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The earliest recorded use of the word "backgammon" was in 1645, according to the Oxford Universal Dictionary. H. J. R. Murray, in A History of Board Games Other Than Chess, says that backgammon, the modern form of tables, was invented in England early in the seventeenth century.
At least one form of backgammon was played in the Middle East long before the Crusades. The source may have been ancient Sumer, Egypt, India, or all three, but the game the Crusaders encountered among the Saracens - and enthusiastically adopted - was called nard or nard-shir.
Every advance in the power of computer hardware has significantly improved the strength of chess programs. In contrast, additional computing power appears to improve the strength of backgammon software only marginally.