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Peter Jennings 1
- Oral History of Peter Jennings, February 1, 2005 by Sellam Ismail, The Computer History Museum↩︎
Peter R. Jennings,
a Canadian (born in England) 1 physicist, interdiscipline scientist, inventor, software developer, computer chess programmer, businessman, and paraglider. He studied mathematics, physics, fine art, philosophy, psychology, finance and marketing, and received a MA in physics from SUNY Stony Brook University in 1972, and a MBA in finance and marketing McMaster University in 1974 2.
Chess
Peter Jennings is author of the first commercially successful chess program for microcomputers in 1976, MicroChess for the KIM-1 6502-based microcomputer 3. In 1977 MicroChess was ported to 8080/Z80-based microcomputers 4, such as the TRS-80 5. Based on MicroChess 1.5, Jennings further created the programs for the dedicated 6504 based Commodore ChessMate (1978) and Novag Chess Champion MK II (1979) 6.
VisiCalc
In 1976, Peter Jennings co-founded Personal Software which became VisiCorp, and was involved in the creation of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program. Notably, MicroChess sales helped to finance the development of VisiCalc 7 8.
See also
- MicroChess
- Chess Champion MK II
- Commodore Chessmate
Publications
- Peter Jennings (1976). MicroChess, a Chess playing program for the 6502 Microcomputer. pdf, Courtesy of Peter Jennings, The Computer History Museum
- Peter Jennings (1977). MicroChess, a Chess playing program for the 8080 Microcomputer. pdf, Courtesy of Peter Jennings, The Computer History Museum
- Peter Jennings (1978). The Second World Computer Chess Championships. BYTE, Vol. 3, No. 1 » WCCC 1977
- Peter Jennings (1978). Microchess 1.5 Versus Dark Horse. BYTE, Vol. 3, No. 3 » MicroChess, Dark Horse
- Sellam Ismail (2005). Oral History of Peter Jennings. pdf and Video from The Computer History Museum
External Links
Are you the Peter Jennings I know?
Peter's Paragliding Nomadness 10
- DigiBarn: Peter Jennings and his MicroChess, Kim-1, and other wondrous artifacts
- DigiBarn Games: MicroChess 1.5 on the TRS-80 Model 1
References
Sellam Ismail (2005). Oral History of Peter Jennings. pdf from The Computer History Museum↩︎
Peter Jennings (1976). MicroChess, a Chess playing program for the 6502 Microcomputer. pdf, Courtesy of Peter Jennings, The Computer History Museum↩︎
Peter Jennings (1977). MicroChess, a Chess playing program for the 8080 Microcomputer. pdf, Courtesy of Peter Jennings, The Computer History Museum↩︎
Microchess running on Radio Shack TRS-80 microcomputer, 1976, Courtesy of Peter Jennings and Digibarn, The Computer History Museum↩︎
Scisys and Novag : The Early Years from Chess Computer UK by Mike Watters↩︎