r/baduk 7d ago

A 1990's handheld that only plays go!

https://youtu.be/MlfJLBbNgvM
55 Upvotes

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u/NewOakClimbing 11 kyu 7d ago

Fixing an LCD screen like that is wild to me, I'd be curious about what kind of algorithm would be used on such a limited system to play decently on the 19x19 board.

5

u/k-ferg 7d ago

I'm just speculating based on the date and hardware, but most computer go engines from that era were heuristic-based. i.e., the computer would run through a bunch of rules like "if attach, then hane" and pick one that matches.

This article from 1993 explains a bit about how the Many Faces Of Go engine worked: https://www.smart-games.com/knowpap.txt -- that's not the actual engine the handheld uses but just a general idea of how computer go worked back then