My first chess program which I began developing whilst at Manchester University in 1976. My very first attempt was a bit of a non-starter but after buying a copy of 'Computer Chess' by Monroe Newborn (an excellent and entertaining read even now) the program developed into a serious player. The early versions were simply called 'Chess - Mark X'. The name 'White Knight' was only adopted before entering the program into its first computer chess tournament in the early 1980's. It was at another later tournament that I was approached by Meyer Solomon of BBC Software who was after a chess program for the fledgling BBC Micro. Two versions (marks 11 and 12) were later released for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron in the early 1980's. White Knight won the European Microcomputer Chess Championship in 1983. (Whilst working for BBC Software I also produced the 'Second Book of Listings' [a collection of small BASIC programs for the BBC micro] and 'Doctor Who Adventure' [a video game].) Publishing rights were taken over by Longman Logotron after the closure of BBC Software in the mid 1980's.

The program was originally written in Pascal but when I left university I translated it into 6502 assembly for the Apple ][ micro. No work has been done on the program since about 1983.

Boxes

Copies of some of the versions can still be obtained from myself.