From news-rocq.inria.fr!univ-lyon1.fr!jussieu.fr!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!dog.ee.lbl.gov!hellgate.utah.edu!news.cs.utah.edu!peruvian.cs.utah.edu!bdthomse Tue Jun 7 19:46:43 1994 Article: 896 of rec.games.corewar Path: news-rocq.inria.fr!univ-lyon1.fr!jussieu.fr!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!dog.ee.lbl.gov!hellgate.utah.edu!news.cs.utah.edu!peruvian.cs.utah.edu!bdthomse From: bdthomse@peruvian.cs.utah.edu (Brant Thomsen) Newsgroups: rec.games.corewar Subject: The '94 Warrior Date: 7 Jun 1994 06:32:41 GMT Organization: University of Utah CS Dept Lines: 320 Distribution: world Message-ID: <2t14a9$211@magus.cs.utah.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: peruvian.cs.utah.edu Originator: bdthomse@peruvian.cs.utah.edu __ __| | ) _ \ | | \ \ / _) | __ \ _ \ / ( | | | \ \ \ / _` | __| __| | _ \ __| | | | | __/ \__ |___ __| \ \ \ / ( | | | | ( | | _| _| |_|\___| _/ _| \_/\_/ \__,_|_| _| _|\___/ _| June 6, 1994 Issue #8 ______________________________________________________________________________ This newletter covers the current status of the ICWS '94 Draft hills, and also attempts to keep up with the latest ideas in how the new standard will affect corewars in general. I hope you enjoy it! If you are unfamiliar with the '94 draft standard, you can learn more about it by reading the FAQ for this newsgroup. In addition, the program pMARS includes a highly recommended tutorial on the new standard. Feel free to send me e-mail if you have any difficulty finding either of them, if you need to have a corewar item mailed to you, or if you have any other questions. The FAQ is available through anonymous FTP to rtfm.mit.edu, as /pub/usenet/news.answers/games/corewar-faq.Z ______________________________________________________________________________ CHANGES and CORRECTIONS: The latest tournament is over, and Jay Han walked away the winner. Congratulations to Jay on his impressive achievement, and thanks again to Stefan Strack again for running it. Jay Han also appears to have won another on-going battle. His "corestep" program has left the two competing "optima" programs in the dust. You can get the source code for it, or Stefan Strack's varying step version "mopt", by anonymous FTP to soda.berkeley.edu. The pMARS team has been busy as well. The next release will allow the use of a-field indirect addressing, and will introduce the ability to use ";assert" to confirm that your program is running in a core type that it was written for. Be sure to download a copy when it is released. The newsgroup has also had some interesting discussion and results on working with genetic algorithms to create redcode warriors. (Using "genetic" methods to guide the development of "random" programs.) Watch the newsgroup for further details. ______________________________________________________________________________ The ICWS '94 Draft Hill: Core size: 8000 instrucitons Max processes: 8000 per program Duration: After 80,000 cycles, a tie is declared. Max entry length: 100 instructions The current ICWS '94 Draft hill on "Pizza": # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 49/ 34/ 17 Pyramid v5.5 Michael Constant 163 54 2 48/ 33/ 19 Keystone t33 P.Kline 162 76 3 40/ 29/ 30 Torch t3 P.Kline 151 15 4 43/ 43/ 15 Iron Gate 1.5 Wayne Sheppard 143 253 5 32/ 21/ 47 B-Panama IX Steven Morrell 142 4 6 38/ 35/ 27 Stimpy v2.0 Brant D. Thomsen 142 5 7 30/ 18/ 52 Blue Funk Steven Morrell 142 276 8 31/ 22/ 47 Cannonade P.Kline 140 134 9 32/ 24/ 44 NC 94 Wayne Sheppard 140 289 10 41/ 43/ 16 Aleph 0 Jay Han 140 50 11 43/ 47/ 10 Rave 4.1 Stefan Strack 139 241 12 38/ 38/ 24 Christopher Steven Morrell 139 197 13 38/ 39/ 23 Request v2.0 Brant D. Thomsen 138 307 14 40/ 44/ 16 Dragon Spear c w blue 136 309 15 31/ 28/ 41 Lucky 3 Stefan Strack 134 269 16 29/ 25/ 46 TCh Mintardjo W. 134 6 17 30/ 28/ 42 Aeka T.Hsu 132 2 18 31/ 31/ 38 Der Zweite Blitzkrieg - 9 Mike Nonemacher 132 259 19 33/ 36/ 31 mmfP v2 Karl Lewin 131 7 20 5/ 0/ 0 Pyramid v5.5 Michael Constant 14 1 The above ordering seems to be a good representation of what has been happening on the hill for the last couple of weeks. Michael Constant's "Pyramid" and Paul Kline's "Keystone" have both been fighting for the top position, with "Torch" being the only close competitor. Both "Pyramid" and "Keystone" are excellent examples of complex programs that push the 100 line limit, although they are radically different from each other. Also dramatic are the drop of Mike Nonemacher's "Der Zweite Blitzkrieg" and Michael Constant's "Sauron" (right off the hill), as both were putting up a good fight for the top position only a month ago. Although the hill is fairly old, the new programs seem to be making a big difference. The current ICWS '94 Draft hill on "Stormking": # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 45/ 29/ 26 Sauron v3.6 Michael Constant 160 1 2 41/ 27/ 32 Killer instinct Anders Ivner 155 24 3 36/ 21/ 43 Twimpede+/8000-d1 Jay Han 150 14 4 44/ 38/ 17 Ntttgtstitd Simon Hovell 150 25 5 43/ 38/ 19 Request v2.0 Brant D. Thomsen 148 17 6 34/ 21/ 44 Lucky 3 Stefan Strack 147 12 7 35/ 23/ 42 NC II Wayne Sheppard 147 79 8 35/ 25/ 40 Sphinx v5.1 W. Mintardjo 145 82 9 43/ 41/ 17 Sylvester v1.0 Brant D. Thomsen 144 61 10 29/ 19/ 53 ttti nandor sieben 139 35 11 32/ 26/ 42 JustTakingALookSee J.Layland 138 78 12 31/ 24/ 45 Snake Wayne Sheppard 138 34 13 43/ 47/ 10 Rave 4.1 Stefan Strack 138 7 14 39/ 40/ 21 tiny J.Layland 138 59 15 29/ 20/ 51 ttti94 nandor sieben 137 30 16 39/ 42/ 19 Beholder's Eye v1.7 W. Mintardjo 137 91 17 38/ 42/ 19 Christopher Steven Morrell 135 23 18 39/ 43/ 18 SJ-4 J.Layland 134 28 19 37/ 43/ 20 Fast Food v2.1 Brant D. Thomsen 131 37 20 35/ 40/ 26 pepper P.Kline 129 6 ______________________________________________________________________________ The ICWS '94 Draft Experimental Hill: Core size: 55,440 instructions Max processes: 10,000 per program Duration: After 500,000 cycles, a tie is declared. Max entry length: 200 instructions The current ICWS '94 Experimental (Big) hill on "Pizza": # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 49/ 32/ 19 Pyramid v5.3 Michael Constant 166 38 2 49/ 32/ 19 ivscan6b J.Layland 165 11 3 37/ 17/ 46 Aleph 1 Jay Han 158 9 4 46/ 34/ 20 Request-55440 Brant D. Thomsen 157 147 5 44/ 36/ 20 Aleph 0/1 Jay Han 153 3 6 42/ 37/ 21 Vanity IIx Stefan Strack 147 102 7 35/ 24/ 41 Variation G-1 Jay Han 146 111 8 41/ 36/ 24 Stimpy v2.0 Brant D. Thomsen 146 2 9 44/ 45/ 11 Squint Mike Nonemacher 143 85 10 40/ 39/ 20 Aleph 0 Jay Han 142 10 11 44/ 47/ 9 Rave B4.1 Stefan Strack 140 108 12 31/ 24/ 44 Der Zweite Blitzkrieg - 9 Mike Nonemacher 139 109 13 32/ 26/ 42 Splash 1 Jay Han 137 112 14 30/ 24/ 47 NotSoBigImps James Layland 136 7 15 36/ 38/ 26 Lump J.Layland 135 92 16 31/ 29/ 40 Lucky 13 Stefan Strack 133 153 17 40/ 49/ 11 Plasma v5 Wayne Sheppard 132 49 18 28/ 25/ 47 Blue Funk Steven Morrell 131 1 19 27/ 30/ 43 Tail of the Twister Mike Nonemacher 124 57 20 25/ 33/ 43 avp2 J.Layland 117 5 On this hill, just as on the standard hill, Michael Constant's quick-scanning vampire "Pyramid" is a string first-place contender. However, unlike last month, there is a program that is giving him some close competition: "ivscan6b", an updated version of James Layland's notable tournament entry. Jay Han's "Aleph" series, and Brant Thomsen's "Stimpy" are a couple of other new programs that seem to have taken a liking to the Big hill. Perhaps scanners will be the programs that dominate this hill in the future. The current ICWS '94 Experimental (Big) hill on "Stormking": # %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age 1 48/ 12/ 40 Variation M-1 Jay Han 184 2 2 46/ 30/ 24 Request-55440 Brant D. Thomsen 162 54 3 40/ 20/ 40 Lucky 13 Stefan Strack 161 20 4 46/ 36/ 18 Raiden Richard van der Brug 157 3 5 45/ 35/ 19 Vanity IIx Stefan Strack 155 8 6 35/ 18/ 47 Bakers Dozen Wayne Sheppard 153 13 7 40/ 30/ 31 Sauron v2.4 Michael Constant 150 5 8 30/ 15/ 55 Imperfection v2.3 Michael Constant 146 48 9 36/ 31/ 33 Variation D-1 Jay Han 142 15 10 44/ 47/ 10 Rave B4.1 Stefan Strack 141 9 11 42/ 46/ 12 bigproba nandor sieben 138 12 12 41/ 46/ 14 Dagger v7.0 Michael Constant 136 14 13 40/ 48/ 11 The Count Jay Han 132 44 14 27/ 23/ 50 BigImp Alex MacAulay 132 95 15 30/ 29/ 41 jmpWetPaper-94x-a J.M.Pohjalainen 131 1 16 26/ 23/ 51 BigImps James Layland 129 114 17 31/ 35/ 34 Veeble Jr. T. H. Davies 126 16 18 28/ 37/ 34 Industrious Stefan Strack 119 4 19 29/ 40/ 31 Open Arms Stefan Strack 117 7 20 29/ 41/ 30 Test Stefan Strack 116 6 ______________________________________________________________________________ HINTS and HELPS: One of the problems that has been haunting corewar programmers through the years is the differences in behavior caused by in-register and in-memory evaluation of an instruction. Actually, it's usually not the evaluation itself that is the problem -- instead, it is the fact that few corewar programmers know what the difference is between them, or how these differences affect the behavior of programs. I'd like to help clarify this difference, and give some pointers to help you predict what your code will do under each type. If you think about it, you can probably guess exactly what "in-memory" and "in-register" are referring to. With in-memory evaluation, changes to the core are made directly to the memory storing the core. In-register evaluation, on the other hand, copies the current instruction and the instructions it points to into registers, and the information in the registers is then used to update the core. There are advantages to both types of evaluation. In-memory evaluation is much more intuitive. In other words, it is the way that beginners expect redcode programs to operate. In-register evaluation's primary advantage is that it is faster. Most of the '88 compliant corewar emulators, including the one used for the original KotH hill, are in-register. For those of you that are curious, the '94 draft standard explicitly states that in-register evaluation should be used. In fact, much of the reason a new standard is needed is make this clarification. Although most code will function exactly the same under either type of evaluation, there are a growing number of programs where in-register/in-memory conflicts are a very important consideration. One of these programs is Paul Kline's "Torch". For those of you who missed it, here is a copy of the source code: ;redcode-94 quiet ;name Torch ;author P.Kline ;strategy very rapid incendiary bombing, core-clear & gate ;macro step equ 73 count equ 1500 gate dat <-step+1,<-step for 21 dat 0,0 rof sp spl #0,<-step ; spl half of the incendiary in add #step+step,msm ; | msm mov sm,>tgt-(step*count) ; | these 3 execute in reverse order! msp mov sp,@msm ; | tgt djn.f in,>3157 ; gets bombed with spl to start clear clr mov gate,<-13 cp djn.f clr,>3 ; forward decrement while clearing for 32 dat 0,0 rof sm mov @0,>step ; mov half of the incendiary end sp This program has a bomb that looks like this: sm mov sp, >sp ... sp spl #0,