[Ann] MacTSCP (beta) now available

[William Bryant]

MacTSCP is the first step at developing a Macintosh chess interface using
Metrowerks PowerPlant application framework. Many of the interface components
are independent objects and can be used without modification in other
PowerPlant
programs. For example, the chess board pane can function in any PowerPlant
application that needs a chess board. It includes funtions to handle input via
either piece dragging or point and click piece movement as well as board
display
options.

At present, MacTSCP uses a minimally modified version of TSCP 1.2 as its chess
engine (until I have time to write my own).
The engine and interface code are designed to be minimally dependent so
that any
chess engine implemented in a standard programming language (C , C++, Pascal)
can be adapted to the Macintosh platform using this graphicalinterface with
minimal additional coding.

The interface adds the following engine independent features to TSCP:
1. It supports SAN (Standard Algebraic Notation) for chess moves.
2. It adds support for setting chess positions using a point-and-click dialog,
and saving (at present to the log file) any position in FEN notation.
3. The program maintains a move list that can be printed at any time to the
log
window and log file. The move list is always printed at the end of every
game with the final board position.
4. It allows for unlimited move takeback through the undo command (cmd 'z').
5. It add support for the Chess Apple Event Suit and is fully compatible with
Rolf Exner's Exachess and Exachess Light, and can be used as a weak chess
engine.
6. It supports both point-and-click as well as click-and-drag piece movement.
7. It has an automatic TEXT log file to review games played as well as an
optional screen log.
8. The move window automatically displays the move number, side-on-move, the
current move. For computer moves it also displays the search depth,
search score, and the principal variation (PV).

I do not have my own web page, but it is available on Tom Kerrigans web page
at http://ucsu.Colorado.EDU/~kerrigat

Send comments, feature requests,
and especially bug reports to me at:
wbr...@ix.netcom.com

Have Fun

William Bryant
wbr...@ix.netcom.com

[SMO CFI]

William,

Sounds like a great program, and a nice bit of work. I have my own program and
interface, and some time ago played around with ExaChess Lite. I wanted to
automate matches between my prog and MacChess, but the thing seemed buggy, and
I couldn't get it to work reliably.

Have you got it to work reliably, so that TSCP and Machess or zzzzzz can play
autoplay matches without crashing?

Will