RoboWar
Encyclopedia
RoboWar is an open source
video game in which the player programs
onscreen icon-like robot
s to battle each other with animation and sound effects. The syntax of the language
in which the robots are programmed is a relatively simple stack-based one, based largely on IF, THEN, and simply-defined variables.
25 RoboWar tournaments were held in the past between 1989 until roughly 2003, when tournaments became intermittent and many of the major coders moved on. All robots from all tournaments are available on the RoboWar website.
The RoboWar programming language, RoboTalk, is a stack-oriented programming language
and is similar in structure to FORTH.
) included support for interrupts as well.
game in 1992 by David Harris for the Apple Macintosh platform. The source code has since been released and implementations are now also available for Microsoft Windows
. It was based upon the same concepts as the 1981 Apple II game RobotWar
.
Initially tournaments were run by David Harris himself, but were eventually run by Eric Foley.
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
video game in which the player programs
Computer programming
Computer programming is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to create a program that performs specific operations or exhibits a...
onscreen icon-like robot
Robot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
s to battle each other with animation and sound effects. The syntax of the language
Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
in which the robots are programmed is a relatively simple stack-based one, based largely on IF, THEN, and simply-defined variables.
25 RoboWar tournaments were held in the past between 1989 until roughly 2003, when tournaments became intermittent and many of the major coders moved on. All robots from all tournaments are available on the RoboWar website.
The RoboWar programming language, RoboTalk, is a stack-oriented programming language
Stack-oriented programming language
A stack-oriented programming language is one that relies on a stack machine model for passing parameters. Several programming languages fit this description, notably Forth, RPL, PostScript, and also many Assembly languages ....
and is similar in structure to FORTH.
Programming features
RoboWar for the Macintosh was notable among the genre of autonomous robot programming games for the powerful programming model it exposed to the gamer. By the early 1990s, RoboWar included an integrated debugger that permitted stepping through code and setting breakpoints. Later editions of the RoboTalk language used by the robots (a cognate of the HyperTalk language for Apple's HyperCardHyperCard
HyperCard is an application program created by Bill Atkinson for Apple Computer, Inc. that was among the first successful hypermedia systems before the World Wide Web. It combines database capabilities with a graphical, flexible, user-modifiable interface. HyperCard also features HyperTalk, written...
) included support for interrupts as well.
History
RoboWar was originally released as a closed source sharewareShareware
The term shareware is a proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability, or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a compact disc included with a...
game in 1992 by David Harris for the Apple Macintosh platform. The source code has since been released and implementations are now also available for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
. It was based upon the same concepts as the 1981 Apple II game RobotWar
RobotWar
RobotWar was a programming game written by Silas Warner. This game, along with the companion program RobotWrite, was originally developed in the TUTOR programming language language on the PLATO system in the 1970s. Later the game was commercialized and adapted for the Apple II family of computers...
.
Initially tournaments were run by David Harris himself, but were eventually run by Eric Foley.
External links
- RoboWar 5 - Home of the recent Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
version and original MacintoshMacintoshThe Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
version - RoboWar project page at SourceForge
- RoboWarX - An implementation written in C#
- JSRoboWar - Runs in a HTML5-compatible web browser