Talk:Mac Hack

A fact from Mac Hack appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 29 December 2006. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that in 1967, Mac Hack became the first computer chess program to defeat a person in tournament play?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2006/December.

Wikipedia

Article name[edit]

According to the article, the name of the program is "Mac Hack." But the name of the article is "MacHack (chess)", with no space in "MacHack." Are both versions of the name correct? Is so, this should be stated; if not, the article or its title should be corrected. KarlBunker 14:43, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done unless I goofed. Good luck with your time travel article. --Susanlesch 06:01, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I think you mighta goofed. See below. Picaroon 06:11, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Image[edit]

Does Image:ChessSet2.jpg have anything to do with MacHack at all? κаллэмакс 17:09, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think so, but pictures (so long as they aren't fair use) are nice anyways, even if they're slightly irrelevant. (When writing articles on politicians I have no photo of, I've been known to just add the national flag for visual appeal.) But ask Susan, she added it. Picaroon 06:11, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes you're right it has little to do with Mac Hack (other than to show the page is not about MacHack). I like the photograph very much though because the knight is turned slightly, making it the focus and the opposite of the WikiProject Strategy Games icon (see above). The same image is in Kotok-McCarthy and could be used in NSS and Bernstein. But I don't know the model for WikiProject Chess ideal page layout. -Susanlesch 00:09, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed move, again...[edit]

Seeing as it has now been established that this, the chess program, is Mac Hack with a space and the conference is MacHack without a space, neither needs parenthetical disambiguators (is that even a word?) I propose that this article is moved to Mac Hack, the conference is moved to MacHack, and redundancy is decreased all around. Furthermore, the move was cutandpaste, which is a bad thing, because it destroys article history. I'll go make a request at WP:RM for everything to be straightened out. Picaroon 06:11, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I might be able to do without sysop powers. Hold that thought. Picaroon 06:13, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does that look all right? It's not a good idea to cut and paste pages for legal reasons, but it is easily fixed, and I've done so. Tito xd^(?!?) 06:22, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, I wasn't the one who did the cutandpaste. This should go to Mac Hack (which I've already tagged with {{db-g6}}) because it is the only Mac Hack around. MacHack (convention) needs to go to MacHack, because it is the only MacHack around. Spaces are crucial. Picaroon 06:26, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't blaming anyone, just leaving it for future reference. :) I've just moved the pages around... is that how you wanted them to look? Tito xd^(?!?) 06:31, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Thanks so much. Picaroon 06:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, now I think it is done, after all talk pages are back where they belong. Sure, no problem. Tito xd^(?!?) 06:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for not knowing move. I hope I read the PDF right. It looks like two words. Thanks for fixing this.--Susanlesch 06:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly take a lot of the blame. Besides forgetting that {{db-pagemove}} corresponds to CSD G3, not CSD G6, I thought that non-sysops can move over any redirect with one edit in history. Turns out, that's only true of redirects to the move target itself. But eveything's fine now, I think - I've checked all the talk pages for double redirects. Picaroon 06:53, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Name?[edit]

Isn't the program called MACHACK VI? All the sources I know of (Britannica, Computerhistory.org, David Levy's How Computers Play Chess) refer to it as MACHACK VI. Shouldn't the article's name be MACHACK VI then? BuddingJournalist 02:38, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Emulation?[edit]

MacHack may be notable as the oldest chess program still runnable under emulation. Any hints on how to run MacHack under PDP-10 emulation? Was it included in any standard OS distributions like TOPS-10? What 6.3 filename was it typically given? --IanOsgood (talk) 16:19, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Found it in a DECUS (DEC User Society) archive under file names CHESS.HOW and CHESS.SAV (9-Jun-70). Now it just needs a how-to for those unfamiliar with these DEC emulators and ancient operating systems. --IanOsgood (talk) 17:00, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Vs Fischer[edit]

I've just found out that three MacHack v Fischer games are online at the chessgames.com database.

From the available scores Fischer 3, MacHack 0. Other details are hinted at in the comments section. Further research may be useful.Graham1973 (talk) 16:36, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]