Odd book

[Brian L. Stuart]

 On Saturday, May 9, 2020, 11:42:11 AM EDT, 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

There's a guy who brings the stepper/relay TTT machine
he did in high school to VCFSE every year.

>> In high school, my math teacher (I think it was) used a couple of matchboxes
>> and some beads to create a TTT device; he 'programmed' it by playing against
>> it, and when the device lost a game, he pulled out the bead that indicated
>> the 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 one
> of his books. Of course he might have got it from your teacher rather
> than 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.

BLS