Chess-Playing Program

By starting in 1949, Dr. Dietrich Prinz wrote one of the earliest computer games, a chess-playing program for the Manchester Ferranti Mark 1 computer. The program was ready in November 1951.

The limitation of the Mark 1 computer did not allow for a whole game of chess to be programmed. Prinz could only program mate-in-two chess problems. The program examined every possible move for White and Black (thousands of possible moves) until a solution was found, which took 15–20 minutes on average. The program's restrictions were: no castling, no double pawn move, no en passant capture, no pawn promotion, and no distinction between checkmate and stalemate.

This program was also known as Robot Chess or Mate-in-Two.

Designed by: Dietrich Prinz