Daniel Whiteson

First you write the two-player version, and then you're like, I want to play against the computer.

How can I program a little bit of computer intelligence in there?

What is the strategy for Tic-Tac-Toe?

So you used ASCII characters, refreshed the page.

Refreshed the page is CHR$147, if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah, and eventually you realize, wow, tic-tac-toe is not that complicated a game.

You can write a computer player that's unbeatable, that can't be beaten.

And then you get interested in deeper games, write checkers, write chess.

Those are really hard.

Now hold on a second.

I've got to challenge you because Whopper, didn't Whopper tell us that there is no winner to tic-tac-toe?

Do you know what I'm talking about?

Whopper was the game show?

No, that was the big computer in war games.

Oh, okay.

remember where the only shall we play a game yes the only strategy is not to play yeah that's right yeah everybody loses in global thermal nuclear war yes it does yes it does yeah but if you play tic-tac-toe right you should get a draw every time right um and that was something i only discovered by writing a computer player that i couldn't beat which was pretty cool yeah vic 20 um

When I'm talking to other, can I call you a nerd?

Yes, I'm a proud nerd, absolutely.

When I'm talking to other nerds, we always have this competition about who started at the lowest baud rate.

Lowest baud rate when you first connect, you first dialed up to CompuServer BBSs.