observations and reports

I asked Alan Kay if Spacewar had been played over the Net. He said it’s possible. I asked if there’d been international Spacewar yet, and was told a story. “There’s. a problem there of sending code groups, When Greenblatt’s chess program reigned supreme, they tried to play one of. the Russian chess œ programs. Instead of doing it by mail or using an international phone call ’ they decided to do it by amateur radio. i There’s this federal statute against ’ transmitting code groups of any kind,; including chess moves. It took a long time to straighten that out. There was eventual communication with the Russians through a ham link in Switzerland.” True hackers. Who won? “Greenblatt’s program won. It’s called ‘Mack Hack 6.’ It was a Class C player, and has since been superseded by a couple of other programs.” Poor Russia. Do they regret Sputnik and the dialectical forces it unleashed?