Sargon II (video game)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Sargon II | |
|---|---|
 VIC-20 cover art | |
| Developers | Dan Spracklen, Kathe Spracklen |
| Publishers | Hayden Software, Spinnaker Software, Commodore International |
| Series | Sargon |
| Platforms | Apple II, Atari 8-bit, CP/M, Commodore 64, TRS-80, VIC-20 |
| Release | 1979 |
| Genre | Strategy |
Sargon II is a sequel to Sargon. Both are computer chess programs for home computers.
The Spracklens, developers of Sargon, made significant improvements and released Sargon II.[1] In 1978 Sargon II tied for third at the ninth North American Computer Chess Championship despite being seeded ninth of 12 entries. It finished only behind Belle and Chess 4.7, and defeated AWIT—running on a $5 million Amdahl mainframe—amazing the audience.[2][3][1] That year the Spracklens published a series of articles in BYTE on computer chess programming,[4][5] stating "we think it would be nice if not everyone had to reinvent the wheel".[2]
Sargon II was ported to a variety of personal computers popular in the early 1980s.[6] The game engine has multiple levels of lookahead to make it more accessible to beginning chess players. BYTE in 1980 estimated that Sargon II had a 1500 rating at the highest tournament-time difficulty level, and speculated that it was the best chess program for sale, including dedicated devices.[7]
Sargon 2.5, sold as a ROM module for the Chafitz Modular Game System, is identical to Sargon II but adds pondering.[8] It received a 1641 rating at the Paul Masson tournament in June–July 1979, and 1736 at the San Jose City College Open in January 1980.[3]