Become a Sea Lord with our interpretation of the age-old pen and paper game!

The renowned game of Battleships is normally played by two players with pencil and paper. Its aim is for each opponent to sink the other's fleet before their own fleet is sunk. The ships are normally marked on a 10 x 10 grid of squares and each player calls out a grid reference in turn, to which the other player responds by saying whether it is a hit of a miss.

The variant of the game described here provides the excitement of the sea chase for just one player, who pits his wits against a PIC microcontroller as the other opponent. The position of the enemy (set by the PIC program!) is unknown and there are five merchant ships to be protected by the battleship. These six ship positions are shown on a 5 × 7 light emitting diode (l.e.d.) matrix display used horizontally.