Peter R. Jennings

Peter R. Jennings (born 1950) is a Canadian physicist, scientist, inventor, software developer, computer chess programmer, and entrepreneur. He is best known for creating MicroChess, the first microcomputer game to be sold commercially in 1976.[1]

Biography

Early life

Jennings was born in Bedford, England, in 1950. In the 1960s his family moved to Ontario, Canada.[2] He received an MA in physics from SUNY Stony Brook University in 1972, and an MBA in finance and marketing from McMaster University in 1974.[2]

MicroChess

Jennings developed MicroChess shortly after leaving graduate school in New York; the code was sold on paper, so buyers had to type in the code to activate the program.[3] MicroChess was the first software to sell over 10,000 copies.[4]

Later versions, on the Apple II and the TRS-80, sold millions of copies.[3] It was also available on the Commodore PET and Atari 400/800 platforms.[5][6][7]

ChessMate
The Commodore ChessMate, developed by Peter R. Jennings in 1977.

Jennings also developed the first model of the ChessMate, working for Commodore in 1977.[8]

Later years

In 1976, along with Dan Fylstra, he co-founded the corporation Personal Software, which became VisiCorp, and was involved in the creation of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program.[9] MicroChess sales helped to finance the development of VisiCalc.[6][10]

Publications
  • January 1978: "The Second World Computer Chess Championships". BYTE. p. 108.
  • March 1978: "Microchess 1.5 vs. Dark Horse". BYTE. p. 166.
  • No date: "A Good, Long Read (for 18 Years)". Foundation RISC User Online. RISCOS Ltd.
gollark: I expect it to get fun if they ever end up out of sync and download two different things to one file.
gollark: My libraries just have a minified line at the top for downloading dependencies they need.
gollark: CC has many problems for this, like:* Most users are kind of noobish and will just use the simplest solution* There's already a massive patchwork of approaches (mostly just direct download)* People will be annoyed at more installation steps since probably you'll end up installing the package manager for one application you want* Libraries are crazy too - most people pass around old pastebin links
gollark: Luarocks is for libraries.
gollark: They have standards bodies and then someone goes off and does their own thing and that gets popular and then they try to merge the popular thing with the standard so we get weird bodges.

References
  1. "6502.org: Source: MicroChess". 6502.org. Retrieved 2016-01-29.
  2. VE3SUN. "Peter Jennings". www.benlo.com. Retrieved 2016-01-29.
  3. "Computer History Museum - Chess For Everyone - Early Microcomputer Chess". www.computerhistory.org. Retrieved 2016-01-29.
  4. "We've mentioned Peter Jennings' ground-breaking Microchess before - the first…". plus.google.com. Retrieved 2016-01-29.
  5. (www.maddogproductions.com/creative), Mad Dog Productions. "IT History Society". www.ithistory.org. Archived from the original on 2013-10-04. Retrieved 2016-01-29.
  6. Chess (Tandy Radio Shack Color Computer) (1980), 1980-01-01, retrieved 2016-01-29
  7. "Scisys and Novag : The Early Years". www.chesscomputeruk.com. Retrieved 2016-01-29.
  8. "Secret Weapons of Commodore: The Commodore CHESSmate". www.floodgap.com. Retrieved 2016-01-29.
  9. Bolton, Syd. "A brief history of computer chess". Toronto Sun. Retrieved 2016-01-29.
  10. Szewczyk, Roman; Kaštelan, Ivan; Temerinac, Miodrag; Barak, Moshe; Sruk, Vlado (2016-01-19). Embedded Engineering Education. Springer. ISBN 9783319275406.
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