Atom bombs in empire

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2 total messages Started by and... Andrew Thomas Tue, 19 Dec 1989 23:13

#527

Author: and... Andrew Thomas
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 1989 23:13

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About 6 years ago I was working on a Vax750 in VMSand found the game
of Empire.  After trying it for some time, I told a friend who is a
wargame fanatic about it.  He sat playing for a couple of hours, and
had the enemy on the run when I decided I was bored of working.  I
wrote a little script which waited for a few minutes and then sent a
message to his terminal, waited, sent etc.  Then I went and watched
his game as he was playing.  The game went something like this:

Game:   Enemy aircraft carrier at (37,14) struck an iceberg and sank.
Kevin:  Holy Shit! he's got aircraft carries already?  And I have to
	watch out for icebergs?  Cool.
<play on>
<assorted innocent messages>
Game:	Near miss on your city at (12,55) by neutron bomb.  Production
	down to one half.
Kevin:	Neutron bomb?  Where was that in the rules?
Me:	I think it gets a little more stuff because the computer is
	not as smart as you are.
Kevin:	hmmm.
Me:	I wonder how it knew your city was there.
Game:	High flying scout planes, of course.
Kevin:	Holy cow! that's just what I was thinking too.  I'd love to
	meet the guy who wrote this game!

Re: Atom bombs in empire

#528

Author: b... Barry Shein
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 1989 22:06

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Many years ago at Harvard, when we first put up V6 Unix two of our
staff (not really computer sophisticates) discovered the chess game.

One of our local hackers and myself snuck off to another room and
began putting messages on their terminal that we hoped would slowly
but surely amaze them. We started with canned looking things like
"Good move!" and worked along to more and more unlikely comments (from
a program.)

They seemed non-plussed so we went back and just sent the comment "No
fair! Two on one!" figuring that should give it away.

Still no response.

So we wander over and look over their shoulders to make sure they're
getting the messages. Sure enough (this was a paper terminal) they
were all there. So I inquired why they thought the program had said
"No fair! Two on one!" and they answered, without looking up, "we just
moved a second rook onto its queen!"

We gave up.
-- 
        -Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die, Purveyors to the Trade         | b...@world.std.com
1330 Beacon St, Brookline, MA 02146, (617) 739-0202 | {xylogics,uunet}world!bzs

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