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Cream of the Crop 20
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Cream of the Crop 20 (Terry Blount) (1996).iso
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CONVERT.TXT
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1994-06-29
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==Chess File and Database Conversions==
=======================================
Categories
==========
ASCII formats
1. NTR (Nunn's Text Reader format; ChessBase text format)
2. NIC (NiCBase Text format)
3. PGN (Portable Game Notation format)
4. all others
Proprietary Database formats
1. CBASE (ChessBase)
2. NBASE (NiCBase)
3. CASST (Chess Assistant)
4. all others
Taking any point from items 1 to 3 of each list, it is possible to get
to all others.
Samples of ASCII formats
========================
--NTR--
Kramnik,V - Anand,V
Groningen PCA Qualifiers (11) 1993
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.cxd5 cxd5 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Bf4 Bf5
7.e3 e6 8.Bd3 Bxd3 9.Qxd3 Bd6 10.Bxd6 Qxd6 11.0-0 1/2
--NIC--
Keycode: SL 5.5
Source: Q94
White: Kramnik,Vladimir Title: IGM Elo: 2725
Black: Anand,Vishwanathan Title: IGM Elo: 2740
Place: Groningen PCA Qualifiers Round: 11 Year: 1993
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.cd5 cd5 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Bf4 Bf5
7.e3 e6 8.Bd3 Bd3 9.Qd3 Bd6 10.Bd6 Qd6 11.0-0 1/2
Info: Both qualified
Annotator: Kramnik/Anand
--PGN--
[Event "PCA Qualifiers"]
[Site "Groningen, NED"]
[Date "1993.12.30"]
[Round "11"]
[White "Kramnik,V"]
[Black "Anand,V"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. cxd5 cxd5 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bf4 Bf5
7. e3 e6 8. Bd3 Bxd3 9. Qxd3 Bd6 10. Bxd6 Qxd6 11. O-O 1/2-1/2
The three formats above can have a number of variations and hold
additional fields. PGN, for one, can have more than 30 keyword fields but
the seven above are always required in the order shown.
In NTR format, a "loaded" first-line header might look like this,
Shipman,Joe (2354) - Anderson,C (2294) [B21]
In the above line, ratings have been included and the ECO (Encyclopedia
of Chess Openings) code for a Morra Gambit.
And finally, some additional PGN fields:
[WhiteElo "2354"]
[BlackElo "2294"]
[ECO "B21"]
[NIC "SI 48.2.1"]
Within chess notation itself between the various formats there are also
some subtle differences. NIC format tends toward compact notation, often
not indicating captures, e.g., 10.Bxd6 could, on option, be shown as Bd6.
PGN mandates a promotion style of a8=Q while others allow a simple a8Q.
Castling can be shown variously as 0-0 (zeros) or O-O (capital letters).
Sometimes there must be a space after the period of a move number (PGN)
and other times this is optional. These differences may seem
insignificant but when it comes to computers they are the number-one
reason for trouble during conversion runs!
Overview of Proprietary formats
================================
These cannot be shown in sample form since they are coded in binary. The
principle reason for this is to reduce storage space and speed execution,
but vendors also know it helps keep a "captive" audience. <g>
CBASE - ChessBase proprietary
-----
A downloaded, unzipped file of CBase games will always include at least
two files, the larger having an extension of .CBF, and the smaller, an
index, having .CBI. You may also find files with .CPO and .CKO extensions
and possibly .DOC files. Unless you are using ChessBase, the only ones
that are really necessary are .CBF & .CBI. In CBase, if an accompanying
DOC file has the same filename as the .CBF and .CBI files, it will
automatically display when that database is selected. A number of Forum
library files include these DOC files referencing tournament
cross-tables or general information on the file itself. You can also view
the .DOC file with a text editor or word processor.
NBASE - NiCBase proprietary
-----
For NiCBase databases there are several files. First, the games and a set
of game lengths are stored in files with .G30 and .I30 extensions,
respectively. For a complete database, there is a .DBS file that lists
all the other files of the database and their location; a .KEY file,
which contains information about the games classifications; a file of
positions, with .POS extension; and a pointer file, with .PTR extension.
A valid database must have all 6 files. "Gamefiles" can be made with only
.G30 and .I30 formats, however.
Why have a full database when you can have simpler gamefiles? Because a
database can be used to classify new games, and information and position
searches are much faster (for the same number of games!) in a full
database. This point also applies to the other chess databases as well.
CASST - Chess Assistant proprietary
-----
Here there are 14 different files to make up a database! The largest, the
.BGM extension, holds the game data and the .LIB holds library
information--a list of player names and tournament (place) names. There
has been little study so far of the internal structure of a CA db but a
best guess would be that many of them are indexes to speed data
searches--a strong point for CA. One will not encounter any CA files in
the CIS libraries--or NiCBase files either for that matter--since the only
proprietary format which is standard to the Chess Forum is CBase. So far
no one has come up with any utility which will perform a direct
conversion of a CA db to another format. The only method is to have CA
print games in ASCII to a file and then convert to other formats from the
ASCII (covered as cafilter, below).
Conversion Cross-Table
======================
--------ASCII-------- ------Proprietary------
From To: NTR NIC PGN CBASE NBASE CASST
---- --- --- --- ----- ----- -----
NTR - 1 2 3 4 5
NIC 6 - 7 8 9 10
PGN 11 12 - 13 14 15
CBASE 16 17 18 - 19 20
NBASE 21 22 23 24 - 25
CASST 26 27 28 29 30 -
Conversion Items
----------------
(All 'FORMATS' are in UPPER case; conversion 'utilities' are in lower case.
A following section briefly describing each utility.)
(1) NTR->chessu->NIC (Macintosh utility ChessU)
(2) NTR->normal->PGN (Lib 5 freeware Normal.exe)
(3) NTR->reader->CBASE (Nunn's Text Reader.exe main program)
(4) NTR->reader->CBASE->nicconvert->NBASE
(or) normal->PGN->cbascii->CBASE->nicconvert->NBASE
(5) NTR->reader->CBASE->cb2ca->CASST
(or) normal->PGN->cbascii->CBASE->cb2ca->CASST
(6) NIC->wrdmcr->NTR (Lib 5 freeware MS/Word macro)
(or) nic2cb->NTR (Lib 5 freeware DOS macro)
(or) chessu->NTR (Mac)
(7) NIC->wrdmcr/nic2cb->NTR->normal->PGN
(8) NIC->wrdmcr/nic2cb->NTR->normal->PGN->cbascii->CBASE
(9) NIC->wrdmcr/nic2cb->NTR->normal->PGN->cbascii->CBASE->nicconvert->NBASE
(10) NIC->wrdmcr/nic2cb->NTR->reader->CBASE->cb2ca->CASST
(or) wrdmcr/nic2cb->NTR->normal->PGN->cbascii->CBASE->cb2ca->CASST
(11) PGN->normal->NTR
(12) PGN->normal->NTR->(Mac)->chessu->NIC (requires two platforms)
(13) PGN->cbascii->CBASE
(or)->normal->NTR->reader->CBASE
(14) PGN->cbascii->CBASE->nicconvert->NBASE
(15) PGN->cbascii->CBASE->cb2ca->CASST
(or)->normal->NTR->reader->CBASE->cb2ca->CASST
(16) CBASE->print->NTR
(17) CBASE->nicconvert->NBASE->print->NIC
(18) CBASE->cbascii(export)->PGN
(19) CBASE->nicconvert->NBASE
(20) CBASE->cb2ca->CASST
(21) NBASE->print->NIC->wrdmcr/nic2cb->NTR
(or)->cbworld->CBASE->print->NTR
(or)->cbworld->CBASE->cbascii->PGN->normal->NTR
(22) NBASE->print->NIC
(23) NBASE->cbworld->CBASE->print->NTR->normal->PGN
(24) NBASE->cbworld->CBASE
(25) NBASE->nic2ca->CASST
(26) CASST->print->cafilter->PGN->normal->NTR
(27) CASST->print->cafilter->PGN->normal->NTR->(Mac)->chessu->NIC
(28) CASST->print->cafilter->PGN
(29) CASST->print->cafilter->PGN->cbascii->CBASE
(or)->print->cafilter->PGN->normal->NTR->reader->CBASE
(30) CASST->print->cafilter->PGN->cbascii->CBASE->nicconvert->NBASE
Conversion Utilities