Sargon is a line of chess-playing software for personal computers. The original Sargon was written by Dan and Kathleen 'Kathe' Spracklen in assembly language.
A Navy Petty Officer, Paul Lohnes, ported Sargon to the TRS-80, altering both graphics, input, and housekeeping routines leaving the Spracklen's chess-playing algorithm intact. The TRS-80 version became an instant success with the help of Hayden Book's newly established software division: Hayden Software.
The Spracklens made some significant improvements on the original program and the updated version was released by Hayden Software as Sargon II. This version was ported to a variety of personal computers popular in the early 1980s. The game engine featured multiple levels of look-ahead which could be adjusted by the user to make the program more accessible to beginning chess players. Even though chess programs of the time could not defeat a chess master, they were more than a match for most amateur players.
Source: Wikipedia, "Sargon (chess)", available under the CC-BY-SA License.