Ten years after its first release the Star Trek tri-dimensional chess program Parmen remains undefeated among all computer programs currently known to play the game. This doesn't say much, since ten years after that release Parmen remains the only computer program playing the game. For a while there were contenders, a few able to complete several moves before crashing, but nothing lately. Recent searches on the Activision site for “Star Trek”and “chess” produce results of no use. Too bad. That would have been glorious.

This lack of opponents has taken selective pressure off improving the game, and hence the to-do list has grown filled more with desirable features and notation bugs and less with potential methods to improve the logic. Not that there aren't such methods, I just haven't gotten around to implementing them in the code. Instead I spent a little time on a prettier version, “Philana,” modeled inside a Connie rec room complete with traditional table and chairs. I played with selectable boards and chess sets, even a version with animated iconic characters scrambling and fighting between the boards. But even the best of these was simply more “desirable features,” often slowing play instead of improving it. For all its fancy accomplishments, Khan would no doubt lament how little Parmen itself has changed.

Even playing it myself is going to be ineffective, if the goal is to make the game play better and not just me. The plot of “Court Martial” hangs on Finney's mischievously altered computer states somehow corrupting a starship-caliber computer into playing crappier chess. That doesn't make sense according to any paradigm I know, but even granting it so what if Spock could beat the computer? McCoy didn't see the obvious and he clearly knows less about the game. He would lose before, and after. Since Kirk can beat Spock in person, Kirk should readily beat any program of Spock as well. So a better player than Spock wouldn't notice anything wrong in performance after Finney's memory-tinkering, any more than someone with less knowledge would notice. It's an outcome only Spock could determine, and only by writing the program.

And that I think is the personal take-away. Lasting value can go unrecognized until sufficient perspective is applied. Ten years after accomplishing one of my childhood dreams the experience continues to provide rewards, some of those at times when they're least expected. To all those who would consider doing something similar, don't let a decade pass before you start enjoying yours.