A December 1956 cover feature article in Radio-Electronics magazine describes "Relay Moe" which plays tic tac toe with adjustable levels of skill. It used 90 relays.

<https://www.vintagecomputer.net/cisc367/Radio%20Electronics%...>

Here is the full text, for discussing with agents:

https://archive.org/stream/RadioElectronics195701/Radio%20El...

This is a subject dear to my heart. I'm a mathematician who routinely uses symmetry in counting problems. As a kid I remember writing out a tic tac toe game tree in about ten pages. I must have used symmetry, and I must have only mapped a winning strategy, not all 765 game states up to symmetry.

So my first reaction to now reading that Bertie the Brain used "addition tubes" was "Really? Can't you do that with relays?" And the reality is that Bertie the Brain was a solution looking for a problem, a demo project for these tubes, not an attempt at the simplest way to implement such a machine.

Still, looking at the numbers, I'm impressed that Relay Moe managed multiple levels of game play using only 90 relays. The design exploited symmetry.

the mechanical chess computer was even more impressive imho

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ajedrecista

early 1900s, that's incredible

the first electronic computer playing chess was almost 50 years away

I miss the days when video games were used to showcase technical advances.

"Kates built the game to showcase his additron tube, a miniature version of the vacuum tube, though the transistor overtook it in computer development shortly thereafter."

Man Canada used to be so impressive. We need to get back there

2014 interview with the creator: https://spacing.ca/toronto/2014/08/13/meet-bertie-brain-worl...

On the tic tac toe topic, MENACE is just startlingly cool:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matchbox_Educable_Noughts_and_...

Toronto leading AI since the 50s woo!

So ... Joshua was the next evolution of Bertie?

As I was reading through this, I came to the part that mentions the cathode-ray tube amusement device and the words instantly unlocked a long forgotten memory I had as a child reading DK illustrated books on science and tech (I can't recall what the book was called) and it's where I learnt about it being the first video game ever.

Only tangentially related to this article but it took me back!