I remember reading about Matchbox Game-Learning Machines in a book in my school library in the late 1960s. It was partly responsible for getting me interested in computers.
Saberhagen knew of Donald Michie's [1] MENACE [2] .. and this linked article tells of matchbox driven noughts and crosses engines and other variations for similarly simple games.
This was recently broadcast with discussion on the UK panel show QI (Quite Interesting) which may point to why this has hit the HN zeitgeist.
(worth a reread now that the Newts of today are seeking to harness LLMs ... but do we have a Del?)