On May 9, 2020 at 10:41 AM Tony Duell via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: On Sat, May 9, 2020 at 4:23 PM Noel Chiappa via cctalk<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:>> > From: Dwight Kelvey> > There was a fellow that made a relay logic that could play tic tac toe> What's with these new-fangled devices using _electricity_ anyway? :-)> In high school, my math teacher (I think it was) used a couple of matchboxesand some beads to create a TTT device; he 'programmed' it by playing againstit, and when the device lost a game, he pulled out the bead that indicatedthe device's previous move, so it could never make that losing move again.Pretty impressive, I thought...I am pretty sure that was in one of Martin Gardner's columns(Mathematical Games) in Scientific American, and is reprinted in oneof his books. Of course he might have got it from your teacher ratherthan vice versa.

If it's the one I'm thinking of, the game is called hexapawn, though it's played on a 3x3 grid, like TTT. I've always had a fond spot for that article. It was one of my inspirations back when I did a lot of AI.