Dev tools · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Porting a Classic 1970s Chess Program to Modern Hardware
This is a project to bring the code from the book "Sargon a computer chess program" back to life in the modern era - billforsternz/retro-sargon
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Porting a Classic 1970s Chess Program to Modern Hardware launched in 2020; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1AR
Software and hardware projects for fun from a guy who loves retro computing
2019 · internalregister.github.io · its alternatives →
- 2

Finally got my hobby OS up and running on real hardware. I love the old IBM thinkpads, so thought it was the perfect machine to get it working on. Been working on it for quite some time now, but this has been a big milestone!
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 3IM
Hi, As a 8-bit C64 game coder in eaarly 90ties and currently mostly FE-focused dev, decided to give a go to a simple retro game archive. This is purely fun project - so i decided to post it to HN, mayne it'll resonate :)
2023 · polishpixels.com · its alternatives →
- 4

Haskell for FPGA Hardware Design: Use abstractions like monads and lenses to implement 1970
2021 · unsafeperform.io · its alternatives →
- 5

- 6

Learn how classic game hardware worked. Write code and see it run instantly.
2016 · 8bitworkshop.com · its alternatives →
- 7Chess Scanner▲123
Scan score sheets and generate chess games in seconds.
2024 · chessscanner.com · its alternatives →
- 8

To try it out, simply build the project yourself from source, or use attached bootable ISO image of the system (in Releases on Github) and run it in QEMU. https://blog.vxn.dev/rou2exos-rusted-edition
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 9

I'm doing some fun chess-related programing during my sabbatical, and taking the opportunity to dive down rabbit holes I'd avoid for in a work setting. Found out interesting stuff from old ANSI DEC escape sequences to sixel graphics that are useful today.
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 10CE
We built ChessBoss at the TechCrunch Disrupt hackathon this week. It didn’t make the top 10 but I thought Hacker News might think it’s pretty cool. https://devpost.com/software/chess-boss There are these really cool smart chessboards that can suggest moves and track your games... but they’re $400 and weigh 19 pounds. And of course there are apps that can analyze games but tracking and inputting games by hand is a huge pain. Or fully-digital chess apps... but board games are way more fun in real life! We wondered: “why can’t you just do that in software and bring the best…
2019 · devpost.com · its alternatives →
- 11

CHIP-8 console on FPGA. Contribute to pwmarcz/fpga-chip8 development by creating an account on GitHub.
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 12

Recreating battles from history in chess
2021 · play.google.com · its alternatives →
- 13

Chess AI in Java - 2005 High School Project. Contribute to theronic/chessmate development by creating an account on GitHub.
2013 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 14MW
Follow the discussion on YCombinator . I like to play chess. It is challenging, it requires strategic thinking and it is a great way to ...
2011 · codebazaar.blogspot.com · its alternatives →
- 15

Hey HN! I've been curious about the history of computer science and decided to try to read Turing's 1936 paper where he conceptualizes the Turing Machine, etc. I had trouble understanding the paper, read The Annotated Turing by Charles Petzold (which is wonderful), but felt that reading a reference implementation would help formalize my understanding. When I couldn't find an open source implementation, I decided to write my own. The implementation includes: - Abbreviated tables (m-functions) - Conversions to Standard Descriptions and Description Numbers - A working universal machine - A…
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 16

A chess engine implementation inspired by AlphaZero, using MLX for neural network computations and Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) for move selection.
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 17NH
All games are playable in the browser, and were written in the past month in AGC/Macro1 assembler, with the source code available on Github: https://github.com/1888games/2048_Apollo https://github.com/1888games/2DMaze_AGC https://github.com/1888games/1nvader-PDP-1
2023 · itch.io · its alternatives →
- 18

Play Sokoban in your browser and watch an AI solver crack it. A plain-JS port of a native C++ engine, it returns the provably optimal (fewest-move) solution, entirely client-side.
Aug 2026 · mkornreich.me · its alternatives →
- 19PO
2014 · wagnerandrade.github.io · its alternatives →
- 208C
Hi everybody! Due to Covid 19 pandemic I was forced in my home, so I revamped my book https://8bit.gioorgi.com It is a huge collection of information about the 8bit comnputer era (1980-1985) up to the NES console. I collected information from various source including “The 8bit Guy” videos and specific site (like C64 wiki, nesdev etc). I am using docusaurus to give a pleasnt look to the whole site. Please give me you feedback (and happy new year btw)!
2021 · its alternatives →
- 21

Play chess online for free on Chess.com with over 250 million members from around the world. Have fun playing with friends or challenging the computer!
2011 · multiplayerchess.com · its alternatives →
- 22

Hi HN! I built a simple chess game so that my son in Singapore can play chess with his grandfather in China. Why? There is currently no service or open source software that has all of the following: * All processing and assets on a single server (Critical to workaround a firewall) * No email account required (Chinese Internet services typically login via WeChat) * Works on Android browser * Simple to install and config I built it, together with Claude Code, using simple and boring technologies (Django + Client-side JS). I hope that when you use it, you will find it simple to understand…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 23

- 24

Hey everyone, I have been trying to build a terminal based app for sometime now and this is an attempt at trying to build a chess app that one can play right inside terminal. I was inspired by `chess-tui`[1] which is a rust based project and was looking to build something similar using python. Luckily I stumbled upon textual[2] recently and it made my task of building this far more easier than I thought. [1] https://github.com/thomas-mauran/chess-tui [2] https://github.com/textualize/textual
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →