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ELIZA pre-AI software from Microware

Unfortunately, all I found was the cassette. It came with other SWTPC cassettes, so I am not surprised that is the hardware. I reached out to one of the Microware founders and he recalled the software, but not much else. Nice find on the ad. I have that issue, so I'll have to look it up.
 
I pulled out my SWTPC 6800 and loaded the S-Record file Ben created. It plays pretty much the same as the typical BASIC version. Unfortunately, the audio volume is still to low to load using a working SWTPC cassette interface or a working KCS cassette board in an S-100 machine.

Thanks for digging this up and sharing it!

Mike D
 
Thanks for the feedback. Great to know it actually works. No problem sharing it. Thanks for everyone's help!
 
Here is an updated audio file. Hopefully this one can work with the cassette interface. I am revisiting this and posting a video about it. Hopefully this can be some use to someone.

Eliza new capture.zip
 
tgarnold said:
I found this with some SWTPC 6800 software cassettes. I can't find evidence of it ever being offered for sale. Anyone ever seen it before? I contacted Ken Kaplan a founder of Microware who verified it is a version of ELIZA software written for the 6800. Did any other companies write ELIZA software for the Motorola 6800?
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Oh, the flashbacks :)

Wonder if it's possible to get it running on a machine and set it to talk to ChatGPT and see if it would drive ChatGPT insane, like it did to us after 5 minutes of use.
 
Sounds like a 'Terminator'; going back in time to disrupt the Siri/Alexa/AI/ChatGPT Skynet cabal....... I'm 100% behind that.
 
Good recovery, team effort! Too bad there's no SS-50/680X forum here, all that content seems to be in the "others" forum. - regards
 
In a similar vein, Richard Russell of BBCbasic fame gave us "Animal" which was a crude example of early machine learning.
It started with a limited number of distinguishing features by which it would try to guess your animal.
If it was wrong, it would ask for a question which would further distinguish an unknown animal.
After a while it would have built up a huge catalogue of animal features. But, like Eliza, it was only fun for a while... :)
 
Nice! I may have a little bit more on this. I bet Eliza by Microware was written in BASIC and compiled using Microware's BASIC compiler (same one used in their RT68MX OS).The FuFu archives have the BASIC compiler and I'm trying to sort out the details. I recall the Eliza, RT68MX and BASIC Compiler ads (before OS9). I think this BASIC compiler was available for 6800 Flex (and MiniFlex?) and 6809 Flex. Will look more at the Eliza binary over the next few weeks.
HJohnson pointed this out to me, thanks Herb. :)
 
ncherry said:
Nice! I may have a little bit more on this. I bet Eliza by Microware was written in BASIC and compiled using Microware's BASIC compiler (same one used in their RT68MX OS). ...HJohnson pointed this out to me, thanks Herb. :)
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Well, Neil, I'm reworking the disassembled Eliza a bit. The previous disassembly was in a non-Motorola assembler format, my version is Motorola assembler compatible. A lot of the code is "here's a string, here's how to process based on this string". With work I may be able to determine how common routines work to parse input strings based on prior strings in and out. The output strings have some escape codes to fill in based on prior responses, that's the main feature of Eliza. I'll post a result in due course. - regards Herb
 
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