Microchess Remembered

Playing chess has always been a bellwether for computers. The game isn’t trivial, but the rules are managably simple. However, the game is too complex to be easily solved entirely, so you have to use tricky software to play a credible game. Big computers do have an advantage, of course. But Microchess — arguably the first commercial game for home computers — was able to play on tiny machines like the Kim-1. [Joachim Froholt] interviewed [Peter Jennings] — the man behind Microchess to learn the whole story of its creation.

In 1960, [Jennings] was ten years old and had to persuade the local librarian to let him read adult books on electronics and computers. Five years later, a ham radio teletype and some circuitry helped him practice chess openings and was the first of many chess-playing machines he’d build or program.

Microchess itself took six months of painstaking programming, entering hex codes into the computer. Word leaked out from a user’s group meeting (where Microchess beat a human player), and [Jennings] was swamped with requests for the program. In late 1976, the program was offered for sale as a teletype listing or, for an extra $3, a cassette tape.

The program went on to be very successful and moved to other platforms. Commodore even made a special dedicated device based on the Kim-1 to play Microchess, a piece of hardware unique enough that [Michael Gardi] honored it with one of his phenomenal replicas.

8 thoughts on “Microchess Remembered

  1. I remember Microchess. I thought it was pretty cool considering the limits of the Kim-1 and Commodore systems at the time.

    I was in Alaska (I had the first store selling Apple II and Commodore PET systems). I moved on to S100 bus systems, and the applications got better.

    I had a couple of friends who were former Burroughs programmers who started selling Cromemco systems. (Bill Hutchinson and Dave Kittinger.) Dave loved to play chess. He was trying to make a chess program that would play at a Master level. Bill kept saying things like, “Dave, will you quit fooling around with that chess program and make something that will make us some money? Something like a good bookkeeping journal?”

    Well, Dave never lost interest in the chess game, and he eventually came out with a game called MyChess which ended up being the 2nd most successful chess game for 8080 and Z80 computers. (The most popular was “Sargon”.) A version of MyChess powered a stand alone chess toy called “Boris”. (So, there, Bill!)

    Dave ended up moving to Arizona where he invented the famous Chessmaster series. Until Chessmaster was bought by UbiSoft, at least through Chessmaster 500, I could go to the “About” menu and discover an Easter egg that mentioned Dave in a thank you. My last version of Chessmaster (10th Edition), which I still play on an old Windows 7 machine, does not have the Easter egg.

  2. In 1960, [Jennings] was ten years old and had to persuade the local librarian to let him read adult books on electronics and computers.

    It’s so frustrating that this is a very common experience. Kids just don’t deliberately read books that they’re not getting something from. If a book is too advanced for them at a particular moment they’ll naturally put it aside until they’re ready for it.

    It’s not like they’re talking about “adult” in the sense of sex. (That’s a different argument!)

    1. Exactly, I was thinking same when reading these lines.

      Thinking about, it must be a psychological thing. And a matter of authority mentality.
      People back then often couldn’t comprehend that children are very capable, maybe even outperforming the adult in question.

      The librarian, in particular, must have faced an inner conflict here.
      On one hand, he surely meant good while simultanously had to overcome himself to hand out advanced literature to what he thought was “just” an inexperienced kid.

      But I don’t mean to judge the librarian too hard here.
      After all, he/she gave in after having a talk with the boy and realized he’s not the usual kid.

    2. Abou the other “thing”, I was playing Larry 1 at age of 7 and it didn’t harm me.
      I rather laughed because of the whacky humor. 😂

      As far as the topic itself is concerned.. it’s difficult.
      Usually, the very young kids either don’t know what’s going or they’re disgusted.
      The others, the little nerds, take the matter on a biological/facts level and are more down to earth than teens or their parents.
      The others who’re explicitly after, uh, graphical content might already be prepared to what they might see.

      Last but not least, s?x ed is just normal in school in many countries around the globe, with kids being at age 10-15.
      Because at that age, they enter puberty and need this knowledge (as if they didn’t know already).
      The books in biology lessons have pictures of all the parts.
      But on an educational, medical level of course. No pin ups included. ;)

  3. Great stuff, really love the use of commodore block graphics to display the pieces: the knight is particularly clever. There’s a listing for Microchess at 6502.org I believe. It ranks alongside 1k Chess and Boot Chess for compactness. Some small chess games like Toledo Chess have very little code, but unless you know how much additional storage they take, it’s hard to know how to port them to really tiny platforms.

    I have a dedicated chess computer, based on an 8-bit 6801 platform. It’s got a physical board and I think it has 16 LEDs to show where you need to place its move.

  4. I am forever grateful to the librarian who allowed me to browse those adult stacks. Even though the only electronics books in our local library were from the 1930s and 1940s they provided me with the information I sought to begin experimenting with dry cells and lights and switches. I received a soldering iron for my 10th birthday. Building radios soon followed. Popular Electronics magazine became my monthly reading. I wish I could learn as quickly today as I did back then.

    I don’t know why children were not allowed in those stacks, other than that is just the way things were done back then. Probably still true today.

    Thank you, Al for noticing Joachim’s interview and taking me back down memory lane.

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