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GNU Chess
Copyright (C) 1987 Stuart Cracraft
(Copying permission notice at the end.)
GNU Chess is your program (as long as you follow the copyright and
licensing rules listed in the file COPYING). Your contribution to GNU
Chess will be retained and given to hundreds of other GNU Chess
devotees. Each improvement you make is important not just to you, but
also to all of us. As such, you must give us your changes. And in
fact, you are required to do so.
This program is one small step toward making generally available a
chess program with source to inspire current and future software
developers.
This document
-------------
This document is not meant to be a an introduction to computer chess.
The following books are excellent introductions and treatises.
They are listed in order of difficulty:
Computer Chess (2nd edition), by David Welsh and Boris Bazcynski
The Joy of Computer Chess, by David Levy
Chess Skill in Man and Machine (2nd edition), by Peter Frey
Current Distribution
--------------------
The most recent distribution of GNU Chess contains the following
main-level files and directories:
Filename Purpose
------------------------------------------------------
README Pointer to main README below.
gnuchess.c Most recent version of GNU Chess
gnuchess.book Most recent version of opening book
...in sub-directory DOCUMENTATION...
ARTICLE A GNU Bulletin article about the program.
ARTICLE.2 An ACM/IEEE & ICCA article about the program.
CHANGES Lists changes since initial release.
COPYING GNU general license
README This file
...in individual subdirectories...
Bitmapper Bit-mapping routines (for interest only)
Xchess X Windows interface
Fancy Displays
--------------
Currently, GNU Chess supports two different styles of windowing
support for a fancy board. Fancy boards make it easier to play
the game, because all the chess-pieces are displayed in lovely
chess fonts on a big bitmap screen. How this generally happens
is as follows: GNU Chess is invoked through the windowing
support program which communicates with GNU Chess as a separate
process, talking with GNU Chess in order to transmit and receive
moves. All communication with GNU Chess, when using a windowing
support program, is done through the windowing support system,
generally via the use of a "mouse".
The first style of chess windowing support is for the X windowing
system. We provide full sources to the X-chess windowing display
manager within the sub-directory 'Xchess' of this distribution.
X-chess has quite a few more features than SUN's chesstool. For
this reason, the truly supported window system for GNU Chess is
X-chess. If you find a bug in X-chess, you may report it to us.
The second style of chess windowing support is SUN's chesstool.
It is fully documented in SUN's manual pages. However, here's
a suggestion. When you've configured the Makefile in this
distribution appropriately for chesstool, invoke GNU Chess with
"chesstool GNU Chess nn" where nn is the number of seconds you
wish GNU Chess to average per move. If you find a bug in chesstool,
you may report it to us.
Conclusion
----------
GNU Chess has been well-debugged as of 1987, seems to play on
a wide variety of machines, but nothing is guaranteed. You can
help this program by making it better.
Please remember that GNU Chess is purely experimental and
has not participated in any rated tournaments. You are
welcome to enter it in a tournament, but proper
recognition must be given to the author and the Free
Software Foundation. If any spectators inquire about the
program during the tournament, you are also morally bound
to tell them how you got the program and either to supply
them with the distribution you received from us, or for
the latest version, tell the spectator our address so that
he may get it directly from us. We would also like you to
tell us if you are entering it in a tournament.
If you have a hardware implementation of some of the functions
normally carried out in software, and if you would like to interface
your special-purpose hardware to GNU Chess, we will be more than happy
to talk with you.
If you have large chess databases, either of patterns, chess
knowledge, or game-listings, and if you feel these could be
of use in the development of GNU Chess, we want to talk with you.
If you make any changes, additions, modifications, improvements,
please be sure to pass along all your modifications to the address
listed below.
We will provide a tape of GNU Chess, its full and most recent
sources, as well as the opening book(s), but there is a $150 handling
charge if you want to get GNU Chess from us directly. Only if you are on
our network we can provide it to you free of charge.
Stuart Cracraft
3021-B Harbor Blvd.
Costa Mesa, Ca. 92626
U.S.A.
714-751-4327
Copyright (C) 1987 Stuart Cracraft
Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
copyright notice and permission notice are preserved,
and that the distributor grants the recipient permission
for further redistribution as permitted by this notice.
Modified versions of this document may not be made.