18 Feb
1999
18 Feb
'99
10:28 p.m.
No... It has been a long while since I read it too but IIRC the article was
something like 'How to teach a matchbook to play tic tac toe'
- Mike: dogas(a)leading.net
-----Original Message-----
From: blstuart(a)bellsouth.net <blstuart(a)bellsouth.net>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Thursday, February 18, 1999 9:56 PM
Subject: Re: question about viruses
In message
<01be5b3b$65657aa0$d3c962cf@devlaptop>, "Mike" writes:
Speaking of _Adikesence of P1_ .... Does anyone
know the SciAm issue date
for the referenced matchbook neural net ???
It's been a long time since I read the book (I really should
read it again, now that the subject has come up). But if
he're refering to the article I think, it's by Martin
Gardner. Unfortunately, I can't find a full reference.
(Somewhere I've got a photocopy of it, but I can't find it
right now.) Anyway, I do find that it came from a 1962 issue.
In the article, Gardner defines (I can't remember if he references
anyone else) a simple game played with six pawns played on a 3x3
board. Using 24 matchboxes, he shows a learning machine called
Hexapawn Educational Robot (HER).
I've got a fond spot in my heart for this one of Gardner's
articles. A simplified version was printed under the title
"How to Play Hexapawn" in the collection called *The New Reader's
Digest Treasury for Young Readers,* a copy of which was given to
me by a relative when I was a kid. It sparked my interest in AI
which reached it climax about seven years ago when I defended my
dissertation in machine learning.
Brian L. Stuart