MCCT 1978,
the World's First Microcomputer Chess Tournament took place from March 3-5, 1978, during the Second West Coast Computer Faire, San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California. At the ACM 1977, David Levy made the suggestion to organize a Microcomputer Chess Tournament to Douglas Penrod, editor of the Computer Chess Newsletter ^[2] . Therefor, the Second West Coast Computer Faire hosted the event, announced January 1978 in the Silicon Gulch Gazette, a free publication associated with the Faire, edited by Jim Warren ^[3] ^[4] . Larry Wagner, at that time affiliated with Atari, served as tournament director. The winning program, called Sargon, was a 16 Kbyte Z-80 assembler program written by a husband and wife team, Kathe and Dan Spracklen ^[5] ^[6] .

Final Standing

#	Program	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	P	Class
1	Sargon	9_1	4_1		5_1	2_1	8_1	5	A - 1
2	Commodore ChessMate		8_½	3_1	9_½	1_0	5_1	3	B - 1
3	Boris	5_½		2_0	bye½	9_1	4_1	3	B - 1
4	Chess Challenger	6_1	1_0		8_1	7_1	3_0	3	B - 1
5	8080 Chess	3_½	10_1		1_0	8_1	2_0	2½	A - 2
6	SD Chess	4_0	9_0		11_1		7_1	2	C - 1
7	Tenberg Basic Chess	11_1			10_1	4_0	6_0	2	C - 1
8	Steve Stuart Chess	10_1	2_½		4_0	5_0	1_0	1½	B - 2
9	CompuChess	1_0	6_1		2_½	3_0		1½	B - 2
10	Compucolor Chess	8_0	5_0		7_0		11_1	1	A - 3
11	Mark Watson Chess	7_0			6_0		10_0	0	C - 2

SD Chess

Jim Warren (1978). Microcomputer Chess Tournament Announcement. Silicon Gulch Gazette, Vol. 2, No. 2, January 24, 1978, pp. 4
Larry Wagner (1978). Results of First Microcomputer Chess Tournament. Silicon Gulch Gazette, Vol. 2, No. 4, May 10, 1978, pg. 9
Douglas Penrod (1978). Micro chess tourney. Personal Computing, Vol. 2, No. 5, pp. 112
Chris Morgan (1978). The Second West Coast Computer Faire. BYTE, Vol. 3, No. 7
Larry Wagner (1978). San Jose Micro Tournament. Personal Computing, Vol. 2, No. 8, pp. 87
Editor (1978). Some San Jose Color. Personal Computing, Vol. 2, No. 9, pp. 82 » Compucolor Chess, Steve Stuart Chess
Editor (1978). Chessboard fray at Jose Color. Personal Computing, Vol. 2, No. 10, pp. 84 » 8080 Chess, Sargon
Kathe Spracklen (1979). The Playing of Sargon. Personal Computing, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 70 » Sargon
Gardner Hendrie (2005). Oral History of Kathe and Dan Spracklen. pdf and Video from The Computer History Museum
Rob van Son (2011). De Assyrische krijgsman die vaak won! (Dutch) pdf hosted by Hein Veldhuis

↑ Silicon Gulch Gazette, Vol. 2, No. 3, February 10, 1978, pg. 17
↑ Computer Chess Tournaments in David Levy, Monroe Newborn (1982, 1983). All About Chess and Computers. Springer, amazon, 2nd edition
↑ Jim Warren (1978). Microcomputer Chess Tournament Announcement. Silicon Gulch Gazette, Vol. 2, No. 2, January 24, 1978, pg. 4
↑ Silicon Gulch Gazette from bitsavers.org
↑ The Second West Coast Computer Faire | Modern Mechanix
↑ Gardner Hendrie (2005). Oral History of Kathe and Dan Spracklen. pdf and Video from The Computer History Museum
↑ Larry Wagner (1978). Results of First Microcomputer Chess Tournament. Silicon Gulch Gazette, Vol. 2, No. 4, May 10, 1978, pg. 9
↑ Chris Morgan (1978). The Second West Coast Computer Faire. BYTE, Vol. 3, No. 7, hosted by Modern Mechanix, Photo 4: Ira Baxter’s chess playing system display, which competed in the Microcomputer Chess Tournament at the Faire