Bertie the Brain

On the tic tack toe topic, MENACE is just startlingly cool:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matchbox_Educable_Noughts_and_...

A December 1956 cover feature article in Radio-Electronics magazine describes "Relay Moe" which plays tic tac toe with adjustable levels of skill. It used 90 relays.

<https://www.vintagecomputer.net/cisc367/Radio%20Electronics%...>

Here is the full text, for discussing with agents:

https://archive.org/stream/RadioElectronics195701/Radio%20El...

This is a subject dear to my heart. I'm a mathematician who routinely uses symmetry in counting problems. As a kid I remember writing out a tic tac toe game tree in about ten pages. I must have used symmetry, and I must have only mapped a winning strategy, not all 765 game states up to symmetry.

So my first reaction to now reading that Bertie the Brain used "addition tubes" was "Really? Can't you do that with relays?" And the reality is that Bertie the Brain was a solution looking for a problem, a demo project for these tubes, not an attempt at the simplest way to implement such a machine.

Still, looking at the numbers, I'm impressed that Relay Moe managed multiple levels of game play using only 90 relays. The design exploited symmetry.

2014 interview with the creator: https://spacing.ca/toronto/2014/08/13/meet-bertie-brain-worl...

I miss the days when video games were used to showcase technical advances.

"Kates built the game to showcase his additron tube, a miniature version of the vacuum tube, though the transistor overtook it in computer development shortly thereafter."

Man Canada used to be so impressive. We need to get back there

the mechanical chess computer was even more impressive imho

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ajedrecista

early 1900s, that's incredible

the first electronic computer playing chess was almost 50 years away