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_______________________________________________________________ CHESSEDT.EXE Version 4.25 _______________________________________________________________ Stephen M. Wharry Congratulations: You have just purchased the first, and as far as I know the only, chess database/analysis/editor program on the market. What's that???? You didn't purchase it, you picked it up on a bulletin board??? WELL, hurry right out, put a ten dollar bill in an envelope, and entrust it to the US Mail to be delivered to: _______________________________________________________________ Stephen Wharry 4842 Clearview Circle Bartlesville, OK 74006 _______________________________________________________________ You conscience will continue to bug you until you PAY FOR YOUR COPY of this wonderful program. CHESSEDT.EXE is being distributed on the shareware concept in that it is not copy protected, (mainly because I don't approve of copy protection), you need not pay for it unless you find it of use, and you are free to distribute copies to all your friends and, yes even enemies. CHESSEDT Page 2 History Before you get tied up in learning all about CHESSEDT, let me give you a history lesson. This program was first written in BASIC on a SINCLAR ZX-81 when I began playing postal chess. It kept track of my postal games as separate files and checked the moves for notation errors. Unfortunately, it didn't catch the ones I wrote on the postcards. As I graduated to an ATARI 800-XL (boy color and everything) the program was enlarged to allow what is best described as a compilation of game statistics. It also graduated to using graphic chess characters rather than alphanumeric characters as the pieces. The compilation of statistics came about from an idea planted in my brain by Andy Soltis in one of his Chess Life columns. GM Soltis suggested that chessplayers often have misconceptions as to their strengths and weaknesses. John Doe may think he plays the Najdorf variation of the Sicilian well as black, but does terrible against it as white. In reality John Doe has terrible results whenever he gets into a Najdorf Sicilian, regardless of the color. (I know, I play it against him ALL the time!!!) GM Soltis suggested we list our games, openings, color allocations, and really study which openings are more suited to our style of play, check to see how well we do as white or black, is there really a difference in how we do against class A players versus Experts. Well, since my chess editor already kept track of the opening and my results, it only took a few (????) lines of code to pull those files up and sort them into some kind of table. Miraculously, I could now find out what openings I played and what my results were with them. My use of this editor/statistics compiler quickly branched from postal chess games into tournament games. For several years, every evening in a far corner of the house you could hear the 'boot-up' of an ATARI 800-XL in preparation for an evening of postal chess. And, after every tournament, you could hear the same beeping noise as tournament games were entered into the computer. In 1987, I finally broke down and entered the world of IBM and IBM clone's. Actually, being a science fiction fan, I thought I was embarking on a scientific procedure to reproduce computers by implantation of the chip set of an old computer into the infantile body of an undeveloped CPU. CHESSEDT Page 3 With the purchase of an IMS 286 operating at 10 MHz, a copy of Microsoft Quickbasic and a mouse, I started the long process of converting this program to its third computer host, the results you are about to see. Now onto bigger an better things. (Let's see.... If they read the above history, they're probably thinking to themselves, 'Boy, I bet he spent a lot of long hours working on this program. He probably didn't get to bed till late for months on end. I really should send him some money for this program!!!') Features of CHESSEDT By now you are asking yourself what are the fantastic features of this great program. Well, I'm here to tell you!!! CHESSEDT... 1) Will allow you to build a personal database of chess games. This will allow you to put all your games in a consistent format as well as double checking the games for notation errors. 2) Will allow the chess games to be stored as files and brought back into the program and examined at any position in the game. Great for storing postal positions. 3) Will allow a player to check the moves on a scoresheet and annotate the game in preparation for submitting the game for publication. Besides printer output, the game and annotation can be output to a normal ASCII file that can then be imported into the text editor of your choice. 4) Will allow you to enter all your moves in English algebraic notation, the notation recommended by the USCF for postal play. 5) Will allow you to build a table of openings and your success/failure with these openings. 6) Will allow you to build a list based on openings, score, tournament, color, date, opponent, ratings, and more. In this list you may include as few as one and as many as every game you have ever played. 7) Will allow upto 200 half moves, 100 full move pairs. Anymore and the game is getting ridiculous. CHESSEDT Page 4 8) Will allow upto 50 annotation strings per game with multiple annotations on the half move. Getting Started If you are reading this then you have already de-archived both CHESSEDT.DOC and CHESSEDT.EXE or you have received copies of both of these programs on some type of media. (Gosh, I wonder if I've got a paper tape punch handy to really screw the user up. I bet the younger generation doesn't even know what the holes in the center are for!!!) The first step is to decide how you wish to organize your personal chess database. By this I mean, where do you want your files stored, all in a single directory, or in multiple directories and sub-directories. Personally, I have all my postal games in my \CHESS\POSTAL directory and my tournament games in my \CHESS\TOURNEY directory. I keep this program, and several other programs, in the \CHESS main directory. So with this in mind, at the DOS prompt type MD [name], where [name] is the name of the directory where you will be placing this program. This will be your main chess directory. Then create any other directories or sub- directories you might wish to use in the future. CHESSEDT fully supports the directory features of DOS, since the directory statement is passed to DOS via a SHELL command. Note: If you are a user of those disgusting floppy things, you need not create any directories at all. However, I find that, even with floppies, directories and subdirectories are nice. In all fairness, I must admit to a bit of floppy use myself. My NEC Multi-speed lacks a hard disk forcing me to my floppy habit. But, I never floppied in excess and I never floppy before noon. I am NOT a floppy addict. After all directories have been created, place the CHESSEDT program into the main chess directory you have created above. Then enter that directory and type CHESSEDT. The program will prompt you for some information such as what the default directory will be and who is the owner of this program. The default directory is the data directory set by the CHESSEDT program when it begins and the owner is the owner of this particular database. As you can tell, this program is set up to build a database for an individual, however there is enough flexibility in the program that several owners can store files in the same directories. Personally, I would think this could easily get confusing. Note: The owner should NOT be a number!! CHESSEDT Page 5 The default directory and the owner are stored in a file called CHESSEDT.DAT. If the program did not prompt you for this information, then the CHESSEDT.DAT file was already present. After the CHESSEDT program creates its DAT file, it will then show you three windows, the chessboard, the scoresheet, and the menu/text window. Now you are ready to begin inputting games and enjoying the advantages of CHESSEDT. Using CHESSEDT When you first enter CHESSEDT you notice the three windows, the chessboard, the scoresheet (empty), and the menu/text window. CHESSEDT is a menu driven program for several reasons. First, I find menus easier to use. Second, when the program was first being written menus were the only logical structure since one cannot type fast on a Sinclar ZX-81. You don't understand? Read the history and go find a Sinclar ZX-81. Ha, I think most are now used as doorstops. Sorry Uncle Clive. As I have spent most of the time refining the code, the menu system is still rudimentary. There are no flashy pop up windows nor high tech mouse driven menu/selection bars. These flashes are certainly in the works, but for now I have other flash to fry. To activate any selection merely press the number corresponding to your choice. You do not have to press return as your selection will automatically be activated. Pressing a return by itself will activate the default choices in all menus and prompts. For the most part the default choice is indicated by being surrounded by the less than and greater than signs, i.e. < >. As you may have noticed, the default selection in the main menu takes you to an exit message. Pressing return at the exit message takes you back to the main menu. Pressing a Y for yes will clear your screen and take you back to the familiar DOS prompt, with a little parting message from me. Now that you know how to select items from the menu (pretty tough huh), let's get started. CHESSEDT Page 6 Filenames and Directories Many of the functions of CHESSEDT revolve around the filename of a chess game. It is important for you to know how this works. Yes, I know I sound like your mother, sorry. BUT, somehow mothers always get the idea across and this is actually important. A full understanding of the filename will allow you to arrange the structure of your chess database to your own needs/desires. Filenames in CHESSEDT consist of two parts, the default directory and the name of the file itself. The default directory is initially the directory specified in the CHESSEDT.DAT file. When prompted for the directory, you can either accept the directory shown as the OLD DIRECTORY by pressing return, or you can type in a new directory. The new directory will then remain the default directory until you exit CHESSEDT. If the new directory is not found, an error message will be displayed. If you consistently get error messages when trying to access your CHESSEDT datafiles, check the directory, it might be missing a colon (:) or a backslash (\). When entering a new directory, CHESSEDT automatically supplies the terminal backslash if it is not present. After the directory is set, CHESSEDT will usually show the default filename and again you can accept the default filename by hitting the return or you can select an arbitrary filename. This latter feature comes in handy in cases where you only want to store the file temporarily. CHESSEDT has a bad habit of only accepting eight letter filenames. It does this as I quite often hide useful information in portions of the filename. (See below and guess!) The default filename is composed from the first four characters of the opponents name and the last four characters of the date. Since you have full control of these string variables when you edit a game, the filename can be as meaningless as you like. For instance, for my postal games, although I don't tamper with my opponent's name, I use the first four characters of the date to specify the game number and the last two characters to specify the year. This allows me to keep track of how many games of postal chess I have played and still generate a unique filename. For most occasional tournament players, using the first four characters to specify the opponent and the last four characters to specify the month and year will insure a unique filename since most of us usually do not play a CHESSEDT Page 7 tournament game with the same player twice in one month. If you do think this might happen, then merely change the date string or opponent, or change the filename when prompted. There are three types of files created by CHESSEDT, GAM files, PRT files, and DIR files. The first (GAM) are the game files. These are ASCII files that are not in quite the format you might like if you were to print them out to a printer. The second type, the PRT files, are printable files containing the game in the proper format for easy reading. During the formation of these files the annotations are placed in their proper positions, i.e. following the half move where the annotation is applicable. The PRT files, again in ASCII, can easily be imported to any type of word processor you might like. The final type, the DIR files, are files created in the course of obtaining several different types of directories in the process of running the CHESSEDT program. Loading/saving/deleting/directories files Choices 1,2,3, and 4 relate to file management, i.e. which files/where files. Selection 1 is obvious, it generates a directory of game files. Again you have a choice of changing the default directory. You then have a choice of specifying the filename. Since CHESSEDT is SHELLed out to DOS for a directory, all DOS wildcards are supported. If only * is entered as the filename, then all game files will be shown. If ??????88 is entered as the filename, then only games ending in an 88 will be shown. Since CHESSEDT creates filenames with the last two characters being the year, this is a handy way to get a directory of all games played in 1988. The output of the directory search can be directed to the printer, to a file, or to the screen. The default device is the screen. If a file is selected, an output file name is requested. Note: during the course of obtaining any one of the three types of output, a file called TEMP.DIR is created and placed in the working directory. If you selected to list the directory to the screen, the listing will pause every so often. To continue the listing, press any key except 'B' or 'b'. These latter keys are used to indicate to the program that you wish to break from the listing. These keys are also active in a couple of other areas of CHESSEDT. Selection 2 will load a game from disk into CHESSEDT. Although no one but myself would use the capability, I also made CHESSEDT intelligent enough to recognize a chess CHESSEDT Page 8 database file created using the previous version of this program on an ATARI 800-XL and convert the file to the IBM format. History aside, the load game feature recalls the header information, including the tournament, date, opening, color allocation for the owner, the result, the opponent and his rating, the owner and his rating. It also recalls all the moves, all annotation, and the last known board position. Selection 3 is the inverse of selection 2 as it is used to save the game. Note that you can change directories on two subsequent saves to create backup copies of your game files. Selection 4 is provided for completeness sake. If you find you need to delete a game, either because you lost it or it really wasn't a true gauge of your skill (In other words, boy did you blow it!!!), then you may use this function to clear the offending game from your database. For 2, 3, and 4, after selecting the directory and filename, CHESSEDT asks for confirmation to load, save, or delete a game. Here you must press a Y to confirm the action, otherwise the program will return to the main menu with no action! Editing a new game CHESSEDT revolves around the edit game feature, selection 5. This feature is used to create the header information for a game as well as inputting the moves and any desired annotation. After selection 5, the program initializes all pointers; basically the current move number and the annotation pointer are set to one. The program then prompts you as to whether the game to be edited is a new game or an old game. If the answer is 'Y', the program clears all old data and brings up the header input screen. If the answer is 'N' the program then prompts you as to whether you would like to edit the header information. If the answer to this latter is 'Y', the program brings up the header input screen with the previously determined data. As with most input in CHESSEDT, if default data are shown on the screen, pressing a return will confirm acceptance of that default. Pressing any other key will clear the previous data and allow you to input new data. CHESSEDT Page 9 Inputting the header When the header input screen is called up, this subroutine first clears the text screen and then prints the tournament prompt with its previously defined value, if any. You should then either press return to accept the tournament data or begin typing the name of the tournament in which the game was played. You may type as much a tournament descriptor as you like, however I recommend typing the tournament name first rather than any specific descriptors as this allows a later search pf your database based on the tournament. Thus, with a tournament name equal to 'Golden Knights 88NS43, I can search later on just Golden Knights and this game will qualify. (More on this latter.) Next CHESSEDT requests the date the game was played. As mentioned previously, for postal games I essentially put in a fake 'date' composed of the game number and the year the game was started. You could just as easily contrive any type of data to better organize your database. However, there are strong reasons for using the date as it stands for normal tournament chess. This allows you to pinpoint the day/month/year you played so brilliantly. Note the one peculiarity in the entry of the date, the day is entered before the month. (This should come as no shock to European players.) Since the last four characters of the date are used in concocting the filenames in CHESSEDT, it is more reasonable to include the month and year in the filename rather than the day and year. The opening is requested next and here I must digress. Since the Atari program was somewhat limited, I came up with three letter abbreviations for all the openings. This allowed a much more efficient searching algorithms latter and at the same time cut down on typing. For the most part these three letter abbreviations are simply the first three letters of the name of the opening. For a complete list of the abbreviations I used, see Appendix I. Although the current searching algorithm searches for the whole name specified, the table of statistics still only uses the first three letters to specify an opening. Thus for latter compilation purposes it is probably a GOOD IDEA that you also use three letter abbreviations or at least make sure the first three letters of the opening are unique. If you don't like my set of abbreviations, you are certainly free to make up your own. I don't like to stifle creativity! The opening can be input as upper or lower case since the compilation routine will recognize both as being equivalent. You may also input as many characters for a opening CHESSEDT Page 10 descriptor as you would like, although I have found forty characters, or less, gives a pleasant display on the screen. Next you are prompted for the color with the 'as' prompt. You may press 'b' for black or 'w' for white. This should be the color YOU are playing. Remember this program was written as a personal chess database program. If input correctly, you will be able to latter search your database for all the games you played as white. Next you are prompted for the result of the game. Remember this is YOUR result. Input a '1' or 'w' for a win, a '=' or 'd' for a draw, and a '0' or 'l' for a loss. I have made no provisions to input forfeited games since these types of games really have no place in a chess database. If you have not yet completed the game, a default of '?' is generated when you press return. A result of ? is indicative of an active game, i.e. a game still in progress. When one of the players resigns the game, is mated, or a draw is agreed to, the result is automatically updated. The program then prompts for your opponent in this game. The preferred syntax is placing your opponent's last name first followed by a comma and his first name. Remember the first four characters of the opponents name will also be the first four characters of the filename. Again it seems more logical to me to have the filename contain a portion of the opponents last name rather than the opponents first name. However, you may do as you wish. You may even decide to always preface the opponent's name with a four digit number identifying the opponent in your database. The program then prompts for your opponents rating. This is used latter in determining your results against higher/lower rated opponents. Although it may seem superfluous, the program next prompts for the owner of the database. This is usually the default owner defined at start up. You may elect to assign a different owner to a particular game. Perhaps you are typing in a game for a friend of yours. In this case you certainly don't want your name on his game especially if he LOST! Finally, the program prompts for your rating at the time of the game. Both of the ratings input into the header data should be numbers as they will be treated as if they are numbers latter on. If the ratings are not numbers, they will most likely be interpreted as zeros which is a very low rating indeed. CHESSEDT Page 11 After all header information is entered, the program then activates the scoresheet. Inputting the moves, the scoresheet The scoresheet is defined as the window in the right upper corner of the screen. This shows the current move to be input with a question mark prompt. You have two options, either input a move or call up a special move. More about these latter. The moves are input into the scoresheet in English ALGEBRAIC NOTATION. I am in the process of considering the addition of a descriptive notation interpreter. However, since I don't use this notation and English algebraic is certainly superior, this project will probably be back burned for a little while unless I get requests for this refinement. The first character should be the piece being moved, with the exception of a pawn move when no piece is specified. The next two characters should be the destination square. An 'x' or '*' may be inserted to indicate a capture, but these characters are NOT necessary. If either of these characters are present in the move descriptor, CHESSEDT does make sure the destination square is occupied by an opponent's piece. If two pieces can move to the designated square, the piece being moved should be indicated by the origin file or rank immediately after the piece descriptor. If not, CHESSEDT will generate a beep indicating the move is 'illegal', i.e. the move is ambiguous. Note: this is note necessary for a pawn move since the destination square will determine the pawn being moved. Two exceptions to the above syntax are castling and en passant. For en passant, the move is written as if a pawn on the destination square is being captured. The e.p. after the move descriptor is not necessary! For castling, I require the use of an upper case letter 'O' with dashes between. Thus kingside castling is O-O and queenside castling is O-O-O. If the move is illegal or impossible, a beep will sound and the prompt will return to the current move. If the move is possible, the move will be accepted, displayed on the chessboard, and the scoresheet will prompt for the next move. CHESSEDT Page 12 There are two occasions where you might be able to get away with an illegal move. CHESSEDT does not check to see if the kings are in check and it does not check for a legal castling. Although the major reason for this lapse is plain laziness, I can easily defend the lapse since these 'illegal' moves might possibly occur during a game! Since CHESSEDT is meant as a move recording program, if these illegal moves are made over the board, they should be able to be input into the game score. Besides the constraints listed above, any other characters may be typed into a move descriptor. These characters include the ever popular ? and ! as well as -,=,+ and anything else you would like to use. I currently use the character * to denote the move that takes me out of my book openings. In regards to the chessboard, yes I know it's in alphanumeric instead of nice graphics. The next version of this program will support CGA and the one after that EGA. So take heart, all things come to those who wait. However, I felt it was more important to get all the logic right first. Besides, the pieces ARE in two different colors. Unless of course you are using a monochrome monitor in which case the white pieces should be brighter than the black pieces. Special 'moves' Besides the normal moves, there are several special moves. These are commands or text that determines the end of the game. The game ending text recognized includes resign, forfeit, mate, draw, and time. Each of these should be input instead of a move. Input of any of these five words indicate to CHESSEDT that the game is over. The result in the header will be adjusted respectively and you will be kicked back to the main menu. The commands include quit, exit, annotate game, and print game board. All of these commands may be called up using single letter text either as a move or directly from the scoresheet. They may also be called up using a 'special move' menu which is called when either 'Z' or 'z' is pressed on the keyboard from the scoresheet. Getting out of the scoresheet Pressing 'e', 'E', "q', or "Q" will generated the exit command which will take you out of the scoresheet without CHESSEDT Page 13 changing any of the game data. The 'e' and 'Q' may not be entered as direct commands as they may be part of a legal move description. After exiting, you may save the game and reenter the scoresheet at the point you exited. This is very handy for postal chess. Printing the game board Pressing 'l', 'L', 'd', 'D', 'p', or 'P' will generated a dump of the board position to the printer. The 'd', 'D', and 'P' may not be entered as direct commands as they may be part of a legal move description. The program will return you to the last move to be input. Annotating the game Pressing 'a' or 'A' will generated the insertion of annotation just after the last move. The text screen will clear and an annotation prompt will appear. You may then type in whatever annotation you like. I suggest keeping this less than four lines since you may run out of space in the text screen and generate an error. If more annotation is needed, merely press 'a' or 'A' a second time to generate a second line of annotation after you have input your first line. Note that 'a' may not be entered as a direct command as it may be part of a legal move description. There are several special annotations that are recognized by CHESSEDT. If 'd', 'D', 'del', or 'delete' is entered as the annotation, then the current annotation is removed from the annotation matrix. This feature is really only used in editing an old game. The second special annotation is 'b', 'B', 'brd', 'BRD', or 'board'. If the annotation is equal to any of the above, the annotation is set equal to a string representing the chessboard. This is used later in generating a printout of the board during a game listing. Editing an old game Editing an old game is identical to editing a new game, except the '?' prompt will not appear if a move has already be defined. The old move will be displayed which you should accept by pressing a return. Also, all annotation will also CHESSEDT Page 14 be displayed as you pass through the game. Here again, unless you wish to edit the old data, you should accept the default annotation by pressing a return Appending an existing game Appending a game is essentially identical to editing a game with the exception that the current move pointer and the current annotation pointer are not reset. If you chose to append a game, CHESSEDT enters the editor, displays the last five move pairs on the scoresheet, and shows you the last known board position. You may continue from this point as if you are in the edit game function. List game By listing a game, I mean presenting the game in a format that you might see in a publication. The first order of business is to decide whether the game will be listed to the printer, a file, or the screen. After this is decided, the program then prints the header information to the destination. If the destination happens to be the screen, CHESSEDT insert pauses after the heading, after every 12 moves and after each annotation. To continue listing after a pause, press any key. After the heading is listed to the destination, the moves are listed with all annotations inserted at the proper position. Note that if the annotation is defined as a board dump (see annotation), then CHESSEDT will generate a printed copy of the chessboard at that position in the game or change the position displayed on the chessboard on the screen. Note for screen dumps to the printer and files: Since printers are not quite adept at displaying colors, (at least not the ones I can afford) the black pieces are indicated by an underline character. This is accomplished by outputting special control characters to the printer to activate the underlining feature. Naturally this feature is printer specific, but never fear these control characters are EPSON compatible. If you wish to see what they are, list the board position to a file. The file will show a real mess, but the special characters preceding each of the black and white pieces are the control sequences necessary to turn underlining on and off. CHESSEDT Page 15 The results of this listing is a copy of the current game, formatted in such a manner that it could easily be published as received. Eventhough the listing function of CHESSEDT is one of the more powerful features, I find I don't have much else to explain as it is as easy as a back rank mate!! List game headings The heading information for each game may be listed directly to the printer/file/screen as with the directory. Superficially, the game headings list is no more that an expanded directory. Indeed, the first two questions are identical to the two questions asked in the directory subroutine. However, using this subroutine you can scan the game headings without having to pull the whole game into memory. For more information, see the directories and filenames above. Assembling statistics One of the more powerful features of CHESSEDT is the ability of this program to treat the games generated with this program as a virtual database. Using the statistics subroutine of CHESSEDT, you may compile a list of headings, filename, or win/draw/loss/active table of openings, i.e. search the database. These lists may be tailored to all of the possible criteria that I could think of, tournament, score, color, opponent, date, ratings, and owner. After entering the statistics subroutine, you are presented with a second menu. In this statistics menu, you may select specifiers to limit the compilation of the statistics or lists. For instance, if you select the tournament specifier, you are prompted for the tournament. Only games played during this tournament are included in the final report. When one of the specifiers is selected, an asterisk will appear in front of this item. This is a reminder that you have selected to search the database with this specifier. All specifiers may be included in a database search. To un-select a specifier, merely select it a second time. The asterisk will then disappear. After you have selected all the specifiers, you enter the 'S' to start the database search/compilation. The program next double checks the directory and filename to be used in the search. This is primarily to allow you to change the directory to be searched. You should not change the CHESSEDT Page 16 filename as it is integral to the search and unless you have specified the opponent or date, the filename will be equal to all question marks, i.e. fully wildcarded. CHESSEDT will next show you the filename and all search specifiers determined and ask if this is OK. If some problem occurs, press 'N' to abort the search. CHESSEDT will next ask for the output device. As always, you may select the printer, a file, or the screen. After the output device is selected, you may elect to list the filename and/or the header data for each of the files that meet the search criteria. CHESSEDT will first compile a directory of all games that meet the filename criteria. It will then clear all previous statistics and begin examining each of the games, checking for a match in the search criteria. If a game matches the search criteria, then the game data will be added to the statistics and, if selected, the filename and/or header information will be listed. After all games are examined, you are informed that the search of the database is complete. At this time a report summarizing the results of the database search is output to the destination device. The first part of the report shows the search criteria and filename used for the database search. Next each opening is listed along with the results with that opening. The results are listed in the order wins, draws, losses, and finally active games. Since the default search criteria for the score is non-active games, the last number in each column will most likely be zero unless you specifically select active games to be included into the database search. Note there are separate results for white and black. Also note that only the first three letters of the openings are listed. At present I have no intention of extending this as three characters are clearly sufficient to uniquely determine all major openings. However, the database search is NOT limited to just the first three letters of the opening (see select by opening). After each opening is listed, sub totals for each color and the total for all games are listed. Assemble all This is the default selection for the database search. It searches all files in the specified directory and assembles all completed games. To include active games you must elect to search on the score. CHESSEDT Page 17 If no specifiers are selected, an asterisk appears next to the assemble all item. Selecting this item a second time has no effect. If this item is selected while other specifiers are also selected, all specifiers are cleared as will be evidenced by the disappearance of all asterisks except that in front of the assemble all item. Select by tournament This item will allow you to search the database for only those games played during a particular tournament. As with all the text searches, CHESSEDT looks at the first character of the search string and tries to find a match. If it finds a match it then looks for the second character. This continues until the end of the search string. CHESSEDT does not try and match the full tournament name stored with a game to the search string, only the first n characters where n is the length of the string. This means you may search your database for all tournaments beginning with the letter "O" or all tournaments with the first word, "National". Uppercase and lower case are not differentiated, so you may be sloppy in typing in the tournament name when you are entering the game into your database. However, I suggest you adopt a systematic approach to inputting tournament names. For example, input "Golden Knights xx87xx" to specify all your Golden Knights tournaments. By specifying the Golden Knights first, you may search all these tournaments at once, but if you only wish to search a specified tournament, you may use the characters after the tournament name as additional qualifiers. Select by score This feature allows you to search the database for only wins, draws, losses, active, or complete. The latter selection will include all games regardless of the result. When this specifier is turned off, the database search will include all completed games, i.e. wins, draws, and losses. Select by opening As with the tournament above, this item generates a search string and the search will match the first n characters in the opening, where n is the number of characters in the search string. Thus you may elect to search the database for all openings starting with the letter "S" or you may CHESSEDT Page 18 elect to search the database for all openings matching "Sicilian Najdorf Variation" search string. Obviously, if you wish to institute a long search string, you must be consistent when you are inputting data into the header for a game. "Sicilian Najdorf Variation" does not match "Sic, Najdorf Var.". As mentioned above, only the first three letters of the opening will be used in the list of openings at the end of the database search. However, if you select a single opening as one of your search criteria, you will most certainly obtain only one opening in the final list anyway, so this is really superfluous. Select by color This item is included so that you may search the database for only those games you played as black or white. The default is to search the database for both colors. Select by opponent As with the opening and tournament specifiers above, you may specify as many or as few characters as you like for the opponent. Thus you may elect to look at all opponents whose name starts with a "B" or all opponents whose name is "Lykens". Selection of this item modifies the filename that will be used to generate the directory. The filename is reset if this item is de-selected. As mentioned in the header input section, I strongly suggest you input the opponents last name first. This allows a more efficient search since you are unlikely to want to know how many games you played against "GARY" as this would include all Gary's you have ever played. However you might like to compile all statistics against "Kasparov". (For some strange reason, I think the losses column might be a little bit high for this opponent.) Select by date The date is a special search criteria in that it does nothing but to modify the filename. Thus you may search on only the last four characters of the date. For normal games this allows you to search on a month and year or just a year. Since the date search string modifies the filename, you may elect to change this when prompted for the filename just prior to the search, but DON'T DO IT. CHESSEDT Page 19 Select by ratings This is perhaps the most powerful of the searching criteria as it contains a number of subcriteria. After selecting this item from the menu, you are prompted for the base rating for the owner. Any games in which the owner had a rating below the base rating will be ignored. Next you will be prompted for the owner's ceiling rating. Any games where the owner had a rating above the ceiling will be ignored. Next CHESSEDT will obtain the opponent's base and ceiling ratings. These have the same definition for the opponent as they had for the owner. The use of these four rating values allows you to settle questions such as "How well did I do as a B class player against the A class players?". The final rating option allows you to select only those games where the opponents rating is higher than the owner, or vice versa. In either case or even if you select all rating differences, you are next prompted for a minimum rating difference and a maximum rating difference. The minimum rating difference criteria is used to eliminate games where your opponent had a rating very close to your rating. The maximum rating difference is used to eliminate those games where your opponent had a rating much greater or less than your own. Thus you can determine how you do against opponents with ratings no less than 100 points away from your own but no more than 200. This final option may seem a bit of over kill since you have the option above to specify a base and ceiling rating for both the owner and opponent. This is true if your rating doesn't change significantly. If, for instance, your rating will always be near Expert, you may only need to specify the proper bases and ceilings. However, if you are steadily improving, you might like to look at how well you do against people rated 100 points higher than you while your rating was changing. Select by owner This feature is essentially identical to the search for a specific opponent. It is really useful if two or more people are storing their games in the same directory as it allows you to compile a list of filenames for specific 'owners'. CHESSEDT Page 20 Although this is a PERSONAL database program, I have tried to make it versatile enough to be used as a general chess editor program. If you treat the owner as just a second player, this program should function perfectly well in this capacity. However, note that the only place the owner appears is in the heading display. The owner does not appear in the filename in anyway whatsoever. If you have problems Well, if you have problems try to work them out yourself!!!! Seriously folks, I am associated with the three major BBS systems with the following addresses. The SOURCE BBF693 GENIE S. WHARRY COMPUSERVE 71531,3125 or even the mundane address Stephen Wharry 4842 Clearview Circle Bartlesville, OK 74006 Drop me a line, electronically or otherwise, an I'll try to solve your problem. I must admit there are most likely still bugs in this program as I have NEVER found a program that has reached the released stage that does not have bugs. However, I have been using this program for a number of months and I believe I have ironed out the buggiest bugs. Also for future releases of CHESSEDT, drop me a line. I will be adding graphic support by the end of 1988, both CGA and EGA. I will also be adding descriptive notation probably in early 1989. Before then I should be releasing a second chess related program, CHESSCLB, which keeps track of the chessplayers in a chess club, calculates ratings, both speed and normal, and will keep track the winning percentages and record against every other player in the club. CHESSEDT Page 21 APPENDIX I Opening abbreviations fo CHESSEDT Opening abbreviations fo CHESSEDT ALE = Alekhine's Defense BGD = Blackmar-Diemer Gambit BEN = Benoni BIR = Bird's Defense BIS = Bishop's Opening CAR = Caro-Kann CEN = Center Counter Gambit DUT = Dutch ENG = English FRE = French FRO = From's Gambit GIN = Grunfeld Indian GIU = Giuoco Piano IND = Indian IRR = Irregular KGA = King's Gambit Accepted KGD = King's Gambit Declined KIN = King's Indian NIM = Nimzowisch Defense NIN = Nimzo-Indian PET = Petroff's Defense PIR = Pirc POL = Polish QGA = Queen's Gambit Accepted QGD = Queen's Gambit Declined QIN = Queen's Indian RET = Reti ROB = Robotsch RUY = Ruy Lopez SAI = Saint George SAT = Silcilian Attack SIC = Silcilian STO = Stonewall CHESSEDT.EXE Version 4.21 1 History 2 Features of CHESSEDT 3 Getting Started 4 Using CHESSEDT 5 Filenames and Directories 6 Loading/saving/deleting/directories files 7 Editing a new game 8 Inputting the header 9 Inputting the moves, the scoresheet 11 Special 'moves' 12 Getting out of the scoresheet 12 Printing the game board 13 Annotating the game 13 Editing an old game 13 Appending an existing game 14 List game 14 List game headings 15 Assembling statistics 15 Assemble all 16 Select by tournament 17 Select by score 17 Select by opening 17 Select by color 18 Select by opponent 18 Select by date 18 Select by ratings 19 Select by owner 19 If you have problems 20 APPENDIX I 21 ----------------end-of-author's-documentation--------------- Software Library Information: This disk copy provided as a service of The Public (Software) Library We are not the authors of this program, nor are we associated with the author in any way other than as a distributor of the program in accordance with the author's terms of distribution. 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