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Games Playing with Computers
A. G. Bell
George Allen and Unwin, 1972
Games Playing with Computers is an unconventional approach to teaching programming techniques, using games rather than the usual hackneyed numerical examples. The book is not theoretical: it deals straightforwardly with the progress of game playing with the aid of machines, from Babbage's noughts and crosses machine to the most recent electronic machines which have reached county championship level in chess.
A number of pragmatic (and previously unpublished) solutions are given to show the student how many of the most common board and card games may be played or solved by computer techniques. This interest in the familiar introduces a great deal of information about programming quite painlessly. The intentionally unrigorous treatment may, therefore, be found suitable for broadening the horizons of science and technology students outside the more obvious computing and programming courses, as well as being interesting to full-time computer professionals.
Mr Bell has spent a number of years programming the most powerful computers in compiling techniques, which are closely related to this subject, and has published several papers on a variety of games.