label

>04              dat     #alpha
>05              dat     #beta
>06              dat     #gamma
>07      label   spl     666
>08      label2  jmp     label

>Now, the first data statement should obviously evaluate to dat #2
>(that's absolute).  The second would make more sense if it evaluated
>as dat #-1 (that's relative).  The third should probably evaluate to
>dat #1 (the number of core locations from label to label2), since the
>relative addressing would "drop out" when subtracting two labels
>(that's absolute).  My question should have been, "How does the
>assembler make this determination?"

Simply put - it doesn't. There's no need to. The reason for this
is more or less because a redcode EQUate is the same thing as a
#define in C - the value to the right of the equate is just
substituted for the label whereever it appears. Now, in the case
above, this means that lines would look like this :

04           DAT #1+1
05           DAT #label - 3
06           DAT #label2 - label
07 label     SPL 666
08 label2    JMP label

This would be done in a sort of "pre-processing" pass. Then,
on the next pass, the equations would be evaluated - using all
relative addresses.

04           DAT #2
05           DAT #2 - 3 ---->  DAT #-1
06           DAT #2 - 1 ---->  DAT #1
07 label     SPL 666
08 label2    JMP -1

Which gives the exact same code you were looking for.
(Without having to muck around with relative + relative
is relative, relative - relative is absolute, ....)

I hope that answers your question. Feel free to ask any more.

Jeff Raven
jar129@psuvm.psu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar
From: jonn@microsoft.com (Jon Newman)
Subject: Re: Rules and Memory Sizes
Date: 06 Oct 92 01:57:09 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

In article <1992Oct05.135140.27571@bas-a.bcc.ac.uk> you write:
>Hi,
>
>We use core wars to teach our postgraduate students about
>machine code programming.  This year, we're thinking of
>setting the memory bound to 10000, so that arithmetic is
>easier.  Has anyone any views on this?
>
>Finally, could someone let me have a copy of the latest
>rules, especially what instruction set to use.
>
>Regards,
>
>Mick

Clearly, decimal arithmetic is easier for the writer
of fighter programs, but more difficult and slower
for the writer of Core War simulators.  The old 8000
standard did have some advantages, not least a wide
variety of divisors, but I don't see us moving off
2^^N standard coresizes.

You can get the latest rules via FTP from the Core War
Archive, read the FAQ.  For a printed copy, send US$4
to me (check made out to Jon Newman) at

Jon Newman
Director, ICWS
13824 NE 87th Street
Redmond, WA  98052-1959
-- 
jonn@microsoft.com    

This is not the official opinion of Microsoft Corporation.  Bill Rules!
Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar
From: dak@vlsi.polymtl.ca (Pierre Baillargeon (Hiv91))
Subject: Redcode question (Was: ICWS'88 questions)
Organization: Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 00:32:33 GMT

  While we're on redcode, what is the order of evaluation of operand ?  Is
it always A then B, B then A or on a per instruction basis ? for example:

jmz <-1,<-1

This could execute in many different ways if the B operand is evaluated first,
compared to what would happen if the A operand is first calculated, as one 
could think (the test is done before the jump destination is read).
--
"Pis Bourassa qui est toujours la.  Y'a pas d'remede contre le SIDA" - French B
...........................................................dak@info.polymtl.ca
From: AZNXS@ASUACAD.BITNET
Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar
Subject: Re: EBS Tournament
Date: 5 Oct 92 20:25:48 GMT
Article-I.D.: ASUACAD.92279.132548AZNXS
Organization: Arizona State University

I would like to recommend the last eliminating system for the tournament.
I think it's very usefull if there are many warrior in the tournament.
The system is the following:

Suppose we have n warrior. Depending on n every warrior battles with
let say n/3 to n-1 other warriors. This gives us an order. In the next
step the worst (could be more) warrior is eliminated. And so on.
Of course in the next step we can use the results from the previus step
but the scores against the eliminated warriors does not count.
In this way the k-th warrior is always wors than the avarage first k-1
warrior especially #1 beats #2.
Nandor.
Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar
From: wms@ssd.intel.com (William Shubert)
Subject: Re: EBS Tournament
Organization: Supercomputer Systems Division, Intel Corp.
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 21:33:30 GMT

I think that it was MAD who suggested:
>1. Run an isolated tournament specifically for choosing finalists.
>   Warriors would be submitted via email to the tournament coordinator on
>   or before November 15, 1992.  This is what we have done in the past.
>
>2. Use the top ten warriors on the KotH hill as of midnight, November 15,
>   1992.

Option (2) only makes sense if KotH is modified to a core size of 8192.  I'd
be willing to do this temporarily (or maybe set up a third hill for this
purpose).  It'd be easy since core size can be specified at the command line
of KotH.
				-Bill (wms@iwarp.intel.com)
From: rhino@r2d2.eeap.cwru.edu (Rhino Project)
Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar
Subject: What is this place?
Date: 30 Sep 1992 21:21:29 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve Univ. Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: marvin.eeap.cwru.edu

Can anybody email me what this place for. I assume the game designed
at AT&T for the old machines.
                                         Carlin

-- 
Carlin E. Wiegner              | rhino@eeap.cwru.edu
Triumvirate Industries, Inc.   | aj681@cleveland.freenet.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar
From: t-jcisek@microsoft.com (Julius Cisek)
Subject: Re: EBS Tournament
Date: 05 Oct 92 06:22:54 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

In article <67050@cup.portal.com> durham@cup.portal.com (Mark Allen Durham) writes:
>This meeting of the EBS will come to order:
>
>The EBS is the Electronic Branch Section of the International Core War
>Society.  Basically, if you have access to email, then you are a member of
>the EBS.
>
>Our immediate order of business is to determine how to run our tournament
>to determine the warriors we will be sending to the annual ICWS tournament.
>
>Our current options include:
>
>1. Run an isolated tournament specifically for choosing finalists.
>   Warriors would be submitted via email to the tournament coordinator on
>   or before November 15, 1992.  This is what we have done in the past.
>
>2. Use the top ten warriors on the KotH hill as of midnight, November 15,
>   1992.

It really ought to be 1.  We all know that Koth standings mean very little.
The current trend, not the quality of the warrior, would decide the winners.

What kind of tournament would you be thinking of running?  A KotH type
thing with unlimited players?  Or something more like the old ICWS
tournaments (which in my opinion were way too random)?

							Jules

-- 
Julius Andrew Cisek                ,_,
t-jcisek@microsoft.com   "Joy!"   /oo \  _.-.   "Quiet, you bloated
One Microsoft Way     //          <>__| /- O O       idiot!"
Redmond, WA 98052   \X/           |  U|    \|
From: benrg@ocf.berkeley.edu (Ben Rudiak-Gould)
Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar
Subject: ICWS'88 questions
Date: 28 Sep 1992 00:57:42 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: earthquake.berkeley.edu

I'm trying to write a Core War assembler and interpreter, and in the
process I've run into what seem to be ambiguities in the ICWS'88
standard.  I've got one question about MARS, and several about the
assembler.

The MARS question is:

   The SLT instruction is supposed to increment the PC a second time
   if "the A value is less than the B value."  Unfortunately, "less
   than" is meaningless in modular arithmetic.  How should I perform
   this comparison?

The assembler questions are:

   ICWS'88 states that instruction operands should be separated by
   spaces or tabs.  I took that to mean that the operands themselves
   shouldn't have any whitespace in them.  However, the list of legal
   Redcode instructions at the end of the document shows a space
   between the addressing mode and the value of each operand.  Is
   this an error or is it intentional?

   Do expressions follow the standard precedence rules, or are they
   evaluated left-to-right?  Are parenthesis allowed?

   Assuming for the moment that parenthesis are allowed, would
   (-5000)/2 when the core size is 8000 be evaluated as:
	-2500? (If the division is done before any modulus)
	1500?  (If the -5000 is immediately converted to 3000)
	5500?  (If the result is -2500, but this is then converted
		to the range 0..7999)

   And would (4000+4000)/2 be evaluated as:
	0?     (If the 8000 is converted to 0 before the division)
	4000?  (If no modulus is done until after the arithmetic)
	-4000? (As 4000, but the result is converted to -4000..3999)

   According to ICWS'88, all instructions should include A and B
   parameters.  Does this mean that instructions like "JMP 10" are
   illegal?  I would like to be as ICWS'88-compliant as possible,
   but always having to specify a second parameter seems a bit
   annoying.

   Labels must start in the first column.  Are instruction mnemonics
   allowed to start there?

   How do I decide whether to make values relative or absolute?  My
   instinct is to store an absolute value when the addressing mode
   is immediate, and a PC-relative value otherwise, but is this
   "standard" practice?

I'd like official answers rather than guesses, if possible (any
"guesses" of Thomas Gettys or Jon Newman excepted, of course :-).

Thanks for any help you can give.

--
Ben Rudiak-Gould
benrg@ocf.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar
From: pk6811s@acad.drake.edu
Subject: Re: EBS Tournament
Organization: Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, USA
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 17:02:13 GMT

>>
>>1. Run an isolated tournament specifically for choosing finalists.
>>   Warriors would be submitted via email to the tournament coordinator on
>>   or before November 15, 1992.  This is what we have done in the past.
>>
>>2. Use the top ten warriors on the KotH hill as of midnight, November 15,
>>   1992.
> 
> I suggest we take suggestion #2, only move the date back to November 10.
> That way I have time to submit any warriors that didn't make it, but
> which might perform better in a larger tournament.
>
>Paul Kline
From: durham@cup.portal.com (Mark Allen Durham)
Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar
Subject: EBS Tournament
Date: Fri,  2 Oct 92 03:29:12 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: world

This meeting of the EBS will come to order:

The EBS is the Electronic Branch Section of the International Core War
Society.  Basically, if you have access to email, then you are a member of
the EBS.

Our immediate order of business is to determine how to run our tournament
to determine the warriors we will be sending to the annual ICWS tournament.

Our current options include:

1. Run an isolated tournament specifically for choosing finalists.
   Warriors would be submitted via email to the tournament coordinator on
   or before November 15, 1992.  This is what we have done in the past.

2. Use the top ten warriors on the KotH hill as of midnight, November 15,
   1992.

I would like to hear which of these two options you support and suggestions
for other ways to run the tournament.

Other business:

The EBS standards committee is continuing to work on a draft of a new
standard for possible adoption by the ICWS in 1994.

The EBS needs to establish a less ad-hoc way of conducting its business.
To that end, volunteers with relatively permanent email addresses and an
idea of what it is they can do for the EBS are encouraged to contact me.
The ultimate goal is to write a constitution and have a vote as to whether
to adopt it or not.

Upcoming dates of interest:

November  1, 1992:  The first anniversary of rec.games.corewar.
November 15, 1992:  The EBS tournament.
December 15, 1992:  The ICWS tournament.

Mark A. Durham
MAD
From: dak@vlsi.polymtl.ca (Pierre Baillargeon (Hiv91))
Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar
Subject: Re: ICWS'88 questions
Date: 28 Sep 92 19:16:27 GMT
Organization: Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal


  As for the operand value calculation, I sure the modulo is applied only when
the whole expression is evaluated.  I know because:

  - I've read the koth sources.
  - MARS on the amiga has a separate assembler from the simulator and thus
    evaluate the expression without any kind of modulo (only done at load or
    execute time (probably the latter since we can modify the core size at
    any time in MARS for the Amiga).

--
"Pis Bourassa qui est toujours la.  Y'a pas d'remede contre le SIDA" - French B
...........................................................dak@info.polymtl.ca
Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar
Subject: To: durham@cup.portal.com
From: mgro1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (Matthew Warren      Grove          )
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 22:21:20 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept. University of Auckland
Keywords: amiga,corewar
Summary: re getting corewars for the amiga

Subject: Re:  The MADgic Core

Thanks, I would be interested in getting the program from you, so if you could
specify address, necessary funds/disks etc. I would be grateful. My system
is a humble A500 ( almost 4 years old! ), with a 52Meg Quantum and a total of
3 Meg of memory. If at all possible source code would be nice, but I will
understand if you are reluctant to distribute it. Naturally files can be
archived will LHarc/Lha.

Hope to hear from you soon, as our year ends in a couple of weeks and no more
unix until next year ;-)

My address :    Matthew Grove
		92 Lone Kauri Road
		Karekare
		R.D 2 Auckland 7
		New Zealand

Regards, Matthew


-- 
================================================================================
=   Matthew Grove             "Write good code, test it, then make it great!"  =
=    New Zealand                             "C the light"                     =
================================================================================
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 11:09:40 EDT
From: Jeff Raven <JAR129@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar
Subject: Re: Redcode question (Was: ICWS'88 questions)
 <1992Sep30.003233.3212@vlsi.polymtl.ca>

In article <1992Sep30.003233.3212@vlsi.polymtl.ca>, dak@vlsi.polymtl.ca (Pierre
Baillargeon (Hiv91)) says:

>  While we're on redcode, what is the order of evaluation of operand ?  Is
>it always A then B, B then A or on a per instruction basis ? for example:

>jmz <-1,<-1

The first field evaluated in a redcode instruction is always the A-field.
Once it has been handled (ie. changed from a relative to an absolute
memory location, predecremented, and the final address determined),
evaluation then moves on to the B-field, where the same process is
repeated.

Jeff Raven
jar129@psuvm.psu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar
From: d91andiv@IDA.LiU.SE (Anders Ivner)
Subject: DAT 0, how?
Organization: CIS Dept, University of Linkoping, Sweden
Distribution: rec
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 11:56:27 GMT

I have a problem with the DAT 0 instruction:

In MARS 4.0 the default memory contents are DAT 0,0 's.
However, DAT 0,0 will compile to DAT #0,0 making it impossible
for my CMP-scanner to avoid hitting itself. (CMP differs
between the two intructions.)

What is the default memory contents in KoTH? It can't be
DAT 0,0 since this is not a valid instruction according to
the KoTH daemon.

Both MARS and KoTH claim to be fully ICWS'88 compatible, so
this smells like a ompatibility problem to me...

    Anders Ivner.
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 21:51:56 EDT
From: Jeff Raven <JAR129@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar
Subject: Re: ICWS'88 questions

I can answer a few of these definitely - the modular arithmetic questions
I'll leave to someone else.

In article <1a5la6INN6pq@agate.berkeley.edu>, benrg@ocf.berkeley.edu (Ben
Rudiak-Gould) says:

>The MARS question is:

>   The SLT instruction is supposed to increment the PC a second time
>   if "the A value is less than the B value."  Unfortunately, "less
>   than" is meaningless in modular arithmetic.  How should I perform
>   this comparison?

The SLT comparison is done as though the values weren't actually modular,
but just two positive integers between 0 and (coresize - 1). In other
words, SLT A, B means SKIP if (0 <= A < B).

>   According to ICWS'88, all instructions should include A and B
>   parameters.  Does this mean that instructions like "JMP 10" are
>   illegal?  I would like to be as ICWS'88-compliant as possible,
>   but always having to specify a second parameter seems a bit
>   annoying.

When assembled, every command has an A and a B-field, but every redcode
instruction doesn't have to have both. In particular, JMP, SPL and DAT
may only have one field when written in redcode. For JMP and SPL, the
missing field is assumed to be the B-Field, and it is set to zero. For
DAT, the missing field is assumed to be the A-Field, and is set
to zero.

In short :
         JMP A ---> JMP A, #0
         SPL A ---> SPL A, #0
         DAT A ---> DAT #0, A

>   Labels must start in the first column.  Are instruction mnemonics
>   allowed to start there?

Yes.

>   How do I decide whether to make values relative or absolute?  My
>   instinct is to store an absolute value when the addressing mode
>   is immediate, and a PC-relative value otherwise, but is this
>   "standard" practice?

When you assemble a redcode program, you don't change any of the values
of the fields (aside from converting them modulo coresize). When executing
the program, then, yes, immediate mode is absolute, while all others are
relative.

Hope that helps.

Jeff Raven
jar129@psuvm.psu.edu
From: durham@cup.portal.com (Mark Allen Durham)
Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar
Subject: RE: DAT 0, 0 vs DAT #0, #0
Date: Fri,  2 Oct 92 04:00:40 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: world

RE: Is it DAT 0, 0 or DAT #0, #0?  How do I compare to core?

Under ICWS'88 rules, core is initialized to DAT 0, 0.  This is an "illegal"
instruction under ICWS'88 and strictly compliant assemblers (such as KotH)
will not let you write a DAT 0, 0 instruction - only DAT #0, #0.

The MADgic Core assembler - ASR - is not strictly compliant in that it
allows all grammatically-correct instructions and does not flag any
so called "illegal" instructions.  It is left up to the programmer not to
use illegal instructions when developing code for KotH or ICWS tournaments.
On the other hand, if you want to experiment with MOV #a, #b you can do so.
This feature merely reflects my bias against illegal instructions.

So the question is "How to compare instructions to see if one is empty
core?".  The answer is, most likely the instruction before your first
instruction and/or the instruction after your last instruction are both
DAT 0, 0.  You can use them, or any other likely unmodified instructions,
for comparisons.

In fact, in KotH, if the number of instructions in your program is N, all
of the instructions from N to 99 (relative to your first instruction at
location 0) are guaranteed to be DAT 0, 0 at the beginning of the battle.
This is because KotH allots 100 instructions to your warrior, whether you
use all 100 or not, and guarantees warriors will not overlap.

Mark A. Durham
MAD
Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar
From: d91andiv@IDA.LiU.SE (Anders Ivner)
Subject: Re: EBS Tournament
Organization: CIS Dept, University of Linkoping, Sweden
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 20:23:22 GMT

I don't know how reliable the result is if you run an internal tournament,
but the KotH results are far too arbitrary to be reliable for any but maybe
the top five warriors. My 'X-ray 2.0' has been bouncing up and down between
positions 8 to 20 the last days. You can actually gain 10 positions if a
warrior that you beat pushes one that beats you off the hill.

Just my personsal opinion, ofcourse.

       Anders Ivner
  d91andiv@und.ida.lui.se
Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar
From: ama@athena.mit.edu (Albert Ma)
Subject: KOTH
Keywords: KOTH
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 19:45:32 GMT

Hi everybody!  I just got started on corewar.

Is it okay to use SPL 0 commands, and other similar tactics, in KOTH?  The 8000
process limit per program makes this tactic very powerful.  How about in ICWS
tourneys?
From: edguer@ces.cwru.edu (Aydin Edguer)
Newsgroups: rec.games.rogue
Subject: Re: urogue for unix
Date: 30 Sep 1992 22:27:20 GMT
Organization: Computer Engineering and Science, Case Western Reserve University
Distribution: rec
NNTP-Posting-Host: sentinel.ces.cwru.edu

In article <1992Sep26.1540.352@channel1> "herb chong" <herb.chong@channel1.com> writes:
> in fact, there are so few working versions of Unix urogue anymore that
> i wonder if anyone ever got a proper copy.

Are you still doing semi-active development on urogue?
Do you ever plan to "officially" release urogue?
[All the versions I ever saw had notes saying that the source was not
for release]

Aydin Edguer
Newsgroups: rec.games.rogue
Subject: Re: urogue for unix
From: gouvea@zariski.harvard.edu (Fernando Gouvea)
Date: 27 Sep 92 08:15:17 EDT
Distribution: rec
Organization: Colby College Dept. of Math/CS

In article <1992Sep26.1540.352@channel1> "herb chong" <herb.chong@channel1.com> writes:
>TM>	Herb Chong (the author) told me about a year ago he was
>TM>going to port urogue to the PC.
>TM>	urogue is *the* rogue game. Accept no substitutes.
>
>the PC version has been done for a while. what hasn't been done is 
>rewriting in C++ and porting to Windows. i have sent diskettes to people 
>who sent me SASE with a 3.5 diskette. 

Could we have an address, please? (You may be about to be flooded with 
requests...)

-- 
============================================================================
Fernando Q. Gouvea				fqgouvea@colby.edu
Dept. of Math/CS				(207)-872-3278
Colby College					Mudd 407