Chess software for psion
John Sargeant
What chess software is available for the psion? I'm not looking simply for
a chess-playing program, but for something which will help me organise
my opening repertoire, i.e. store moves (preferably with comments), and
display them on a board, preferably with the comments appearing somewhere
too. Does such a thing exist?
John
Anton van Niekerk
Psion, coincidentally, are also into chess - their Psion Chess PC package
was for many years (I don't know current status) the leading chess
software for the PC. That very same software is available as Series 3
Chess, on SSD.
Because its originally for the Series 3, the graphics is not as good as
it could be on the 3a. Otherwise its fine. Plays a mean game of chess,
and has got all the features you're looking for (setting up position,
saving, replaying, etc.), EXCEPT that you cannot enter your own comments
next to the moves.
Peter Fankhauser
To my knowledge there does not exist such a thing, though the Psion 3a
is IMHO an ideal framework to do sth. like that. It does not quite
have the processing power to play champion level, but it does have
all what is needed for database handling, editing annotations,
graphically displaying positions and the like. For Backgammon
I've implemented a similar thing (Postion database with annotations
and searching, and match database with replay, recording, and
annotations - these pieces are in betatest phase and will be
released around end of April - if my beta-testers don't trash it
too gravely:)). As I'm not a chess-player I do not plan
to do sth. similar for chess. However, if some chess-enthusiast
with OPL-background is willing to undergo this business
(it is quite some effort), I'd be glad to share my (only scarcely
commented) code (provided we find some agreement
that the code is not distributed any further). Maybe this helps
to avoid some traps I ran into. Have a look at
http://este.darmstadt.gmd.de:5000/persons/fankhaus/psifibs.html
(match database without recording and editing annotations) for
getting a basic idea.
Peter Fankhauser
PS.: if I'm not mistaken there exists also some sort of go-database
for the Psion
Bill Newton
As a matter of interest I recently 'discovered' a long unused copy of
the Psion program for PCs,Version 1.01 by Richard Lang. Its a strange
looking program,all black and white on screen, with pieces that can
only be moved via the keyboard.
It did however appear to be quite capable so I decided to play it
against the most recent version of 'Crafty' that I had at the time,
which was Version 9.22.
I must say that I wasn't optimistic about Psions chances,and was
therefore very surprised when Psion actually beat the beastie!
Granted it was only 15 seconds per move but Psion was playing on a
486/66 8 Meg Ram whilst 'Crafty' was running on a 133 Pentium with 16
Meg Ram.Quite some performance from the Psion Program.
It set me wondering how old Psion 1.01 is.As best as I can recall (I
may be wrong) Iv'e had the progam for about six years.
I shall probably get round to playing it against some other 'up to
date' software just to see how it fares.
I wonder if this is the Program thats being loaded into the hand held
Psion?
MZP
Anton van Niekerk
Yep, its the very same program - complete with fairly useless 3D view! I
used it on a 4.77 MHz XT in 1986 and even then it was playing a very
strong game ! My Psion S3a beats one of the Kasparov models (dont know
which one) at the same level (timewise) !
Chris Whittington
>
> I wonder if this is the Program thats being loaded into the hand held
> Psion?
>
The chess software in the Psion 3a was written by Ren Wu, who programmed
the world champion chinese chess program three years ago or so.
Its quite a neat program, small, fast, but, of course, the Psion 3a
only has a 80286 equivalent, I forget the Mhz, but there aren't many.
Chris Whittington
Steve Litchfield
play a VERY strong game of chess, on PC or Psion! I wonder if we can
upload it to BBSes etc, since it's not been sold for so many years?
Steve
Neil Masson
:
: The chess software in the Psion 3a was written by Ren Wu, who programmed
: the world champion chinese chess program three years ago or so.
I notice that Purple are advertising a Chinese chess program written by "a
champion Chinese chess programmer." Maybe this will be better than his
Western chess program.
--
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Neil Masson Data Logic Ltd
email: nma...@datlog.co.uk CI Tower, St George's Square
Tel: +44 (0)181-715-9696 High Street, New Malden
Fax: +44 (0 181-715-1771 Surrey KT3 4HH, UK
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Anton van Niekerk
I guess Psion would have to give the go-ahead for that - copyright and
all that stuff...
I paid 50 quid for it !!