Sargon was introduced at the 1978 West Coast Computer Faire where it won the first computer chess tournament held strictly for microcomputers, with a score of 5–0.[2][3] This success encouraged the authors to seek financial income by selling the program directly to customers. Since magnetic media were not widely available at the time, the authors placed an advert in Byte magazine selling for $15 photocopied listings that would work in any Z80-based microcomputer.[1] Availability of the source code allowed porting to other machines.[4][5] For example, the March–April 1979 issue of Recreational Computing describes a project that converted Sargon to an 8080 program by using macros.[6][7] Later the Spracklens were contacted by Hayden Books and a book was published.[5]
Commercialization
The notation screen from Sargon I for the Apple II
When magnetic media publishing became widely available, a US Navy petty officer, Paul Lohnes, ported Sargon to the TRS-80, altering the graphics, input, and housekeeping routines but leaving the Spracklens' chess-playing algorithm intact. Paul consulted with the Spracklens, who were both living in San Diego at the time, to make the TRS-80 version an instant success with the help of Hayden Book's newly established software division: Hayden Software. Paul was not involved in further refinements to the TRS-80 version due to his reassignment to sea duty shortly after signing the deal with Hayden Software.
In the early 1980s, SARGON CHESS was ported to the Nascom (by Bits & PCs, 1981), Exidy Sorcerer, and Sharp MZ 80K.[8] A complete rewrite was necessary later for the Apple II, programmed by Kathleen's brother Gary Shannon. Both were published by Hayden Software.
Improved versions
The Spracklens made significant improvements on the original program and released Sargon II.[1] J. Mishcon reviewed Sargon II in the October 1980 issue of The Space Gamer magazine, stating that the program beat him regularly on level 5, which took 40 minutes per move.[9] He often beat the program at level 3—when it considered moves for about two minutes—and stated that "Level 0 is an idiot but responds instantly".[9][a]
Sargon 2.5, sold as a ROM module for the Chafitz Modular Game System, was identical to Sargon II but incorporated pondering.[10] It received a 1641 rating at the Paul Masson tournament in June–July 1979, and 1736 at the San Jose City College Open in January 1980.[3]
Sargon 3.0 finished in seventh place at the October 1979 North American Computer Chess Championship. The competition had improved, but 3.0 drew against Cray Blitz and easily defeated Mychess, its main microcomputer rival. In December, 3.0 easily won the second microcomputer championship in London.[3]
Sargon III was a complete rewrite. Instead of an exchange evaluator, this version used a capture searchalgorithm. Also included was a chess opening repertoire. This third version was written originally for the 6502 assembler. In 1978, Sargon was converted to Z80 neumonics/assembler code by Paul H. Lohnes, as self taught computer enthusiast while he was still in the US Navy. He sold the publishing rights to Hayden Software for the Radio Shack TRS-80 platform. It was commercially published for other computing platforms by Hayden Software in 1983. Apple contacted the Spracklens and, after a port for 68000assembly, Sargon III was the first third-party executable software for the Macintosh.[1]
Legacy
After the demise of Hayden Software, later chess programs were also released under the name Sargon, including Sargon 4 (Spinnaker Software), Sargon V (Activision) and a CD-i title simply named Sargon Chess. The CD-i game received 75% from the French magazine Génération 4.[11] A compilation titled 4-in-1 Fun Pak was released for the Game Boy in 1992. One of the games in the compilation is Sargon Chess.[12]
The Spracklens concurrently wrote the engines for the dedicated chess computers produced by Fidelity Electronics, which won the first four World Microcomputer Chess Championships.
The Botvinnik game
Animation of game against Botvinnik
The three-time world chess championMikhail Botvinnik played a game with Sargon in 1983 at Hamburg. He did not play his best moves but only tested the program's capabilities. Botvinnik himself was also involved in chess program development.
^Mishcon stated, "As a reference, I play medium chess, know a few openings, and play regularly with a guy rated 1200+ by the United States Chess Federation."[9]
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