Chaturanga (Sanskrit: चतुरङ्ग; caturaṅga), or catur for short, which means 'Four Divisions' (referring to ancient army divisions of infantry Pawn (che...
Chaturanga (Sanskrit: चतुरङ्ग; caturaṅga), or catur for short, which means 'Four Divisions' (referring to ancient army divisions of infantry Pawn (chess), cavalry Knight (chess), elephantry Alfil (chess), and chariotry Rook (chess)), is an ancient Indian strategy game that is commonly theorized to be the common ancestor of the board games chess, xiangqi, shogi, sittuyin, and makruk.
Chaturanga is first known from the Gupta Empire in India around the 6th century AD. In the 7th century, it was adopted as chatrang (shatranj) in Sassanid Persia, which in turn was the form of chess brought to late-medieval Europe.
According to Stewart Culin, chaturanga was first described in the Hindu text Bhavishya Purana.
The exact rules of chaturanga are unknown. Chess historians suppose that the game had similar rules to those of its successor, shatranj. In particular, there is uncertainty as to the moves of the Gaja (elephant).
The origin of chaturanga has been a puzzle for centuries. It has its origins in the Gupta Empire, with the earliest clear reference dating from the sixth century of the common era, and from north India. The first substantial argument that chaturanga is much older than this is the fact that the chariot is the most powerful piece on the board, although chariots appear to have been obsolete in warfare for at least five or six centuries. The counter-argument is that they remained prominent in literature. Several more recent scholars have proposed a gradual evolution in the centuries B.C. in the northern or northwestern border areas of Indian culture, where it was in contact with Greek culture brought by the Macedonian-Greek army, and where some rulers issued coins with fused Greek-Indian imagery. Myron Samsin argues that chaturanga originated in the kingdom of Bactria, ca. 255–55 B.C., in a fusion of the many short-moving men of the Greek game petteia, or poleis, with men derived from the various moves of an Indian race game, perhaps Seega or Chaupur, on the ashtapada, the board of another race game.
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MASTERMIND
Mastermind or Master Mind is a code-breaking game for two players. The modern game with pegs was invented in 1970 by Mordecai Meirowitz, an Israeli po...
Mastermind or Master Mind is a code-breaking game for two players. The modern game with pegs was invented in 1970 by Mordecai Meirowitz, an Israeli postmaster and telecommunications expert.It resembles an earlier pencil and paper game called Bulls and Cows that may date back a century.
The game is based on an older, paper based game called Bulls and Cows. A computer adaptation of it was run in the 1960s on Cambridge University’s Titan computer system, where it was called 'MOO'. This version was written by Frank King. There was also another version for the TSS/8 time sharing system, written by J.S. Felton and finally a version for the Multics system at MIT by Jerrold Grochow.
The modern game with pegs was invented in 1970 by Mordecai Meirowitz, an Israeli postmaster and telecommunications expert. Meirowitz presented the idea to many major toy companies but, after showing it at the Nuremberg International Toy Fair, it was picked up by a plastics company, Invicta Plastics, based near Leicester, UK. Invicta purchased all the rights to the game and the founder, Edward Jones-Fenleigh, refined the game further. It was released in 1971–2.
Since 1971, the rights to Mastermind have been held by Invicta Plastics. (Invicta always named the game Master Mind.) They originally manufactured it themselves, though they have since licensed its manufacture to Hasbro worldwide, with the exception of Pressman Toys and Orda Industries who have the manufacturing rights to the United States and Israel, respectively.
Starting in 1973, the game box featured a photograph of a white man in a white jacket seated in the foreground, with a young Asian woman of high caste standing behind him with the golden symbols of office visible on her sari, denoting the power and intellect behind the throne. The two amateur models (Bill Woodward and Cecilia Fung) reunited in June 2003 to pose for another publicity photo.
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