Sargon II

Name: Sargon II
Programmer(s): Dan & Kathe Spracklen
Publisher: Hayden
Year: 1979

Description:

Sargon II is a fun challenging chess game!it has unique commands and is for chess masters of all ages. All chess (1 King 1 Queen 2 Bishops 2 Knights 2 Castles and finally 8 Pawns ) black and white board as always. -Pixelmon (6/27/2015 age 7)

Sargon II allows players to play white or black against a computer opponent of varying degrees of skill. My seven year old son plays on the lowest level but has yet to win a game. Sargon IIs user input leaves a lot to be desired if you've played any computer chess games with mouse input. It uses board cordinates to move the pieces around just as true chess afficinadios would. Check out the chess section of the next New York Times. Sargon has given me a better understanding of whats going on in this section. One neat feature is that players can set up a board already in play. So you can take a play from the NYT chess section and see how Sargon can handle it.

Having played several dozen times on level 0 I have only one once.

Sargon II was a chess game released for the Apple II computer in 1978. Created by Dan and Kathe Spracklen, this game became one of the most popular chess programs of its time. The Spracklens were husband and wife programmers who wanted to make a chess game that could challenge real players.

The game lets you play chess against the computer. You move pieces by typing the square coordinates, like "E2-E4" to move a pawn. The Apple II's green or amber monitor showed the chess board using text characters. Kings were shown with the letter K, Queens with Q, and so on. The board looked simple compared to today's games, but it worked well for playing chess.

Sargon II had six difficulty levels. Level 1 moved almost instantly, making it good for beginners. Level 6 could take over an hour to make a single move because the computer had to think through thousands of possible moves. Most people played on levels 2 or 3, which gave a good challenge without taking forever. The game followed all official chess rules, including special moves like castling and en passant captures.

What made Sargon II special was how smart it played. The program used only 16 kilobytes of memory but could still beat most casual players. It looked ahead several moves and picked strategies based on chess theory. The Spracklens studied chess books and programmed the computer to value controlling the center of the board and protecting the king.

The game sold thousands of copies and won computer chess tournaments. Before Sargon II, most chess programs were terrible. This game proved that home computers could play real chess. It inspired many other programmers to create better chess games.

Players liked that they could save games to continue later. This was important because serious chess games could last hours. You could also set up custom board positions to practice specific situations or solve chess puzzles.

Sargon II helped establish computer chess as legitimate competition. Chess clubs started accepting computer programs in tournaments. The game received positive reviews in computer magazines and became a must-have program for serious Apple II owners. Later versions came out for other computers, but the Apple II version remained the most famous.

The success of Sargon II showed that home computers could do more than just play simple arcade games. It demonstrated artificial intelligence concepts in a way everyone could understand through chess. For many Apple II owners, Sargon II was their first experience playing against a computer opponent that could actually think and plan ahead.