Velena
A Shannon C-type program which plays connect four perfectly
Velena Engine Source Code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the following conditions:
If you make a derived work, the full source code must be distributed and placed in public domain.
You must not charge a fee for this software nor for any derived work in which this software is included.
You must not delete the copyright notices in the source code.
Disclaimer
This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty;
including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular
purpose with respect to the software and accompanying written materials. The author takes no
responsibility for use or misuse of this software. Although every effort has been made to
produce a solid and efficient product the author cannot assure that the operation of the
software will be uninterrupted and error free. The user takes every risk.
Actually the source code has been tested under Watcom C/C++ V10.0 and Linux gcc compiler.
Greetings
During Velena development I have been helped by many persons:
This program is based on the knowledged approach of L.Victor Allis which designed and
implemented a sophisticated AI engine in a program called Victor.
Velena is basically the same, except that even newer concepts and techniques were
introduced in order to reduce the problem complexity (of solving the game) to a more
tractable factor of magnitude. Moreover Velena is available to anyone, while Victor
(currently) is not. I thank L.Victor Allis for his support while I developed Velena and for
the theory he made for solving Connect Four. Without him this program wouldn't have
come to light.
I also thank Filippo Ghilardi who helped me to build the opening book data base which took
several days of work on his Pentium 133 computer, and Davide Mazza who created the Velena
intro logo (MSDOS version).
Any comments and suggestions are welcome
Giuliano Bertoletti
gbe@ce.eng.unipr.it