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000119_icon-group-sender _Sat May 29 15:29:09 1999.msg
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Return-Path: <icon-group-sender>
Received: (from root@localhost)
by baskerville.CS.Arizona.EDU (8.9.1a/8.9.1) id PAA02037
for icon-group-addresses; Sat, 29 May 1999 15:26:28 -0700 (MST)
Message-Id: <199905292226.PAA02037@baskerville.CS.Arizona.EDU>
Delivered-To: icon-group@silliac.cs.arizona.edu
Content-Identifier: Holiday Item
Hop-Count: 1
Date: Fri, 28 May 1999 12:27 -0500
From: Chris D Tenaglia <Chris.D.Tenaglia@jci.com>
Subject: Holiday Item
To: icon-group@optima.CS.Arizona.EDU
Errors-To: icon-group-errors@optima.CS.Arizona.EDU
Status: RO
Well Memorial Day is nigh upon us. Once
upon a time I wrote an icon
tik tak toe game that wins! It uses a trick difficult
for many computers, it cheats ;-). I was trying to
write your typical run of the mill game, when an
imperceptable program error, a side effect of
untyped variables, generated a cheating game.
It's so stinky, you can't see the cheating logic.
It's a side effect. I fixed the problem in one
version, but still kept the cheat because I think
it has interesting educational possibilities.
I thought it reminded me of my manager at
a previous position. No matter how close you
come to winning, you still loose. And you thought
you could at least stalemate? Well sometimes,
maybe. And it's well nigh impossible to prove
there's anything amiss until it's too late.....
Now it's the WEB age. I wanted to port it to CGI.
The cheat, being a software side effect, was
impossible to translate into the web paradigm.
The harder I tried, the CGI became all HTML.
Check out http://www.execpc.com/~cdt/tttc.html
The web just shows, it doesn't decide. The
web tik tak toe is alas just a document. It lays
there, and does nothing. The plays are an
illusion. Well I guess that's neat and theoretical
in it's own way.
If you're interested in the cgi version, check out
http://www.execpc.com/~cdt/tik.html
which has some view/downloadables.
If interested in the cheating tiktaktoe game
that runs under unix with a VT terminal/emulation
just ask and I'll post it too. The source is a
little long.
Have a nice holiday!
Chris Tenaglia, technical analyst, Johnson Controls