A Brief History of Corewar

1984 March - Core War Guidelines by D. G. Jones and A. K. Dewdney introduce Redcode and the MARS (Memory Array Redcode Simulator) virtual computer May - A. K. Dewdney introduces Corewar in his Computer Recreations column in Scientific American May - Kevin A. Bjorke releases C source for his Mars implementation June - Berry Kercheval posts his C Mars implementation to Usenet

1985 March - A. K. Dewdney's second Corewar article appears in Scientific American Robert Martin publishes his implementation of Corewar for the Macintosh International Core Wars Society formed, with Mark Clarkson as director

1986 May - ICWS'86 Redcode Standard First International Core War Tournament held in Boston, Mass. Chip Wendell takes first place with Mice, followed by Chang1 by Morrison J. Chang. Third place goes to Midget, another of Chip Wendell's warriors

1987 January - A. K. Dewdney's third Corewar article appears in Scientific American March - first issue of The Core War Newsletter, with William R. Buckley as editor The Core War Colosseum - AMRAN Software's Mars June - second issue of The Core War Newsletter The Japan Core Wars Society, or ICWS Japan is formed September - third issue of The Core War Newsletter Second Annual International Core Wars Society Tournament. First place goes to Ferret by Robert R. Reed III. Plague by Ron Paludan takes second place, followed by Chip Wendell's Piper in third William R. Buckley is appointed the second director of the ICWS

1988 The Armchair Universe by A. K. Dewdney 1988 Core War Programmers Open - a double-elimination tournament sponsored by Mark Durham Winter - fourth issue of The Core War Newsletter Spring - fifth issue of The Core War Newsletter Summer - sixth issue of The Core War Newsletter Third Annual International Core Wars Society Tournament. In first place - Cowboy by Eugene P. Lilitko. Second goes to Lux2t by Luca Crosara, with MuleDna by Douglas McDaniels taking third Fall - seventh issue of The Core War Newsletter, edited by Jeff Spira ICWS'88 Redcode Standard

1989 Fourth Annual International Core Wars Society Tournament. Hypray by Bono Francesco claims first place, followed by Wang1 by Alan Wang and Powerbomb by Bram Cohen Stefan Strack releases CoreWar Pro

1990 Summer - eighth issue of The Core War Newsletter, edited by William R. Buckley Fall - ninth issue of The Core War Newsletter, edited by Mark A. Durham Fifth ICWS Tournament. Paper by Scott Nelson holds first place, followed by DoubleStorm II by Matthew J. Chung and XTC by Stefan Röttger The Coreworld: Emergence and Evolution of Cooperative Structures in a Computational Chemistry, Steen Rasmussen et al.

1991 Winter - tenth issue of The Core War Newsletter rec.games.corewar formed EBS Tournament 1991 ICWS Tournament. Stefan Röttger takes first place with XTC December - William Shubert announces his play-by-email King of the Hill server

1992 EBS Valentine Tournament February - Jon Newman takes over the directorship of the ICWS Spring - eleventh issue of The Core War Newsletter Summer - twelveth issue of The Core War Newsletter Fall - thirteenth issue of The Core War Newsletter October - Anders Ivner invents the imp ring EBS Tournament ICWS 1992 Tournament. Nándor Sieben and Ander Ivner tie for first place Core Wars Genetics: The Evolution of Predation by John Perry Work begins on the ICWS'94 Draft Standard

1993 Albert Ma releases Mercury, his speedy new assembly language Mars implementation A portable C Mars named pMARS becomes available Optima released by Nándor Sieben EBS Summer Tournament - Dan Nabutovsky and W. Mintardjo battle in the final, with Dan emerging victorious June - Scott Ellentuch sets up the new King of the Hill server at Stormking September - W. Mintardjo's Sphinx v2.8 makes Corewar history by becoming the first warrior to reach the age of 2000, finally dropping off the hill age 2102 26 issues of Push Off Michael's New Corewar Tournament EBS Fall '93 Tournament Winter - fourteenth issue of The Core War Newsletter Spring - fifteenth issue of The Core War Newsletter Summer - sixteenth issue of The Core War Newsletter 1993 Annual ICWS Tournament. Paul Kline claims first place with Cannonade, followed by Anders Ivner and Stefan Strack

1994 March - seventeenth issue of The Core War Newsletter EBS Spring '94 Tournament April - Thomas H. Davies provides the Pizza King of the Hill server The final 2 issues of Push Off Issues 1 to 14 of The '94 Warrior My First Corewar Book by Steven Morrell Fall - eighteenth and final issue of The Core War Newsletter Corestep released by Jay Han

1995 P-Space invented Nándor and Stefan's Fall Core War Tournament - after 9 rounds, Steven Morrell emerges champion, with Robert Macrae and Paul Kline as runners-up 9 issues (1 to 9) of Core Warrior Planar's Warrior Archive Steven's Page No 1

1996 March - Intelligent Warrior Tournament, Kurt Franke claims first place with System Trap Steven's Page No 2 Mathematical Models for Step Sizes by Steven Morrell Mount Olympus - the first infinite hill May - The Battle Royal - Iocane takes first place for John K. Wilkinson June - Robert Macrae's Thermite II becomes the second warrior in history to reach the age of 2000, surviving to a final age of 2262 The Wilkies benchmark is published by John K. Wilkinson Beppe's Direct Elimination Core War Tournament - winner Philip Kendall 44 issues (10 to 53) of Core Warrior 13 issues of Steve's Guide for Beginners Wilbez advanced benchmark

1997 Anton's Core War Tournament Koenigstuhl, Christoph C. Birk's infinite hills Franz releases SYS4, his Perl Corewar evolver Jason Boer releases the GA_WAR.C evolver 10 issues (54 to 63) of Core Warrior

1998 January - Redcode Maniacs Tournament - after 9 rounds, first place is taken by David Moore, followed by Robert Macrae then John K Wilkinson April - Ilmari's Mini Tournament #1 - won by Philip Kendall. Second place goes to Robert Macrae 6 issues (64 to 69) of Core Warrior The Oversby Autumn 1998 Tournament - after 8 rounds, M. Joonas Pihlaja is declared victor, followed by Christian Schmidt and Robert Macrae Wilmoo benchmark David Moore's '88 benchmark Redmaker is released by Terry Newton, a Corewar evolver

1999 May - Intelligent Warrior Tournament. In the final showdown, John K. Wilkinson is proclaimed winner after defeating David Moore October - Ilmari's Mini Tournament #2 - in which h1_36.red evolved by Dave Hillis captures first place. Next are Ken Espiritu and Ransom Smith in second and third places 7 issues (70 to 76) of Core Warrior #COREWARS IRC channel created on irc.KOTH.org

2000 Koth Fall Corewars Tournament (Kofacoto). After the preliminary four rounds, eight players go through to the playoffs. Robert Macrae succeeds against Michal Janeczek in the final round to take first place. Michal is left with second, while third goes to David Moore 2 issues (77 to 78) of Core Warrior Lukasz Adamowski creates the Polish Hills Walter Hofmann creates the Sourceforge Hills Exhaust is released by M. Joonas Pihlaja, an easy to embed C Mars Y.A.C.E. is released by Martin Ankerl, Yet Another Corewar Evolver Redrace is released by Dave Hillis, a Corewar evolver

2001 1 issue (79) of Core Warrior

2002 Spring / Summer 2002 Corewar Tournament. After five rounds, first place is held by Michal Janeczek. Steve Gunnell takes second place, with Philip Thorne in third 5 issues (80 to 84) of Core Warrior Wilfiz benchmark

2003 Redcoders Frenzy: The Ongoing Corewar Tournament Will Varfar releases Species, his Corewar evolver March - the weekly IRC Tournaments begin Loren Jamison releases CRE, his Corewar evolver 4 issues (85 to 88) of Core Warrior Barkley Vowk releases CCAI, his distributed evolver Chip Wendell releases CoreWin, a feature packed Windows Mars Fizzle is released by Terry Newton, his latest evolver October - Oversby/Pihlaja's Son of Vain becomes the third warrior to pass the age of 2000. Son of Vain finally left the hill with a record age of 2573 The SAL hills are opened

2004 2 issues (89 to 90) of Core Warrior 1 issue of Tinywarrior Optimax is released, a multi-stage optimizer written in Perl ICC2004 meeting held in Berlin Michal Janeczek releases fMars

2005 1 issue (91) of Core Warrior 2 issues of Tinywarrior Terry Newton releases REBS, a Corewar evolver 2 issues of Core Explorer Corewar Single Elimination Tournament 2005 - after 5 rounds Chip Wendell claims first place, with Roy van Rijn taking second, and S.Fernandes third

2006 First issue of nanoWarrior 2006 Corewar Spring Tournament - after 5 rounds double elimination, Chip Wendell takes first place, followed by Zul Nadzri and Neogryzor.

2007 Down The Core And More tournament - after 3 rounds, Inversed takes first place followed by Chip Wendell and Mizcu. February - Muddy Mouse (RBv1.6r1.1.231) evolved by The MicroGP Corewars Collective passes the age of 2000 on SAL's nano hill. 1 issue (92) of Core Warrior 1 issue (02) of nanoWarrior

2008 1 issue (03) of nanoWarrior

2009 Christian Schmidt opens The Corewar Dynahill 1 issue (04) of Tinywarrior

2010 3 issues (1 to 3) of Redcode Talk The First International Corewar Programming Contest - Inversed takes first place, followed by Roy van Rijn and Zul Nadzri

2011 The Second International Corewar Programming Contest - Inversed takes first place, followed by Roy van Rijn and Dave Hillis 1 issue (4) of Redcode Talk

2012

2013

2014 Gérman Labarga claimed first place in the Spring 2014 Core War Tournament at The Centre for Computing History in Cambridge The Halloween Core War Tournament - inversed takes first place, followed by Roy van Rijn and Robert Macrae

2015 The Valentine Core War Tournament - Steve Gunnell claims first place 1 issue (01) of CoreOps Christian Schmidt and John Metcalf share first place in the Tiny Stone Challenge