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Kathe Spracklen

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Created page with "'''Home * People * Kathe Spracklen''' border|right|thumb|Kathe Spracklen, [[WMCCC 1983 <ref>László Lindner, A SZÁMÍT..."
'''[[Main Page|Home]] * [[People]] * Kathe Spracklen'''

[[FILE:KatheSpracklen1983.jpg|border|right|thumb|Kathe Spracklen, [[WMCCC 1983]] <ref>[[László Lindner]], A SZÁMÍTÓGÉPES SAKK KÉPEKBEN című melléklete - The pictures of the Beginning of Chess Computers</ref> ]]

'''Kathleen (Kathe) Spracklen''',<br/>
an American mathematician, computer scientist and microcomputer chess pioneer. Along with husband [[Dan Spracklen|Dan]], Kathe started chess programming in 1977 on a [[Z80|Z-80]] based ''Wavemate Jupiter III'' <ref>[http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpage/JupiterII-1975.htm Jupiter II-1975]</ref> in [[Assembly|assembly language]]. Their first program, [[Sargon]] <ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargon_%28chess%29 Sargon from Wikipedia]</ref> had a one or two [[Ply|ply]] [[Search|search]] without [[Quiescence Search|quiescence]] but [[Static Exchange Evaluation|exchange evaluation]] <ref>[http://www.andreadrian.de/schach/sargon.asm Sargon Z80 assembly listing] by [[Dan Spracklen|Dan]] and Kathe Spracklen, hosted by [[Andre Adrian]]</ref>. After the success at [[MCCT 1978|The Second West Coast Computer Faire MCCT]] in March 1978, and the shared third place at [[ACM 1978]], the Spracklens became professional computer chess programmers. Sargon II was ported to various early home computers, for instance [[TRS-80]] and [[6502]] based [[Apple II]] <ref>[http://www.c64-wiki.de/index.php/Sargon_II Sargon II] from [http://www.c64-wiki.de/index.php/Hauptseite C64-Wiki] (German)</ref>, as well as [[Dedicated Chess Computers|dedicated units]] as [[Chafitz ARB Sargon 2.5]] <ref>[http://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/index.php/Chafitz_ARB_Sargon_2.5 Chafitz ARB Sargon 2.5]</ref>.

=Photos=
[[FILE:Sargon_2-5_ACM1979.jpg|none|border|text-bottom|640px|link=http://www.computerhistory.org/chess/full_record.php?iid=stl-430b9bbd5cbb8]]
Kathe Spracklen and [[Dan Spracklen]] (far right) at [[ACM 1979]] <ref>[http://www.computerhistory.org/chess/full_record.php?iid=stl-430b9bbd5cbb8 Sargon 2.5 at 10th ACM North American Computer Chess Championship in Detroit, Michigan], by [[Monroe Newborn]], from [[The Computer History Museum]]</ref>
[[FILE:SpracklensNY1983.JPG|none|border|text-bottom|640px]]
Kathe Spracklen and [[Dan Spracklen]], [[WCCC 1983]] <ref>[[László Lindner]], A SZÁMÍTÓGÉPES SAKK KÉPEKBEN című melléklete - The pictures of the Beginning of Chess Computers</ref>

=Fidelity=
After civil proceedings between manufacturer [[Applied Concepts]] and their sales company [[Chafitz]], who first marketed their Sargon 2.5 program, the Spracklens began their long term collaboration with [[Sidney Samole]] and [[Fidelity Electronics]] in the 80s. Beside other successes, their computers won the first four [[World Microcomputer Chess Championship|World Microcomputer Chess Championships]], [[Chess Challenger]] the [[WMCCC 1980]], [[Fidelity|Fidelity X]] the [[WMCCC 1981]], [[Elite|Elite Auto Sensory]] the [[WMCCC 1983]] and [[Elite|Fidelity Elite X]] the [[WMCCC 1984]] (shared).

=Saitek=
In 1989 or 1990, soon after Samole sold Fidelity to [[Hegener & Glaser]], Kathe and Dan Spracklen started to work for [[Eric Winkler]] and [[Saitek]], and developed a program for [[Sparc]] processors. The loss of [[Kasparov Sparc]] against [[Ed Schroder|Ed Schröder's]] [[ChessMachine]] <ref>[https://www.game-ai-forum.org/icga-tournaments/round.php?tournament=58&round=5&id=7 Madrid 1992, Chess, Round 5, Game 7] from the [[ICGA]] [https://www.game-ai-forum.org/icga-tournaments/ Tournament Database]</ref> in [[WCCC 1992|Madrid 1992]], almost ended their involvement in computer chess when they didn't win that world title <ref>[http://www.computerhistory.org/trustee/gardner-hendrie Gardner Hendrie] ('''2005'''). ''Oral History of Kathe and Dan Spracklen''. [http://archive.computerhistory.org/projects/chess/related_materials/oral-history/spacklen.oral_history.2005.102630821/spracklen.oral_history_transcript.2005.102630821.pdf pdf] from [[The Computer History Museum]]</ref>.

=Donald Michie=
Kathleen Spracklen on [[Donald Michie]], excerpt from ''Oral History'' <ref>[http://www.computerhistory.org/trustee/gardner-hendrie Gardner Hendrie] ('''2005'''). ''Oral History of Kathe and Dan Spracklen''. [http://archive.computerhistory.org/projects/chess/related_materials/oral-history/spacklen.oral_history.2005.102630821/spracklen.oral_history_transcript.2005.102630821.pdf pdf] from [[The Computer History Museum]]</ref>:
One of the most thrilling times of my entire life was the month that Dr. Donald Michie spent with us in San Diego. And he, of course, is - was head of the computer science department at Oxford, I believe, for decades. He was on the original team with [[Alan Turing|Turing]] that broke the Enigma code. And already he was quite an elderly gentleman when he came to work with us but that wasn't stopping him from having a very full schedule as the head of the I think it was the Turing Institute in Glasgow that headed up. Quite, totally an amazing human being.

Delightful and totally amazing. And he had this concept that he wanted to try out that he thought might possibly solve computer chess. And we spent a month exploring it. It was the idea of reaching a steady state. The idea was that you would establish a number of parameters of positional analysis and your program would score, independently score vast arrays of positions using this set of known parameters. And then the program would basically perform a cluster analysis and so you'd do it on a number of positions and on game after game after game of Grand Master Chess. You submitted we just we used hundreds of thousands of positions.

And then what it did was it took the evaluation that known chess theories said this position is worth this much. So we had an external evaluation because it came out of known Master Chess games. And then we had all of these parameters that our program was capable of evaluating and then you used this data to tune your weighing of the parameters. And you could also tune the weighting for different stages of the game. So at the opening, you could use a certain weight, mid-game, you could use a certain weight, in the midst of your king being attacked, could use a set of weights, when you're pressing an attack, you could use a set of weights, when they're past pawns on the board, you know, there were several different stages of the game that could have different weightings. And we used a program called Knowledge Seeker that helped you to determine these relative weightings. And so after a month of training the program, what you basically did was you take your total set of positions and you would use something like 80% of them as a training set and then the last 20 as the test set. And you'd find out, well, how did the program do in evaluating these positions it had never seen based on these that it had seen. And it did just a breathtaking job of determining the correct worth of the positions. And so we were so excited. We were going to turn it loose on its first play a game of chess. We were going to use this as the positional evaluator.

Yeah. It was, like, oh, it was breathtaking. And we watched the program play chess. It was- you could gasp for breath. No computer program ever played a game of chess like that. It looked like an incredibly promising seven-year-old. We lost the game in just a few moves but it lost it brilliantly. <laughter> It got its queen out there, it maneuvered its knight, it launched a king side attack, it sacrificed its queen. <laughter> Well, of course it sacrificed its queen. Do you realize, in every single Grand Master game of chess, when you sacrifice your queen, it's phenomenally brilliant. You are winning the game. So if you can find a way to get your queen out there and sacrifice her, well, you've won.

=See also=
* [[Fidelity Electronics#SpracklensAppleICE|Spracklens debugging with Apple II ICE]]

=Selected Publications=
==1978 ...==
* [[Dan Spracklen]], [[Kathe Spracklen]] ('''1978'''). ''SARGON: A Computer Chess Program''. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayden_Books Hayden Books], [http://www.amazon.com/Sargon-Computer-Program-Dan-Spracklen/dp/0810451557 amazon.com]
* [[Dan Spracklen]], [[Kathe Spracklen]] ('''1978'''). ''First Steps in Computer Chess Programming''. [[Byte Magazine#BYTE310|BYTE, Vol. 3, No. 10]], [http://archive.computerhistory.org/projects/chess/related_materials/text/4-4.First_Steps.Byte_Magazine/First_Steps_in_Computer_Chess_Programing.Spracklen-Dan_Kathe.Byte_Magazine.Oct-1978.062303035.sm.pdf pdf] from [[The Computer History Museum]]
* [[Dan Spracklen]], [[Kathe Spracklen]] ('''1978'''). ''An Exchange Evaluator for Computer Chess''. [[Byte Magazine#BYTE311|BYTE, Vol. 3, No. 11]]
* [[Kathe Spracklen]] ('''1978'''). ''The Making of Sargon''. [[Personal Computing#2_12|Personal Computing, Vol. 2, No. 12]], pp. 62
* [[Kathe Spracklen]] ('''1979'''). ''The Playing of Sargon''. [[Personal Computing#3_1|Personal Computing, Vol. 3, No. 1]], pp. 70 » [[MCCT 1978]],
* [[Kathe Spracklen]] ('''1979'''). ''Micro Graphics and X-Y Plotter''. [[Personal Computing#3_2|Personal Computing, Vol. 3, No. 2]], pp. 75
* [[Kathe Spracklen]] ('''1979'''). ''Z-80 and 8080 assembly language programming''. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayden_Books Hayden Books], [http://www.amazon.com/assembly-language-programming-Hayden-computer/dp/0810451670 amazon.com], [https://archive.org/details/z808080assemblyl00kath Internet Archive]
* [[Kathe Spracklen]] ('''1979'''). ''Second Annual European Microcomputer Chess Championship - Results and Authors''. [[ICGA Journal#2_2|ICCA Newsletter, Vol. 2, No. 2]] » [[PCW-MCC 1979]]
==1980 ...==
* [[Kathe Spracklen]] ('''1981'''). ''The Past, Present, and Future''. [[Personal Computing#5_4|Personal Computing, Vol. 5, No. 4]], pp. 67
* [[Ben Mittman]], [[Tony Marsland]], [[Monroe Newborn]], [[Kathe Spracklen]], [[Ken Thompson]] ('''1981'''). ''[http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=809845&dl=GUIDE&coll=GUIDE&CFID=85837222&CFTOKEN=72556238 Computer chess: Master level play in 1981?]'' ACM 81: Proceedings of the ACM '81 conference
* [[Kathe Spracklen]] ('''1983'''). ''Tutorial: Representation of an Opening Tree''. [[ICGA Journal#6_1|ICCA Newsletter, Vol. 6, No. 1]]
* [[Kathe Spracklen]] ('''1983'''). ''The Past and Future of Microcomputer Chess.'' [[Computer Chess Reports|Computer Chess Digest Annual 1983]]
* [[Göran Grottling]] ('''1989'''). ''Eine Lebende Legende - Ein Interview mit Kathe Spracklen''. [[Modul]] 1/89, pp. 41-45 (German),[http://www.schaakcomputers.nl/hein_veldhuis/database/files/03-1989,%20Modul,%20Goran%20Grottling,%20Ein%20Interview%20mit%20Kathe%20Spracklen.pdf pdf] hosted by [[Hein Veldhuis]]
==2005==
* [http://www.computerhistory.org/trustee/gardner-hendrie Gardner Hendrie] ('''2005'''). ''Oral History of Kathe and Dan Spracklen''. [http://archive.computerhistory.org/projects/chess/related_materials/oral-history/spacklen.oral_history.2005.102630821/spracklen.oral_history_transcript.2005.102630821.pdf pdf] and [http://www.computerhistory.org/chess/related_materials/oral-history/spacklen.oral_history.2005.102630821/index.php?iid=orl-43343fb422232 Video] from [[The Computer History Museum]]

=External Links=
* [https://www.game-ai-forum.org/icga-tournaments/person.php?id=211 Kathe Spracklen's ICGA Tournaments]
* [http://www.ismenio.com/spracklen.html Dan and Kathe Spracklen] from [http://www.ismenio.com/chess_computers.html ChessComputers.org]
* [http://www.computerhistory.org/chess/search.php?more=&submitted=1&keywords=Spracklen&x=33&y=8&all=all&item_document=item_document&item_moving_image=item_moving_image&item_artifact=item_artifact&item_still_image=item_still_image&item_oral_history=item_oral_history&item_software=item_software# Search the Mastering the Game exhibition and on-line collection] from [[The Computer History Museum]]
: [http://www.computerhistory.org/chess/related_materials/oral-history/spacklen.oral_history.2005.102630821/index.php?iid=orl-43343fb422232 Oral History of Kathleen and Danny Spracklen], March 2, 2005 by [http://www.computerhistory.org/trustee/gardner-hendrie Gardner Hendrie], [[The Computer History Museum]]
* [http://members.home.nl/matador/chess820.htm Historic Pictures] by [[Ed Schroder|Ed Schröder]]
* [http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/computer_chess.php Computer Chess] by [[Dan Spracklen|Dan]] and Kathe Spracklen from [http://www.atariarchives.org/ AtariArchives.org - archiving vintage computer books, information, and software]
* <span id="LadySargon"></span>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Chronicles Computer Chronicles]: [http://archive.org/details/Computer1985_6 Computer Games (1985)] from the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Archive Internet Archive], "Lady Sargon" at 4:10

=References=
<references />

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