Q-Chess 1.0

[Hans Otten]

Q-Chess 1.0 is a chess program for the KIM-1, from around 1980. The programs requires a memory expansion of 8K at $2000.
The chess board is displayed at a TVT-6 (Don Lancaster) video display alongside the KIM LED Display and Keypad.
In 1981 Fer Weber, a member of the Dutch KIM User Club published an adaptation to use the program with a (video)terminal attached to the KIM TTY interface in the Dutch magazine the KIM Kenner Issue 17.
Binaries on tape and the documentation of Q-Chess were acquired in 1981 from Fer.
In March 2025 I translated the source of the adaptations from Dutch to English in TASM format and checked the binary output to the binaries saved from tape.
This makes Q-Chess playable again!

KIM-1 Software – Retro Computing

[Kande Laber]

I fully appreciate your work in this. Thanks a lot.

I assembled the "qchessTTYpatch.asm" and loaded the pap tp the PAL-1.

Unfortunately, I did not work as expected:

0000 00 2380                                                                    
2380 4C G

(no output)

[Hans Otten]

No need to assemble the patch source.

I have applied the patches already, just load QCHESSTTY.ptp from the binaries archive

[Kande Laber]

Hi Hans, Thanks a lot for suppling the ptp!
I loaded "QCHESSTTY.ptp " to my PAL-1 with 32 KB RAM extension,

It seems to work (output see below).

But after the first computer move ("E2 E4"), how should I enter my move ("E7 E5")?
(I am sorry, asking silly questions.)

---output---

KIM
FFE3 52 2380
2380 4C G
          MY SIDE                                              
1!-R -N -B -K -Q -B -N -R                                      
2!-P -P -P -P -P -P -P -P                                      
3!   ..    ..    ..    ..                                      
4!..    ..    ..    ..                                          
5!   ..    ..    ..    ..                                      
6!..    ..    ..    ..                                          
7!+P +P +P +P +P +P +P +P                                      
8!+R +N +B +K +Q +B +N +R                                      
   H  G  F  E  D  C  B  A                                      
        YOUR SIDE                                              
.. = BLACK SQUARE; + = YOURS                                    
S=SET; R=REV.; P=PLAY; Q=VALID.                                
                                                               
                                                               
      HI- I AM Q-CHESS          P
          MY SIDE          TIME:                                
1!-R -N -B -K -Q -B -N -R   M 00                                
2!-P -P -P    -P -P -P -P   S 00                                
3!   ..    ..    ..    ..  TOTAL                                
4!..    .. -P ..    ..     TIME:                                
5!   ..    ..    ..    ..  M  00                                
6!..    ..    ..    ..     S  00                                
7!+P +P +P +P +P +P +P +P  MOVE:                                
8!+R +N +B +K +Q +B +N +R    01                                
   H  G  F  E  D  C  B  A                                      
        YOUR SIDE                                              
.. = BLACK SQUARE; + = YOURS                                    
S=SET; R=REV.; P=PLAY; Q=VALID.                                
                                                            -  
                                                       P E2 - E4
BOOK OPENING, I MOVE:  P E2 - E4

[Hans Otten]

I think E7E5 without RETURN will do it.

The Q-Chess program User's Guide may contain more information,
No RETURN nor space, just enter keys at the keyboard as you would do on the KIM Keypad 
; Keys replace the KIM keyboard as follows:
; AD -> S
; DA -> R
; PC -> P
; +  -> Q
; 0..8 -> 0..8
; 9 -> G
; 0 -> H

When Q-Chess thinks about a move it seems the program hangs. Just wait and wait ...

[Kande Laber]

"... I think E7E5 without RETURN will do it.". Unfortunately no success with this with my PAL-1.

In contrast "QCHESS ORIGINAL for LED display.ptp" works flawless and the computer responds to my "E7-E5" with "G1-F3" very quickly.

[Hans Otten]

Good to hear the LED display version works.

Then there is some debugging to do with the TTY version.

The TTY version is based upon the LED Display version, the patch showing the board instead of the LED display and entering keys from TTY instead of keypad. 
So the base is all right,  the patch is wrong somewhere.  

Thanks for testing!

Hans 

PS At the moment I am working on another chess program, Usurpator II. Waht a devious program, hiding pointers to workspace as constants without comments ....

Lots of fun, keeps me sane (most of the time, insane sometimes).

Hans

 

[Kande Laber]

In my opinion the program is stuck at 0FE2 (with a BRK, see below).

-----

HI- I AM Q-CHESS          P                                              
          MY SIDE          TIME:                                                
1!-R -N -B -K -Q -B -N -R   M 00                                                
2!-P -P -P    -P -P -P -P   S 00                                                
3!   ..    ..    ..    ..  TOTAL                                                
4!..    .. -P ..    ..     TIME:                                                
5!   ..    ..    ..    ..  M  00                                                
6!..    ..    ..    ..     S  00                                                
7!+P +P +P +P +P +P +P +P  MOVE:                                                
8!+R +N +B +K +Q +B +N +R    01                                                
   H  G  F  E  D  C  B  A                                                      
        YOUR SIDE                                                              
.. = BLACK SQUARE; + = YOURS                                                    
S=SET; R=REV.; P=PLAY; Q=VALID.                                                
                                                            -                  
                                                       P E2 - E4                

BOOK OPENING, I MOVE:  P E2 - E4�                                              
KIM                                                                            
0FE2 00

[Hans Otten]

I will have a look. The routine for translating keyboard to keypad codes is a mess.

It should not crash though.

 
The hyphen should not be used afaik. E2E4, just that.


PS Another (even more primitive user interface!) chess program ported to the KIM-1: Usurpator II
KIM-1 Software – Retro Computing

[Hans Otten]

[Kande Laber]

So far I have checked the subroutine "KEYBOA" from "qchessTTYpatch.asm"
In my opinion it works as intended:

;2025-03-25 

; Keys replace the KIM keyboard as follows:

; board -> tty board action tty action
; AD -> S 10 10
; DA -> R 11 11
; PC -> P 14 14
; +  -> Q 12 12  
; 0..8 -> 0..8 0..8 0..8
; A..F -> ; A..F A..F A..F
; 9 -> G 9 9
; 0 -> H 0 0

all other keys pressed from TTY are ignored (.e.g. hyphen and smaller case characters and special characters.)

[Kande Laber]

It actually works. The trick is to enter the move as follows, e.g. blacks move e7-e5 has to be entered as:

E7E5QP

then after a while Qchess prints out the board with its next move.

------OUTPUT-----

HI- I AM Q-CHESS          PQP

          MY SIDE          TIME:                                
1!-R -N -B -K -Q -B -N -R   M 00                                
2!-P -P -P    -P -P -P -P   S 00                                
3!   ..    ..    ..    ..  TOTAL                                
4!..    .. -P ..    ..     TIME:                                
5!   ..    ..    ..    ..  M  00                                
6!..    ..    ..    ..     S  00                                
7!+P +P +P +P +P +P +P +P  MOVE:                                
8!+R +N +B +K +Q +B +N +R    01                                
   H  G  F  E  D  C  B  A                                      
        YOUR SIDE                                              
.. = BLACK SQUARE; + = YOURS                                    
S=SET; R=REV.; P=PLAY; Q=VALID.                                

                                                       B    -  
                                                       P E2 - E4
BOOK OPENING, I MOVE:  P E2 - E4E7E5QP
          MY SIDE          TIME:                                
1!-R .. -B -K -Q -B -N -R   M 00                                

2!-P -P -P    -P -P -P -P   S 00                                

3!   .. -N ..    ..    ..  TOTAL                                

4!..    .. -P ..    ..     TIME:                                

5!   ..    +P    ..    ..  M  00                                

6!..    ..    ..    ..     S  00                                

7!+P +P +P .. +P +P +P +P  MOVE:                                
8!+R +N +B +K +Q +B +N +R    02                                

   H  G  F  E  D  C  B  A                                      
        YOUR SIDE                                              

.. = BLACK SQUARE; + = YOURS                           B    -  
S=SET; R=REV.; P=PLAY; Q=VALID.                        P E2 - E4
                                                       P E7 - E5
                                                       N G1 - F3
BOOK OPENING, I MOVE:  N G1 - F3

[Hans Otten]

Good to see, it works!

[Hans Otten]

And I found in my archives a third small chess program: Theo Kortekaas Chess

It was published in the Dutch club magazine, Issue 11 and reprinted in Issue 20.
As the editor of that magazine, I got the source of the program form Theo Kortekaas and used 

my version of Micro ade to assemble and print it. This is what you see printed in the magazine. 

The source files are lost, but the binaries are in my KIM tape archive as WAVE files.

I digged those WAVE files up and loaded the binaries (converted to binary with KIMTAPE DOS program in VDOS)

in the KIM-1 Simulator. a 1k binary from 0000-03FF and a second one 1780 of 96 bytes (yes, all of the KIM-1's memory is used!)

Now zeropage can only be loaded only from tape, but the Simulator's debugger allows loading this. 

I started the program and the display showed the expected display as documented in the User manual,
and I could enter chess moves. I think the program survived 40 years in storage!

I will have to do some work to allow this to load from papertape and translate the user guide. 
Typing in the source is at the moment a bit too much, but the chess program will run on a KIM-1/PAL-1/PAL-2 etc .

I will also supply the WAVE files for those with a audio interface, to relive those old days!

 

[Hans Otten]

I have now added three KIM-1 Chess programs:
- Q-Chess
- Usurpator II
-TKChess
The fourth is of course MICRO CHESS.
http://retro.hansotten.nl/6502-sbc/kim-1-manuals-and-software/kim-1-software/#qchess

[Kande Laber]

Thank you.
BTW: Do you know if S. Henning is the full author of Q-Chess?
Or did he just adapt it to the KIM-1?

[Hans Otten]

I have no idea. S.Henning being the author is form a remark in the Dutch Club magazine by Fer Weber. 
I can not reach Fer, and can not find anything about S.Henning on the internet. All a long time ago, they may not be among us anymore.

Hans