A midweek review of Corewar
April 29, 1993
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I. The Standings:
# %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age
1 38/ 23/ 38 Night Crawler Wayne Sheppard 154 163
2 48/ 42/ 10 Backstabber Anders Ivner 154 83
3 46/ 43/ 11 Dragon Spear c w blue 148 265
4 46/ 45/ 9 Agony 5.1 Stefan Strack 146 317
5 44/ 43/ 13 Iron Gate 1.01 Wayne Sheppard 145 21
6 36/ 27/ 38 Imprimis 6 P.Kline 145 563
7 32/ 25/ 43 ttest nandor sieben 140 39
8 39/ 39/ 22 Leprechaun 1b Anders Ivner 140 1075
9 43/ 47/ 10 Medusa's v7 Mintardjo & Strack 139 456
10 32/ 25/ 43 Silver Paper W. Mintardjo 139 194
11 32/ 26/ 42 +0 Stormbringer Dan Nabutovsky 138 1593
12 41/ 45/ 14 a-test nandor sieben 138 41
13 42/ 47/ 11 Pysco IV David Johnson 137 27
14 41/ 44/ 16 Sucker 6 Stefan Strack 137 185
15 32/ 27/ 41 Sphinx v2.8 W. Mintardjo 137 1161
16 30/ 24/ 45 ittt nandor sieben 136 40
17 36/ 38/ 25 Nurgle c w blue 135 146
18 41/ 47/ 12 Eclipse II P.Kline 134 18
19 39/ 47/ 14 Emerald 4 P.Kline 130 138
20 34/ 48/ 18 Distance v6.0 Brant D. Thomsen 120 1
21 33/ 52/ 15 Wimp v5.0 Brant D. Thomsen 114 0
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II. The Basics:
-Core War Archives are available via anonymous FTP at
soda.berkeley.edu in pub/corewar...
-FAQ for this newsgroup is available via anonymous FTP at
rtfm.mit.edu as pub/usenet/news.answers/games/corewar-faq.z
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III. The Scoop:
Another member of the OverTheHill Gang was pushed off the Hill this week -
W. Sheppard's Iron Gate program which had some success against the imps
was pushed off at the ripe old age of 1089. That leaves just three members
of the OTH Gang: +0 Stormbringer, Leprechaun 1b, and Sphinx v2.8. We have
to look way down the ranks to find the next candidate with a chance at
1000, Imprimis 6. Well, here's one author crossing his fingers, (and
wishing he had maybe just left Imprimis 4 or 5 up, they would be there
by now :-/
Iron Gate's fall was due in part to a relentless attack by
C.W. Blue, who's sub-type-xxx fighters have been appearing all up and down
the list from day-to-day. He keeps knocking them off, so it's unclear
what he's up to. Is Blue preparing a swarm of tough fighters to release
all at once and take over? Stay tuned...
The demise of Iron Gate gave rise to speculation that spl-jmp bombing
cmp-scanners had lost their competitiveness. Carpet-bombing scanners
are still successful, but with Charon and Iron Gate being pushed off,
no other spl-jmp bombers were left (as far as I know :). But Wayne
gave IG some new points, plugs, and paint - and now Iron Gate 1.01 is
ranked fifth.
In last week's _Push Off_ I speculated that Backstabber was a bscan,
core-clearing type of program. Anders was kind enough to correct me
by revealing it is really a cmp-scanner (with a little different bomb).
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IV. The Outlook:
8 43/ 47/ 11 Pysco IV David Johnson 139 1
9 44/ 45/ 11 sub-type-cmp c w blue 142 1
7 44/ 45/ 11 sub-type-c c w blue 144 1
8 32/ 24/ 44 Snake-crawler Wayne Sheppard 141 1
5 46/ 46/ 8 Cleaver Wayne Sheppard 145 1
1 34/ 20/ 46 sub-type-i c w blue 148 1
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V. The Quick Look:
21 4/ 56/ 40 Foo Brant D. Thomsen 52 0
21 15/ 54/ 31 Ally Mestern 75 0
20 35/ 52/ 13 Test Wayne Sheppard 117 1
21 29/ 63/ 7 ice2 Ziad 95 0
21 3/ 67/ 29 test P.Kline 40 0
21 32/ 57/ 11 test j.layland 108 0
17 36/ 40/ 24 test Andy Pierce 133 1
21 5/ 58/ 37 Tiger Mester 51 0
21 18/ 51/ 31 Invest Andre van Dalen 84 0
21 10/ 80/ 10 Lots20 Jeffrey Chrisope 40 0
20 24/ 36/ 40 Scaper c w blue 112 1
18 40/ 46/ 15 a-test nandor sieben 134 1
21 12/ 69/ 19 pebble Mestern 55 0
18 41/ 48/ 11 CraMPon c w blue 134 1
21 16/ 82/ 2 Rounder Jussi Vehkalahti 50 0
21 28/ 59/ 13 ccproba nandor sieben 96 0
21 14/ 48/ 38 MPCC 2.1 A.T. Crowley 81 0
21 15/ 30/ 55 Passport P.Kline 100 0
19 32/ 46/ 21 Iron Gate Wayne Sheppard 118 1
21 38/ 49/ 13 Pysco III David Johnson 126 0
20 7/ 73/ 20 Replicant Paul Whittaker 42 1
21 7/ 87/ 6 Vamp kill Fredrik 28 0
19 32/ 44/ 24 Wimp v3.0 Brant D. Thomsen 120 1
21 29/ 37/ 34 Wimp v3.1 Brant D. Thomsen 121 0
21 34/ 54/ 12 Wimp v4.0 Brant D. Thomsen 113 0
21 39/ 48/ 14 Eclipse II P.Kline 130 0
21 13/ 43/ 43 ScareForce P.Kline 84 0
21 0/ 44/ 55 Sludge 1.0 I'd_rather_not_say 57 0
21 21/ 36/ 42 multi mice nandor sieben 106 0
20 38/ 53/ 10 sub-type-c c w blue 123 1
21 26/ 65/ 9 Double Orff Fredrik 88 0
21 16/ 82/ 2 Spreader v1 Jussi Vehkalahti 50 0
21 10/ 85/ 5 White Kross Joshua Houk 34 0
21 0/ 94/ 5 Witchdoctor Paul Whittaker 6 0
20 38/ 50/ 12 ExtraExtra 2 P.Kline 127 1
21 10/ 68/ 21 Parasite v 5 Roderick Easton 53 0
20 23/ 67/ 10 Vamkill Orff Fredrik 78 1
21 24/ 60/ 16 Bubble-scrape Joshua Houk 88 0
20 34/ 48/ 18 Distance v6.0 Brant D. Thomsen 119 1
21 26/ 69/ 5 Improved Dwarf Ben Burch 82 0
20 11/ 51/ 38 Bubble-scrape 2 Joshua Houk 71 1
21 22/ 68/ 10 Mort Aux Vaches Joshua Houk 76 0
21 13/ 40/ 47 White Kross v1.2 Joshua Houk 87 0
21 1/ 64/ 35 Replicant (Nexus 2) Paul Whittaker 39 0
21 2/ 55/ 43 Replicant (Nexus 2 Revisi Paul Whittaker 49 0
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VI. The Hint:
How many ways are there to copy code from one place to another? Lots!
Here are three ways to copy four lines of code (hide1-hide4):
hide1 xxx
hide2 yyy
hide3 zzz
hide4 aaa
old dat #0
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copy mov <old,<new ; short code
djn copy,#4 ; - you want a low profile,
new spl @0,old+1000 ; or need to stay under 100-line limit
; total time to copy and spl -> 9
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spl 1 ; multi-process
spl 1 ; - you are using multiprocess for other reasons
copy mov <old,<new ; total time to copy and spl -> 8
new spl @0,old+1000
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copy mov <old,<new ; fastest
mov <old,<new ; - you don't care about length and
mov <old,<new ; want the fastest start
mov <old,<new ; total time to copy and spl -> 5
new spl @0,old+1000
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VII. The End:
Paul Kline
pk6811s@acad.drake.edu