Draft talk:Pokerac
Add topic
 | The following Wikipedia contributor has declared a personal or professional connection to the subject of this draft. Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest, autobiography, and neutral point of view.
|
Notability
[edit]I appreciate your comment that "I think this is likely notable". I'd like to add some more information to support that.
Press coverage: Pokerac coverage appeared over 15 months, from May 1961 to August 1962, as documented on newspapers.com. Specifically in May, June, July, August, September, October, and December 1961, and January, February, March, April, and August 1962. Coverage appeared in 29 states, from Arizona to West Virginia, often with a photograph of the machine in operation.
Pokerac in the history of game-playing computers: Computers have been built or programmed for many games, and I believe Pokerac is a relevant part of that history. For example:
- 1940 — Nim: Nimatron; weighed over a ton
- 1952 — Checkers: Arthur Samuel's Checker-Playing Program at IBM
- 1952 — Tic-Tac-Toe: OXO at the University of Cambridge
- 1956 — Chess (6x6): Los Alamos Chess Program
- 1960 — Blackjack: Mel Kaye at Librascope
- 1961 — Poker: Pokerac
- 1962 — SpaceWar: SpaceWar at MIT
- 1968 — Go: Albert Zobrist PhD thesis, University of Wisconsin
- 1977 — Chess (8x8): Fidelity Chess Challenger (Model CC1)
- 1980 — Othello: Fidelity Reversi Challenger (Model RSC)
Possible firsts: The article deliberately doesn't claim these, since they're not documented facts, but they may add to Pokerac's potential historical interest.
- Pokerac was probably the first computer to play poker. I've never found an earlier example.
- Pokerac may also have been the first game-playing computer to use the physical objects of a game as its interface. Earlier games used buttons or keyboards, while Pokerac used the actual playing cards themselves. This feature was possibly not repeated until Fidelity Chess Challenger in 1977 which used chess pieces and a touch-sensitive board.
Naturally I'm not a neutral observer, but I believe this article about an early part of computer history and written with multiple contemporaneous references, fits well in Wikipedia. Please let me know if there's more I can do. Weeks1956 (talk) 15:09, 12 September 2026 (UTC)
- Courtesy ping to Grapesurgeon. Noting that WP:LASTING is used for events – maybe Grapesurgeon was thinking of WP:SUSTAINED instead? No opinions on the other stuff. Icepinner (Come to Hakurei Shrine!) 08:14, 2 October 2026 (UTC)
- Yes mistake, I meant SUSTAINED grapesurgeon (talk) 08:22, 2 October 2026 (UTC)