The chess games of Mac Hack VI (Computer)

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Mac Hack VI (Computer)

Number of games in database: 11
Years covered: 1967 to 1978
Overall record: +3 -7 =1 (31.8%)*
* Overall winning percentage = (wins+draws/2) / total games.

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MAC HACK VI (COMPUTER)
United States of America
[what is this?]

Mac Hack VI was a common informal name for the computer chess program developed by Richard Greenblatt at MIT in the 1960s. It was the first program to play in a human chess tournament and gain an official rating. The program was never formally named; it was generally referred to as "MacHack", "Greenblatt", or one of many variations of those two names.
https://www.chessprogramming.org/Ma...

Last updated: 2023-10-04 07:24:31

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page 1 of 1; 11 games

Game		Result	Moves	Year	Event/Locale	Opening
1. H Dreyfus vs Mac Hack VI		0-1	37	1967	The Dreyfus Match	C50 Giuoco Piano
2. Conroy vs Mac Hack VI		½-½	34	1967	Winter Amateur Tournament	C58 Two Knights
3. C E Wagner vs Mac Hack VI		1-0	55	1967	Winter Amateur Tournament	A00 Uncommon Opening
4. Mac Hack VI vs B Landey		1-0	21	1967	Boston Amateur ch	B20 Sicilian
5. CHARLY vs Mac Hack VI		0-1	41	1968	MIT v ETH computer radio match	C43 Petrov, Modern Attack
6. P Haley vs Mac Hack VI		1-0	47	1969	Labour Day Open	A04 Reti Opening
7. Mac Hack VI vs J Curdo		0-1	35	1971	Greater Boston Open	C82 Ruy Lopez, Open
8. Fischer vs Mac Hack VI		1-0	21	1977	Computer Match	C33 King's Gambit Accepted
9. Mac Hack VI vs Fischer		0-1	39	1977	Computer Match	B92 Sicilian, Najdorf, Opocensky Variation
10. Mac Hack VI vs Fischer		0-1	47	1977	Computer Match	B27 Sicilian
11. Mac Hack VI vs D Levy		0-1	43	1978	Human - Computer m	B71 Sicilian, Dragon, Levenfish Variation

REFINE SEARCH: White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2) | Mac Hack VI wins | Mac Hack VI loses

Nov-13-21		MissScarlett: Oooops, all the (historically interesting?) kibitzing for <Greenblatt (Computer> disappeared! I thought that wasn't meant to happen. Let's hope its recoverable... If anyone's got a tab opened with the original kibitzing, make a copy, just in case. God knows what <zanzibore> will say!

Nov-13-21		Z truth 000000001: I've noticed, but is there anything constructive to add to this? Biographer Bistro (kibitz #22403) Other than to caution against merges until secret, and not so secret, desires be met? .

Nov-13-21		Tabanus: https://web.archive.org/web/2018101... is the last archived page, from 18 Oct 2018.

Nov-13-21		Z truth 000000001: There's another cautionary tale in this story... what should the proper name be? * * * * * The original title of the program is contained in this Fall 1967 academic paper: <The Greenblatt chess program> https://d1yx3ys82bpsa0.cloudfront.n... * * * * * The name <Mac Hack VI> is a portmanteau (?) of MIT's Project MAC, the culture, and the hardware (i.e. VI is for DEC's PDP-6). In 2005 we have an interview with Greenblatt where he basically just refers to it as his chess program. http://archive.computerhistory.org/... (Hack appears 11 times, none in the context of "Mac Hack". OTH, PDP shows up 47 times. ) * * * * * Which brings us to the final point in the evolution. By 1977 the program was being run on a PDP-10, and I believe the name dropped the reference to the obsolete hardware, becoming <Mac Hack>. (Or maybe <MacHack>, <MACHACK>, etc., etc.> If you do a google books search on <Fischer Greenblatt chess 1977> I don't think you'll see a single <Mac Hack VI> reference, at least I didn't. One 2018 reference, which used <MacHack> (or should that be <MACHACK>?), contained a little more info: <<>In 1975 [Fischer] refused to defend his title ... And then, surprise, he wanted to play games against a computer. Not much is known about the circumstances under which the games were played. Greenblatt was not present. No pictures were taken. The program's logs of the game have not been published. Fischer submitted the game scores to a fledgling publication, the <Computer Chess Newsletter>, without comments.<>> <Man vs Machine - Mueller, Schaeffer (2018)> https://books.google.com/books?id=0... (Now, if I might make a request to <CG> - please don't lose this useful post.)

Nov-13-21		Z truth 000000001: <Tab>, I found a cached version from Google - which should be the most recent. The trouble with the Google cached version, or either of the Wayback captures, is that only the latest page of kibitzing is available, i.e. the oldest kibitzing seems to only be available on <CG> (hopefully available).

Nov-13-21		Tabanus: Greenblatt should have been the "good" pid, then change the name afterwards. The kibitzing of the "bad" pid disappears.

Nov-13-21		MissScarlett: So what happened to the kibitzing before my post above? I'm sure there was something.

Nov-13-21		Z truth 000000001: This fish never played Bobby. https://d1yx3ys82bpsa0.cloudfront.n... .

Nov-13-21		MissScarlett: Fischer simply called it the <Greenblatt program> (Fischer vs Greenblatt, 1977 (kibitz #104)), but he also called Karpov and Kasparov the <lowest dogs around>, or words to that effect. I won't go into what he called Yasser Seirawan.

Nov-13-21		Z truth 000000001: It's just Greenblatt here: https://d1yx3ys82bpsa0.cloudfront.n... BTW- shouldn't a hack like Mac be bistro'ed before kibitzing gets deceasedo'ed?

Nov-13-21		Z truth 000000001: FWIW- I love the way Penrod actually reproduces Bobby's © notice in the games section. Maybe CG should do the same? .

Nov-13-21		MissScarlett: I wonder if the Soviets did it for the Russian edition of <MSMG>.

Nov-13-21		MissScarlett: David Levy has a piece in the November 1978 <Chess Life & Review>, p.600, which indicates that he, if not Greenblatt, was still using the name <Mac Hack>, but not the <VI>. I'll upload his game with it later, but the article's here: http://uscf1-nyc1.aodhosting.com/CL...

Jan-29-23		rwbean: https://web.archive.org/web/2019042... .... AN INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD D. GREENBLATT November 25, 1992 in Madrid, Spain [Richard D. Greenblatt, Guest of Honour at the 7th World Computer-Chess Championship, granted an interview to H. Jaap van den Herik ...] What about your program's famous human opponents? "Well, I was not actually present at the most famous games, but they certainly were those against Dreyfus and against Fischer." Some of the games are recorded. For instance, the Fischer games are recorded. He played three of them, did not he? "I think so. Again, I don't know. I wasn't there at the time and what was recorded is recorded, but I really don't know anything about it." ... But you must be happy that Fischer played your program, or not? "Well, it's sort of nice, but I don't really have any great feeling either way. A number of Masters did play the program that I was aware of, because I analyzed the games and so forth. Bent Larsen came to Boston once and I had a discussion with him and he played some. Among the Masters of course, there were Kaufman, Baisley and a fellow named Carl Wagner, all three were National Masters and students at MIT. The program also played several masters in human tournaments that it entered. They were Swiss-system tournaments and it would typically get paired with a Master just about every tournament."

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