mclure@SRI-UNIX@sri-unix (06/08/82)
Mail-From: ARPANET host SRI-AI received by CMU-10A at 8-Jun-82 12:35:21-EDT Date: 8 Jun 1982 0931-PDT From: Mark Stickel <Stickel at SRI-AI> Subject: Update on Belle To: mark.sherman at CMU-10A cc: Stickel at SRI-AI Remailed-To: INFO-Cobol at MIT-MC Remailed-From: Mark.Sherman at CMU-10A Remailed-Date: Tuesday, 8 June 1982 1355-EDT Via: Mit-Mc.ArpaNet; 8 Jun 82 11:06-PDT In June 6, 1982 S.F. Chronicle: Belle the Chess Whiz Leaving U.S. Custody The world's champion chess computer -- confiscated by the government to keep it out of Soviet hands -- is being returned to its creator, U.S. Customs Service officials said yesterday. Federal agents impounded the computer -- nicknamed Belle by its ATT Bell Laboratories creator, Kenneth Thompson -- at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport last month after they found it had no export license for shipment to Moscow. Thompson said he never intended to sell Belle to the Russians -- only to display it at a chess exhibition in Moscow -- and the whole episode was unnecessary. Bell Labs paid a $600 fine a week ago, Thompson said, and Customs Service spokesman Lou Gerig said yesterday the device would be returned soon. Belle beat every other chess computer at the most recent world championship at Linz, Austria, in 1980. -------