Personal computer of chess player and scientist Mikhail Botvinnik

Personal computer

Mikhail Botvinnik is a famous Soviet and Russian chess player, scientist, Doctor of Technical Sciences, head of the sector of the Institute of Electric Power Engineering, author of numerous inventions patented in many countries of the world.

The exhibit is accompanied by a letter from Olga Mikhailovna Fioshkina, Mikhail Botvinnik's daughter, confirming in the text that this computer was in the personal use of her father, Mikhail Botvinnik, from the 1980s until his death.

From about the 1960s until the end of his life, Mikhail Botvinnik was engaged in the development of a "thinking" program that would choose moves like a human. Scientists were extremely interested in creating chess programs, because they sincerely believed that only a really smart machine could beat a person at chess, and this would be a triumph of artificial intelligence!#nbsp;

Mikhail Botvinnik made a special contribution to the history of computer chess. After a personal meeting with Claude Shannon in the spring of 1965, Botvinnik was inspired by the scientist's idea of the possibility of using a chess computer as a model for solving similar control problems. Being a patriot, Botvinnik firmly believed in the possibility of more effective planning of the state economy with the help of smart computers — Botvinnik's desire to program chess became stronger and stronger.

Botvinnik was in charge of the laboratory at VNIIE, and in the summer of 1972 he managed to "break through" the scientific topic of working on a chess computer program. In December 1976, his program was given the ambitious name "Pioneer". She couldn't play, but she solved the famous Rety sketch and a number of more difficult tasks. Further refinement of the program gave unexpected side effects: it was successfully used both to calculate the cost of repair work and in the preparation of the state plan in 1986. However, there was no progress in chess, but Botvinnik was true to his dream.

For many years, his team had to test the Pioneer program on other people's computers, often with paid machine time. The laboratory was in dire need of personal computers, and when they appeared in 1987, the chess player got his first PC, currently represented in the Stargift collection. To obtain this computer, which was not yet available for open sale, the grandmaster had to go to an appointment with the chairman of the USSR State Sports Committee.#nbsp;

Despite the collapse of Pioneer and the triumph of chess programs, the very idea of developing a "smart" algorithm for playing chess has remained forever associated with Botvinnik's name.