If I spent all my time reading about the latest AI, I would get no sleep and do no work. But I check out my Google feed each morning and on Friday I was lucky enough to come across the following post:
I grew up coding in the 1980s, and whilst screen resolution was dire by today’s standards (e.g. 128×48 pixels on my TRS-80), by then we had more visually appealing games than the one created by Jim Storer (external link). But what he did was iconic, even if you’ve never heard of him or the game.
Kudos to Martin C. Martin, for discovering the bug. I love his writing style. You can read more about him, on his blog.
If you’ve read my posts, it’s not like I haven’t already tackled a similar topic (https://aimlfun.com/no-crashing-landing-permitted/). Spoiler alert: this is not going to be my usual eye candy, but it seemed like a simple challenge, so why not?
You can find the original code (image), shared by Jim on his university website at: https://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~storer/LunarLander/LunarLander/LunarLanderListing.jpg
The idea is based on the Apollo moon landings. You’re in a lunar lander, and every 10 seconds you decide how much fuel to burn in the thruster to land safely. I love the simplicity of the idea, albeit the rocket equations used are not so simple. You type in “K:” value.
Doesn’t that sound like something AI could do?
