Fred Swartz

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Fred Swartz, an American computer scientist and former computer chess programmer. In the early 70s, at RCA Systems Programming division in Cinnaminson, NJ, Fred Swartz started chess programming along with Victor Berman to develop the chess program CHAOS. The take over of RCA by Sperry Univac eventually moved everything to Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, until CHAOS was affiliated with the Computing Center of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and its team grew in the meantime when Mike Alexander, Ira Ruben, William Toikka, Joe Winograd and later Mark Hersey and Jack O’Keefe joined by and by. CHAOS was one of the strongest programs of the 70s and early 80s, using an unique, knowledge based and selective best-first, iterative widening approach, keeping the search tree in memory.

=Photos & Games= Belle vs CHAOS, WCCC 1980, Thompson, Friedel, Berman, Swartz, Donskoy [Event "3rd World Computer Chess Championship"] [Site "Linz, Austria"] [Date "1980.09.29"] [Round "5 (playoff)"] [White "Belle"] [Black "CHAOS"] [Result "1-0"]

1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.Nf3 dxe5 5.Nxe5 g6 6.g3 Bf5 7.c4 Nb4 8.Qa4+ N4c6 9.d5 Bc2 10.Qb5 Qd6 11.Nxc6 Nxc6 12.Nc3 Bg7 13.Qxb7 O-O 14.Qxc6 Qb4 15.Kd2 Be4 16.Rg1 Rfb8 17.Bh3 Bh6+ 18.f4 Qa5 19.Re1 f5 20.Qe6+ Kf8 21.b3 Bg7 22.Bb2 Bd4 23.g4 Rb6 24.Qd7 Rd6 25.Qa4 Qb6 26.Ba3 Bxc3+ 27.Kxc3 Rdd8 28.Rad1 Qf2 29.gxf5 Qc2+ 30.Kd4 gxf5 31.Qc6 Qf2+ 32.Ke5 Kg8 33.Rg1+ Kh8 34.Bxe7 Qb2+ 35.Rd4 Qg2 36.Qf6+ Kg8 37.Bxg2 Rxd5+ 38.Ke6 h6 39.Qxh6 Re5+ 40.fxe5 Rf8 41.Bf3# 1-0

=Quotes= Fred Swartz in Computer vs. computer: Duel at the chessboard on ACM 1979: : Last year, the U.S. Army flew several programmers of heavyweight computer chess to the White Sands Missile Range near Alamogordo, N.M., Swartz said. He never learned the purpose of the mission, though. "I guess they wanted to find out how to use the techniques," he said. "They just asked us questions but didn't tell us what their problems are. Who knows what they do there, anyway? Guards went with us everywhere - even to the restroom. We never heard anything else afterward."

=See also=
 * Scotch versus Vodka - one of David Levy's bets

=External Links=
 * Fred Swartz's ICGA Tournaments
 * Fred Swartz - Homepage
 * Java Basics Lessons
 * Java Programming Notes
 * C++ Notes
 * Computer vs. computer: Duel on the Chessboard, Boca Raton News - November 27. 1979 from Google News on ACM 1979

=References= Up one level