Core War is a programming game created by D. G. Jones and A. K. Dewdney in which two or more battle programs (called "warriors") compete for control of a virtual computer. These battle programs are written in an abstract assembly language called Redcode. At the beginning of a game, each battle program is loaded into memory at a random location, after which each program executes one instruction in turn. The object of the game is to cause the processes of opposing programs to terminate (which happens if they execute an invalid instruction), leaving the victorious program in sole possession of the machine.
full article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_WarYou may find interesting that the game's direct predecessor, 'Darwin', was written "around 1966 [by] Robert Morris, Sr., the future National Security Agency (NSA) chief scientist."
(quoting "The art of virus research and defense" by Peter Szor, chapter 1.1.4)Sounds pretty amazing, imo. Is anyone of you into this?
I discovered core war's existence only a few days ago, and therefore couldn't check it out by myself yet. But I will, since it might be some epic chess-like shit with the possibilty of programming your own game tokens. (Insert evil laughter here)