The purpose of this demonstration is to help you develop intuition for how minimax and alpha-beta search methods perform. The particular problem solved is that of finding the best move in a game.
The Search type menu item on the menu bar enables you to see either the minimax method working alone or together with the alpha-beta method. The Data type item allows you to pick from various arrangements of static game-board values, as displayed in the green boxes. The Shape item allows to pick from various sample tree shapes, varying in width and depth. The Speed item enables you to alter how fast the search movie plays.
The Search button initiates search. The New tree button generates random static game-board values. The Stop button stops processing.
Minimax Game Java® Demonstration
Cick on the Java® link and Open the file when prompted.
If the demonstration does not appear, you are probably using a web browser that does not support the version of Java® in which demonstration was written, so you will need a so-called plug in. If your browser does not volunteer to load the plug in for you, you may need to load the plug in from the Sun plug-in website.
Testing was done with Java® 1.4, running in Netscape Navigator 7.02 and in Internet Explorer 6.0.
Java® is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.