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| | | | | | | |_| |\ / (_| | | | | | | (_) | | Issue 2
|_| |_|_| |_|\__, | \/\/ \__,_|_| |_| |_|\___/|_| 10 February, 2005
===============(___/=========================================================
Welcome to Tinywarrior, the newletter which reports the latest events
and techniques for the tiny hills. If you haven't discovered the tiny
hills yet, the specs are:

coresize: 800
max. processes: 800
duration: after 8,000 cycles, a tie is declared.
max. entry length: 20
minimum distance: 20
instruction set: extended ICWS '94 Draft

In this issue we take a look at the technique evolved by White Noise and
a modified binary launcher.
=============================================================================
Current Status of the SAL Tiny Hill:

# %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age

1 37.5/ 25.9/ 36.6 Endless pain G.Labarga 149.1 20
2 43.5/ 38.1/ 18.4 White Noise (RBv1.5r10) The MicroGP Corewa 148.9 19
3 34.0/ 22.2/ 43.7 Digital Swarm John Metcalf 145.9 134
4 42.3/ 40.3/ 17.4 Sidestep Christian Schmidt 144.4 69
5 42.6/ 41.8/ 15.6 Four Winds John Metcalf 143.5 47
6 37.5/ 32.8/ 29.7 Easter Egg John Metcalf 142.3 101
7 35.3/ 28.6/ 36.0 Soft as Silk Sascha Zapf 142.1 111
8 44.9/ 48.3/ 6.8 Muskrat John Metcalf 141.5 52
9 44.2/ 48.7/ 7.1 ZXC G.Labarga 139.6 1
10 34.3/ 29.2/ 36.4 Boosted G.Labarga 139.4 3
11 40.5/ 43.5/ 16.0 RedBorg v1.0r6 The MicroGP Corewa 137.4 15
12 40.6/ 43.9/ 15.5 RedBorg v1.0r7 The MicroGP Corewa 137.3 14
13 41.2/ 46.3/ 12.5 Tiny Zooom... John Metcalf 136.1 98
14 38.8/ 42.3/ 18.9 Sneaky Spike Roy van Rijn 135.3 93
15 39.6/ 44.2/ 16.2 Tiny BiShot 2.0 Christian Schmidt 135.1 149
16 39.5/ 44.2/ 16.3 Provenance John Metcalf 134.8 73
17 23.9/ 13.2/ 62.9 tiny Blowrag Metcalf/Schmidt 134.5 148
18 30.2/ 26.6/ 43.2 3p(c) Sascha Zapf 133.8 56
19 28.3/ 24.6/ 47.1 Where's Giles? John Metcalf 132.0 79
20 39.0/ 46.0/ 15.1 Milkshake IV LAchi 132.0 99
21 24.0/ 16.9/ 59.2 Tiny Lord 4 G.Labarga 131.1 21
22 36.4/ 44.0/ 19.6 Tinyboss III G.Labarga 128.8 22
23 37.7/ 47.0/ 15.3 Tinyshot John Metcalf 128.5 136
24 37.8/ 47.1/ 15.1 Seek and Destroy Sascha Zapf 128.4 121
25 32.0/ 37.9/ 30.0 Reanimator John Metcalf 126.2 4

Av 37.0/ 37.0/ 26.0 137.1 67

Since last issue, there have been 25 successful challenges, with 9 of the
newcomers remaining. 3 of the 25 warriors which left the hill attained an
age of 50+. The oldest to depart was Ugly Uncle, age 127, followed by
Diamondette (122) and palm leaves (51).

Oneshots are still dominating the mix of strategies, with 12 in total, 3

of which are evolved. Papers are also well represented with 9 warriors.
Imps are used in 2 of the papers. The remaining 4 warriors are 2 bombers,
a clear/imp and a scanner. The average age of a paper is 75, the average
for a oneshot is 71.

Koth report: Endless pain claimed first place 11 times in all, followed by
White Noise (8 times) and SledgeHammer (5).
=============================================================================
The Tiny Hall of Fame: * indicates the warrior is still active.

Pos Name Author Age Strategy

1 Tiny BiShot 2.0 Christian Schmidt 149 * oneshot
2 tiny Blowrag Metcalf/Schmidt 148 * paper/imp
3 Tinyshot John Metcalf 136 * oneshot
4 Digital Swarm John Metcalf 134 * qscan -> paper
5 Ugly Uncle Christian Schmidt 127 qscan -> paper
6 Diamondette David Houston 122 stone
7 Seek and Destroy Sascha Zapf 121 * oneshot
8 Soft as Silk Sascha Zapf 111 * qbomb -> paper
9 Easter Egg John Metcalf 101 * qscan -> paper
10 Milkshake IV LAchi 99 * oneshot
11 Tiny Zooom... John Metcalf 98 * decoy maker -> scanner
12 Betadine M Joonas Pihlaja 97 oneshot
13 Sneaky Spike Roy van Rijn 93 * decoy maker -> oneshot
14 Origin of Storms John Metcalf 90 scanner
15 Table Scan John Metcalf 85 oneshot
16 Where's Giles? John Metcalf 79 * qscan -> paper
17 Xyzzy John Metcalf 77 paper/stone
18 Son of Darkness 2 Christian Schmidt 74 paper/stone
19 Provenance John Metcalf 73 * oneshot/dodger
20 Evolving Magic Christian Schmidt 71 qbomb -> paper
21 Sidestep Christian Schmidt 69 * oneshot/dodger
22 Cream and Chocolate LAchi 61 oneshot
23 3p(c) Sascha Zapf 56 * paper
24 Muskrat John Metcalf 52 * qbomb -> bomber
25 palm leaves Metcalf/Schmidt 51 paper/imp

Three new entries to the Hall of Fame sit in the lower 3 ranks.
=============================================================================
Current Status of the corewar.co.uk Infitiny Hill:

The infitiny hill is where all of the published tiny warriors battle
round-robin. Here are shown the top 25 of 180 warriors:

# %w %l %t Name Author Score

1 50.9 29.6 19.5 White Noise (RBv1.5r10) The MicroGP Corewars C 172.21
2 48.3 26.4 25.4 bestwar4.red Dave Hillis 170.21
3 51.1 33.4 15.5 Tinyshot John Metcalf 168.77
4 48.4 28.4 23.2 Evolving Threat Dave Hillis 168.28
5 50.6 33.8 15.7 Seek and Destroy Sascha Zapf 167.38
6 50.1 33.8 16.1 Provenance John Metcalf 166.36
7 50.4 34.4 15.2 Betadine M Joonas Pihlaja 166.33
8 48.6 32.7 18.8 Sneaky Spike Roy van Rijn 164.47
9 48.3 32.2 19.5 Table Scan John Metcalf 164.40
10 48.9 33.7 17.4 Tiny BiShot 2.0 Christian Schmidt 164.15
11 49.4 35.0 15.6 t766-- Michal Janeczek 163.69
12 45.3 26.9 27.9 Easter Egg John Metcalf 163.65
13 48.7 33.9 17.4 Cream and Chocolate LAchi 163.60
14 48.5 33.4 18.1 Tinyboss III G.Labarga 163.56
15 48.4 33.6 18.0 s774++ Michal Janeczek 163.30
16 43.1 23.0 33.9 Wilt ;) G.Labarga 163.20
17 48.4 34.5 17.1 Pop! Neogryzor 162.37
18 48.1 34.2 17.7 WingShot T Ben Ford 162.06
19 48.1 34.3 17.6 Four Winds John Metcalf 161.98
20 48.5 35.1 16.4 Sidestep Christian Schmidt 161.83
21 48.5 35.3 16.2 clock strikes twelve John Metcalf 161.74
22 49.6 37.4 13.0 Tiny Zooom... John Metcalf 161.67
23 47.9 34.2 18.0 WingShot Ben Ford 161.58
24 49.0 36.8 14.2 dark skies Simon Wainwright 161.11
25 38.2 15.4 46.4 Digital Swarm John Metcalf 161.00

After 19 new entries, two new warriors claim the top positions. Both
White Noise and bestwar4.red are evolved. Some handcoded warriors also
enter in good positions, including Tinyboss III, Pop! and Sidestep.
=============================================================================
Extra Extra - White Noise by The MicroGP Corewars Collective

White Noise is an evolved oneshot similar to s774++ by Michal Janeczek,

which entered the tiny hill in first place last August and has been
lurking close to the hilltop ever since.

After the MicroGP team (Bio, (ES)^2, dr.gapp, Ipso, MadMax, MasKrP and
PPU) published White Noise, an analysis of the code showed their evolver
had discovered an interesting technique. The clear has two streams -
a fast clear which starts at a location shortly after the warrior's code,
and a slow clear starting where something was found by the scan.

However, the code produced by the evolver is not in a human-friendly

format, so can be tricky to follow. To make White Noise easier to study,
the tidied code is presented below:

;recode-tiny
;name White Noise (tidy)
;author The MicroGP Corewars Collective
;strategy evolved oneshot
;assert CORESIZE==800

step equ -26

scan add inc, @inc+1

sptr sne }3*step+11, 3*step+5
cptr djn.f scan, {50

inc spl #step, {step

mov @bptr, >sptr
clr mov @bptr, >cptr
mov @bptr, >cptr
bptr djn.f clr, {sbmb

dat #-181, }8
sbmb spl #-25, 12

for 9
dat 0, 0
rof

spl 1, 1

end sptr
=============================================================================
Extra Extra - whispered in a dream by John Metcalf

After hearing rumors about a new type of imp-launcher, I re-examined

the vector launch I've been using in some of my tiny warriors. I wondered
what, if anything, could be improved.

The speed is already optimal, and I believed(*) no worthwhile improvement

could be made to the size. So I searched for a method to increase the
number of offensive decrements.

A standard binary launch has plenty of free b-fields. Using this as a

starting point I looked for opportunities to reduce the size.

By re-using portions of the code and incrementing the launch addresses

as necessary, a 3 point 8 process binary launch can be reduced from 15
to 9 instructions.

We define a good offensive decrement as follows:

1) to be at a location which will not be overwitten shortly after,

2) to not be adjacent to another decremented location.

Decrements which do not meet these requirements are regarded as poor.

The new launcher demonstrated in the stone/imp below has 14 decrements

in total, 6 good and 8 poor. This compares well to the launcher used by
Unknown, which has 3 good decrements.

;redcode-tiny
;name whispered in a dream
;author John Metcalf
;strategy stone/imp
;assert CORESIZE==800

sstep equ 132

istep equ 267
iboot equ imp+31

inc spl #-sstep, >sstep

ptr mov >-sstep*2, 1+sstep*2
add inc, ptr
djn.f ptr, >inc+sstep

for 4
dat 0, 0
rof

less spl inc, {340

mov imp, *i3

spl i4, {492
spl i2, {539
i6 spl @i1, {404
i3 djn.f iboot+0*istep, }0
i4 spl i6, {437
spl @i5, {224
i1 djn.f iboot+1*istep, }0
i2 spl @i3, {456
i5 djn.f iboot+2*istep, }0
imp mov.i #133, istep+1
end less

* G. Labarga recently published "Imp Launchers & The Hybrid Launcher"

in Core Warrior 91, which achieves a significant size reduction.
=============================================================================
Tiny resources available on the web:

http://sal.math.ualberta.ca/ ; SAL - the home of the Tiny hill

http://corewars.sourceforge.net/ ; hills for no-pspace & evolved warriors
http://corewar.co.uk/tiny.htm ; Tiny page - benchmarks, hints & more
http://www.ociw.edu/~birk/COREWAR/ ; home to the infinite Tiny hill
=============================================================================