The Best of Select: Games 9/CD_1.iso/dosgames/go/goread.me

Text File | 1994-09-09 | 31KB | 775 lines

        _____________________________________________________
       |                                                     |
       |                     GoGame                          |
       |                                                     |
       |                                                     |
       |             The Ancient Game of GO                  |
       |                    by TMW Co                        |
       |                                                     |
       |                                                     |
       |      (c) Copyrighted 1991, 92, 94   TMW Co.         |
       |                El Cajon, California                 |
       |                                                     |
       |      Version 5.0        Dated  9 September 1994     |
       |                                                     |
       |_____________________________________________________|




   1.0 Table of Contents:
   2.0 Installation
           Mouse provisions
           Game storage
   3.0 History of the Game of Go
   4.0 Qualities of this program
          Improvements since the last release
             Auditing your play
   5.0 Operating Summary
   6.0 Operating Details
          6.1  Initial Menu
          6.2  Player Selection Menu
          6.3  File Selection Menu
          6.4  Settings Menu
          6.5  Records Menu
          6.6  Problem Solving Menu
          6.7  Setup Menu
          6.8  Game Menu - Player Source
          6.9  Game Menu - File Source
          6.10 Game Menu - Machine Source
          6.11 Game Editing Menu
   7.0 Structure of the programs





 2.0 INSTALLATION

     Simply copy everything into a directory somewhere.....  UnZip, if
necessary, and then - - GO.

     The following files should end up in the same directory:
          GO.EXE         GO.OVR          GOGAME.CFG
          JOSEKI.DAT     PATTERNS.DAT

     The sample games (GAMES.ZIP) may be unzipped in the same
directory or another one.

     Execute the program by typing GO.

     Any key gets you past the important Sign On page.  Then a '1'
starts the program playing with itself.  Come back and read the Sign
On page at your leisure.  You have another chance to read it when
leaving GoGame.

     Mouse provisions: You can point to where to move with the Cursor
keys, if you want too.  However, the GoGame program will capitalize on
a Microsoft (or compatible) mouse if one is detected to be present.
Your mouse driver must have been previously loaded - a message will
remind you if the mouse is not detected.
     Game storage:  Earlier versions of GoGame required that games be
stored in a special \GAM directory under the directory containing the
game itself.  That was more trouble than it was worth.  Now the
default is to store games wherever the game program itself is stored.
You can even change this and keep games wherever you wish, by using
the Records Menu Path choice.





 3.0 HISTORY OF THE GAME OF GO

     " GO is .. an ancient, ancient two player board game which takes
simple elements - line and circle, black and white, stone and wood -
combines them with simple rules and generates subtleties which have
enthralled players for millennia.  Go's appeal resides not only in its
Oriental elegance, but also in practical and stimulating features in
the design of the game."   (extracted from the American Go Journal,
New York, NY)

     The game originated in China a few thousand years B.C. It was
brought to Japan in our Middle Ages. GO is now very popular in Japan,
China and Korea.  Most of the current champions are from the Far East.

     The playing area (go-ban) consists of up to 19 by 19 lines (the
limit of human comprehension). White and black stones (ishi) are
alternately placed on the intersections of the lines. Once placed, the
stones stay put, unless they are captured by being surrounded.

     Stones that are adjacent along lines (not diagonally) are
considered connected and in the same unit.  They live or die as a
unit.  When a unit is completely surrounded and no longer touches any
vacant location, the unit is dead / captured and counts as points for
the capturer.

     The object of the game is to surround and control vacant
territory.  Try for too much territory and your opponent may live
within it - neutralizing it.  Try for too little and you end up with
too little.

      The game is over when there is nothing more to be gained by
either side. At this time, the side with the most vacant space (eyes)
within its control plus opponent captures - wins.





 4.0  QUALITIES OF THIS PROGRAM


     This program is an excellent learning mechanism. Analysis of
professional games and your own games is the key to improving your
play.

     The newly created AUDIT capability allows auditing or quantifying
your Go playing skills.  You measure your ability to make the moves
that the Masters have made, or to remember the moves that you and/or
your opponent made in a recorded game.

     White and Black may be played by human players or may be played
by the machine or may be played back from a prerecorded file.

     You may change the assignment of the source of the moves whenever
you wish; taking over from the machine or from a recorded file.

     You may add commentary and/or board marks to a recorded game
file.  GoGame does not support illustrating possible variations in the
play.   Be sure to save the modified file after editing.

     The moves that the machine makes are better than random moves.
Corner Joseki is played, after which the sides are staked out in a
reasonable way.

     The machine will probably capture if it can and will avoid
capture if it can.  Looking ahead through combinations of moves is
time consuming and the levels of tactical look ahead can be adjusted
to taste.

     The program is strongly "influence" oriented.

     Detecting the end of productive play is very difficult, and the
machine doesn't do it very well yet, although it will eventually Pass.

     Human players may choose to take back a move. If playing against
the machine, its last move is taken back, before the players last move
is taken back.

     Speed. Presently, the program averages almost two moves per
minute for a 333 move game.  This is on a 386 notebook (Norton SI CPU
rating 14.3 * an XT), with 1 level of tactical Look Ahead. Total
elapsed time taken by each color is displayed after each move.

     The program uses character graphics and should be usable on color
or monochrome systems without special graphics hardware.  On laptops
or other mono systems, you may need to reverse the sense of the screen
so that the Xs come out as the Black stones and the Os come out as
White.

      A Problem Solving section has been included in the program. You
can set up capturing problems and let him try to look ahead far enough
to solve them.  The Look Ahead mechanism from the main game has been
isolated and made available for this.  See the Problem Solving Menu
instructions.  The number of levels of look ahead specified here also
are used in the main game.  Consequently, you may trade off increased
run time for more levels of look ahead.

     The Problem Solving section has been tested against some of the
"How to Capture Stones" problems in Graded Go Problems for Beginners"
Volume 2, published by the Nihon Ki-in.  With look ahead level set to
1 (essentially no look ahead, just the built in move evaluator), 5 of
10 problems were solved correctly.  Setting the level to 3 solved an
additional 4 problems - totaling 9 of 10.  The other problem required
4 level of look ahead.  Generally speaking, the look ahead is more
effective when it looks ahead further.  The default setting while
playing a game is 1 level.

     Since the last release, many improvements have been made to
GoGame.

 - - - Version 5.0 includes the following:

          AUDITING capabilitly added.
          More accurate analysi