Martin Bryant (programmer) - Computer Chess

Computer Chess

Bryant started developing his first chess program – later named White Knight – in 1976. This program won the European Microcomputer Chess Championship in 1983, and was commercially released, in two versions (Mk 11 and Mk 12) for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron in the early 1980s. White Knight featured a then-novel display of principal variation – called "Best line" – that would become commonplace in computer chess.

Bryant used White Knight as a basis for development of Colossus Chess (1983), a chess-playing program that was published for a large number of home computer platforms in the 1980s, and was later ported to Atari ST, Amiga and IBM PC as Colossus Chess X. Colossus Chess sold well and was well-received, being described by the Zzap!64 magazine in 1985 as "THE best chess implementation yet to hit the 64, and indeed possibly any home micro".

Bryant later released several versions of his Colossus chess engine conforming to the UCI standard. The latest version was released in 2008 as Colossus 2008b.

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