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1990-09-07
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P R E S E N T
F U L L D O C S T O
T H E A R T O F C H E S S
Typed by SIDEWINDER/LSD.
NOTE: Yes, this is an old game, but we have never seen the docs to it,
so here they are at last!
A HISTORY OF COMPUTER CHESS
Since the beginning of the mechanical age people have been fascinated by
the possibility of machines replacing human functions. To some it meant
a release from human drudgery, both manual and intellectual. To others
a more philosophical challenge was in sight in the attainment of machine
decisions, machine imagination, machine thought. In retrospect it is
obvious that these two aims were related, the thinking machine of one
age became the drudge replacing automaton of the next. A brief look at
the history of the calculator, from abacus to the modern electronic
variety, soon reveals that as soon as a so called 'intelligent' machine
has been produced then the very defination 'intelligence' changes.
'Intelligence' seems to be a word applied to all functions which a human
can achieve and machines cannot. Perhaps one day this process will
restrict the word to such a limited range as to become meaningless.
For many years the fascination of this subject has been concentrated
upon the advent of chess playing machines, and with good reason. Chess
has always been respected as a formidable human accomplishment yet many
aspects of the game (though not yet all) are susceptible to analysis
consisting of many repetitive calculations, well suited to computers and
their forerunners. This leads to a situation where man and machine can
be pitted against each other on fairly equal terms. There is certainly
never any lack of human players eager to undertake this challenge, which
is often seen as one of defending the pride of the human race.
As yet our finest chess players still persist in beating our chess
computer, despite the latter's horrifying amount of processing power.
It seems these players possess an insight into to the game beyond the
realms of mere number crunching, an insight that provides a new
challenge to the designers of chess programs. When this challenge is
met then it will provide the final chapter to a history that began
(albeit in a dubious fashion) nearly two hundred years ago.
BARON VON KEMPELEN - TURK
It will probably come as a surprise to most people that the very first
chess playing machine was produced in the eighteenth century, long
before the advent of computers, or even complicated mechanical devices.
It was invented by the Baron Von Kempelen and was very successful,
beating many of the best players of its time, and even winning against
Napoleon (a fairly dangerous manoeuver as he was not known as a good
loser). The machine, called TURK, consisted of a mechanical man which
moved pieces on a board in response to an opponents moves. It was very
popular, toured many countries, and entertained most of the royalty of
the day.
Unfortunately TURK had one drawback, it was a clever fake. It was a
cunningly designed device with cabinets below in which a human player
could hide from view. As the box was opened up, one side at a time, the
human played moved to hide from the sight of spectators. Lever controls
were provided to operate the machine's mechanical arm and the player
could see the board through a veil in the mechanical man's chest. It
had however no intelligence of its own bar various of the (smaller)
chess players of the time hidden within. Fake though it was TURK did
illustrate the public interest produced by any machine that could claim
to think.
LEONARDO TORRES Y QUEVEDO
In the Polytechnic University of Madrid can be found, still working, the
true ancestor of the chess playing computer. Its not very ambitious in
its aims, but considering that it was built in 1890 and uses only
electro-mechanical devices then its worthy of admiration. Its inventor
was the Spanish scientist Leonardo Torres y Quevedo whose experiments
and theories on automaton led him to produce this as an example of the
possibility of robots.
The object of the device was to checkmate a human component's king using
only its own king and rook. It consisted of a board on which the three
pieces moved along slots. Electrical connections made by the pieces in
their various positions served to 'sense' the current board position and
electromagnets provided the means of moving the chess pieces. A light
bulb lit up if the human had made an illegal move and a device similar
to an early gramaphone produced the words CHECK and MATE where
appropriate.
Decision making was performed by a series of electromagnetic relay
switches. It had no software control as such, the device being
anologous to a modern microprocessor constructed to respond only to an
instruction set of (simple) chessboard positions. The embedded rules
determining which moves to make were not complicated, consisted of six
conditions concerning relative positions of Kings and Rook, on which six
actions could be taken. It could guarantee checkmate within 63 moves
against any opponent.
ALAN MATHIESON TURING
We had to wait another fifty years before a step comparable to that of
Torres was made. Alan Turing was both mathematician and philosepher
whose short (and often unhappy) life founded both computer and
artificial intelligence research. In 1951 Turing wrote what was
probably the first chess program TURBOCHAMP. Unfortunately there did
not exist a computer capable of running TURBOCHAMP. The first game
played between a chess program and human was executed by a human (Turing
himself) performing the program's calculations (without the aid of a
calculator). The human opponent was Allick Glennis who was not
particularly a good chess player but who managed to checkmate TURBOCHAMP
after 29 moves. The game lasted three hours.
TURBOCHAMP was a rudimentary program by today's standards in that it
could only look one move ahead, it had no concept of the difference
between the opening, middle and end games, and had an elementary
evaluation of position. It did however understand the rules of the game
and used basic algorithms distinguishable from the modern variety only
by the need to produce an answer within many fewer calculations. It is
interesting to note that as Alan Turing was a poor chess player,
TURBOCHAMP was probably an example of a program being able to out think
its creator.
CLAUDE ELWOOD SHANNON
Claude Elwood Shannon was working on his theories of chess programming
almost simultaneously with Alan Turing. He formalised the methods that
can be used to consider a chess position into two strategies, generally
known as strategy A and strategy B. These two methods form the basis of
pratically all modern chess programs. Both strategies were developed on
the basis of work done several years earlier by the mathematician Jon
Van Neumann. He developed the methods of minimax, to evaluate the
optimum path through a decision tree, as part of his general theories on
game playing.
STRATEGY A
This is sometimes known as the 'Brute Force Method'. In its
initial
conception it simply involved the calculation of every possible
move
and every possible reply for a fixed number of 'half moves'
ahead.
This has been refined in later years to include alpha-beta
cutoff in
the minimax search, and to perform heuristic ordering of
evaluation
of moves to improve efficiency. To work effectively this method
requires computers of high processing power due to an alarming
way in
which the number of computations required rises as the 'look
ahead'
increases.
STRATEGY B
As Shannon realised that the computers of his day were incapable
of
utilising strategy B as a more subtle alternative. The
essential
difference is that heuristic 'plausible move generator' is used
to
cut down the number of moves considered at each stage and hence
increases the number of 'half moves' ahead can be analysed.
This
method has the disadvantage of the possibility of missing a
vital
move if the 'plausible move generator' is not of the highest
standard. It does however provide the more modest computer the
chance of finding a move reasonably sound for several moves
ahead.
Shannon never actually wrote a full program to perform either of his
strategies, but set down algorithms used from then on by many chess
programs. He demonstrated a deep understanding of the limiting factors
which were to pose the problems for chess programmers for many years to
come.
LOS ALAMOS - MANIAC 1
One of the very early chess programs running on a computer was developed
in the early 1950's by a group at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory,
New Mexico. This was presumably a form of relaxation after their
efforts in producing the first hydrogen bomb. The scientists, Wells,
Walden, Kister, Stien and Ulam developed their program on the 30 ton IBM
monster MANIAC 1. In trying to cut down the explosion of computations
they cheated a little by programming for a 6 by 6 chessboard without
bishops.
This program was firstly beaten by a fairly strong player despite the
program being given an initial queen advantage. It then went on to face
a specially prepared challenger who had been taught to play chess one
week earlier was thrown into the fray and was unsurprisingly beaten
after 23 moves. History does not record the name of this challenger but
she gained the doubtful honour of being the first to outwitted at chess
by a computer.
MODERN CHESS PROGRAMS
As true computers, recognisible as the ancestors of our current
machines, were developed in the early 1950's the race to produce the
ultimate chess program was on, and still continues today. In 1974 the
internal skirmishes between chess computers were formalised at the first
world computer chess championship at Stockhlm. The top computers played
each other under tournament rules (with a few amendments to cope with
system failures). A Russian program KAISSA won the first of what was to
be a regular event. Since then competition has also extended to a
microcomputer event which tends to be more of a test of programming than
processing power.
The race has always been a three way challenge, between the computers
themselves and between computers and chess players. The process of the
computers and their programming can be traced through the increasing
standard of players required to defeat them. From novice in the 1950's
through to master in the 1980's it seems that the humans are fighting a
losing battle. Perhaps so, but the final stages of the war may well
last longer than expected.
THE RULES OF CHESS
Chess is the oldest stylised strategy game known to the modern world.
It is a game for two players and is played on an eight by eight board
with 16 white pieces and 16 black pieces (usually known as men). The
horizontal rows of board squares are known as ranks and the vertical
rows as files. The lower right hand square is always white and the
Queens occupy squares of their own colour.
The ultimate goal in chess is to 'checkmate' the opponent's King. While
the King is never captured and removed from the field of play, it can be
attacked (checked) and threatened with capture. When this happens, the
King must extricate himself immediately. If this is not possible, the
King has been checkmated. The side which finds itself in checkmate
loses the game.
MOVES OF THE MEN
The player takes turns, with white making the first move. One may be
moved at each turn, except in the case of 'castling' (see Special
Moves). All pieces belonging to one player can move to a square
occupied by one of his opponent's pieces, he may capture the piece and
take its place on the square. The captured piece is removed from the
board. The Knight is the only piece that can jump over the other men.
THE QUEEN
This is the most powerful piece. She can move any number of squares in
any direction as long as her path is not obstructed.
THE KING
The King can move one square at a time in any direction. He may never
move into check.
THE ROOK
The Rook or Castle can move any number of unobstructed squares, either
by rank or by file (horizontally or vertically).
THE BISHOP
The Bishop can move any number of unobstructed squares diagonally. If a
bishop is on a dark square he can only reach the other dark squares. At
the start of a game, each player has a 'dark square' Bishop and a 'light
square' Bishop.
THE KNIGHT
The Knight's move differs from the others. It jumps from its old to its
new square and can leap over other pieces to reach its new position. It
always lands on an opposite colour to the square it leaves. As with
other men, a Knight captures by occupying an opponents position.
THE PAWN
The Pawn moves straight ahead only, but captures diagonally. It moves
one square at a time but on its first move has the option of either
moving one or two squares.
PAWN PROMOTION
If a Pawn successfully advances to the opposing rear rank, it achieves
promotion. It can remain a Pawn but the player may replace it with a
more powerful piece. By assuming the powers of a more powerful piece,
the promoted Pawn can immediately attack (check) the opponent's King.
SPECIAL MOVES
EIN PASSANT
This is a special Pawn capture and literally means 'in passing'. The
opportunity arises when a Pawn, that is making its initial move, elects
to move two squares forward, as if to avoid capture by the opponent's
Pawn. The opponent can then capture, as if the Pawn had moved only one
square. If the option to capture is not exercised immediately, the Ein
Passant opportunity is lost.
CASTLING
Each player may 'Castle' once during a game. Castling is a special move
which allows the player to move two men at once - King and Rook - and is
only available if special conditions are met. The effect of the move is
to put the King to a safer position and allow the Rook more mobility.
Either the Kingside or Queenside Castling is permitted.
The conditions for Castling are:
1. Neither the King nor Rook involved may have moved since the
start of
the game.
2. There may not be men of either colour between the King and Rook
involved.
3. The King may not Castle out of check, through check or into
check.
CHECK AND CHECKMATE
If a King is placed in a situation where, at the next opponent's move,
it could (had it been another piece) be captured, it is said to be in
check. A King may never move into check. When a King is placed in
check by the opposing side, the player must either:
1. Capture the attacking piece.
2. Obstruct the attacking piece.
3. Move the King out of range of the attacking piece.
If none of these is possible, the King is checkmated and the opposing
side wins.
STALEMATE
If a player can make no legal move without bringing his King into check,
the situation is called a Stalemate and the game is considered a draw.
GAMEPLAY INSTRUCTIONS
The Art of Chess is controlled entirely from menu options and from on-
screen gadgets.
SELECTING FROM THE ART OF CHESS MENUS
To display a menu option, press the right hand mouse button. You should
see the following at the top of the screen:
PROJECT PLAY EDIT SPECIAL CLOCKS SOUND
These are the main menu headings. Now, with the right botton still
down, move the arrow over one of the headings. A list of options will
appear under the heading you have selected. As you move the arrow down
the list, the options will be highlighted in turn. In some cases, a
further list of 'sub options' will also appear. To select an option or
sub option, release the right mouse button while that option is
highlighted.
PLAYING A GAME
The first two options under PROJECT are:
Start Game with Amiga White
Start Game with Amiga Black
To start a game, all you have to do is select one of these. You can do
this at any time, even when a game is in progress. Of course, if you do
this without saving (see later) any current game is lost.
When you start a game, the chess pieces will arrange themselves in the
opening positions on the board.
MOVING A PIECE
To move a piece, place the arrow over the piece you wish to move and
press the left hand mouse button. With the button still down, drag the
piece to a new square and release the button. If the move is legal, the
piece will position itself in the centre of the square and the Amiga
will start thinking about its reply. If the move is illegal, the piece
will jump back to the square it came from.
PROMOTION
Occasionally The Art of Chess can so far forget itself as to allow you
to promote a pawn. If this should ever happen silhouette images of the
major pieces will appear on the display. Simply click (left button)
over the piece you wish to promote to.
CASTLING
When a castling move is legal you can effect the move by moving the King
only to the target square. The Art of Chess will complete the operation
by moving the castle for you.
THE COMMENTARY LINE
During the course of play and whenever you select a gadget or menu
option, the top line of the screen will display a message indicating the
current state of the machine. The commentary line gives information
such as when its your move, when you are in check, and so on, as well as
brief instructions on the use of a selected option.
THE TIME TRAVEL GADGET
On the right hand side of the board, towards the top of the screen is an
arrow like object. This is the 'Time Time Travel Gadget'. The Time
Travel Gadget allows you to move backwards and forwards through any game
in progress, taking back or restoring pieces.
TAKING BACK MOVES
To take back the last move (yours of the Amiga's), position the pointer
over the part of the arrow pointing away from you and hit the left mouse
button. To restore a taken back move, use the same procedure, but this
time select the part of the arrow pointing toward you.
When you use the Time Travel Gadget, the game in progress is temporarily
halted. When you are satisfied with the state of the board, press the
left button with over the middle part of the Time Travel Gadget and play
will be resumed.
The Time Travel Gadget can be very useful, not only for taking back
moves. If you have been looking away from the screen when the Amiga
last moved, simple activate the TAKE BACK, RESTORE and RESUME 'buttons'
to replay the move.
The Time Travel Gadget ius also used to 'browse' through a saved or
library game (see later).
CHESS ANALYSIS
In using The Art of Chess Analysis options, you have the complete
freedom to invoke the full power of the Chess Processor at the heart of
The Art of Chess software.
You can solve chess problems, start a game from a particular position or
let the processor run for hours; to find the best move from a tricky
position. The Art of Chess gives you basic tools; how you use them is
up to you.
Here are the facilities you will need:
For full explanation, see the list of menu options at the end of this
manual.
1. The Time Travel Gadget which lets you move backwards and
forwards
through a move sequence at will.
2. START GAME and STOP GAME menu options.
3. The change sides, HUMAN vs AMIGA, AMIGA vs AMIGA, and HUMAN vs
HUMAN
menu options.
4. The chess clocks.
5. The DISPLAY LEGAL MOVES option.
6. The SHOW HOW A SQUARE IS ATTACKED and SHOW HOW SQUARE IS
DEFENDED
options.
7. The performance meter.
8. The SET POSITION options.
9. The skill controls.
10. The WHITE TO PLAY and BLACK TO PLAY options.
11. The WATCH THE AMIGA THINK option.
All of these facilities are available at any time, however no processing
will take place until you select one of the Start Game options.
To set up a problem, use any of the options 3, 4, 7, 8 and 10.
To start processing, use option 2.
During processing, use 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 and 11.
ANALYSIS EXAMPLE
The Art of Chess provides so many facilities for analysing chess
positions, that this manual can only act as a guide. The following
illustrates a simple example of chess analysis.
Suppose we wish to set up a chess position and then begin play with the
Amiga playing both sides. Suppose also that we wish to start with black
to play.
1. Select SET A POSITION FROM AN EMPTY BOARD from the EDIT menu.
2. Use the mouse to move pieces onto the board into the desired
positions.
3. When you are satisfied with the position, select BLACK TO PLAY
from
the PLAY menu.
4. Finally, select the Start Game option from the PROJECT menu.
As play proceeds, you will be able to move backwards and forwards
through moves played so far, using the 'Time Travel Gadget', change the
skill controls, alter moves and so on.
CHANGING THE DISPLAY
The Art of Chess gives you a wide range of choices over the way the
board and pieces are displayed. You can change the dislay at any time,
even in mid game. When you experiment with these options (explained
below) you will find that it is quite possible to design a display which
makes it impossible to actually play a game! Because of this, The Art
of Chess gives you a number of standard board views and colour
combinations which can be returned to at any time.
STANDARD BOARD VIEW
Under the SPECIAL menu heading, you will find an option called CHANGE
BOARD. Move the arrow over this option to display three minature
pictures of the board in various positions. Select one of these
pictures in the usual way to see a new view of the board.
STANDARD COLOURINGS
Also, under the SPECIAL is the option CHANGE COLOUR. Move the arrow
over this option to reveal a submenu giving three standard settings,
REGULAR, CLUB and CAFE.
CUSTOM BOARD VIEWS
The Art of Chess contains an internal 3D model of a real board which can
be viewed from any angle. Moving the board around is rather like moving
an Amiga window. To view the board from a different position, place the
arrow somewhere over the edge of the board and hold down the left
button. Immediately, you will see an outline of the board. As you move
the mouse, this outline will change shape and position. A left-to-right
motion rotates the board and an up-and-down motion tilts it. When you
release the mouse button the new view will be displayed.
CUSTOM COLOUR SELECTION
To re-colour the display, select the CUSTOM sub option under the CHANGE
COLOUR option. Three slider controls will appear at the top of the
screen. The slider works in a similar way to the Preferences colour
controls, they adjust the amount of red, green and blue at a given point
on the screen.
DESIGNING YOUR OWN CHESS PIECES
To do this you need a copy of Deluxe Paint from Electronic Arts.
To design a piece, you must design a brush of a specific size which
contains the new piece image. On your Art of Chess disk, in the custom-
pieces drawer, you will find a brush called Piece-Pro-Forma. This is
simply an area of colour which is the right size for a chess piece.
Your piece should not necessarily fill this area completely, however,
for correct positioning on the board, the base of the piece should sit
in the centre of the bottom edge of the brush.
You may use up to four colours in the design of your piece and these
must be colours 13, 14, 15, and 16 on the Deluxe Paint medium resolution
pallet.
Once you have designed your piece, save it on the custom-pieces drawer
of The Art of Chess disk under the name Pawn, Knight, Rook, Bishop,
Queen or King, replacing the brushes of those names already in this
directory.
Once you have redesigned one or more of the pieces, you must complete a
simple procedure to install the new images. This is as follows:
1. Use your Workbench disk to start the Amiga in the normal way.
2. Mount The Art of Chess in df0:
3. Double click over The Art of Chess icon to open The Art of Chess
window.
4. Now type the command INSTALL.
A new window will appear to give a running commentary on the progress of
the installation procedure. When this is finished, the window will
disappear. Your new piece(s) are now installed.
Next time you use The Art of Chess and you select USE CUSTOM PIECES from
the PROJECT menu, your new pieces replace the originals. To restore The
Art of Chess pieces, simply re-select the option.
MENU OPTIONS
In Art of Chess, the menu bar is not actually visible until you press
the RIGHT mouse button. To select an option from the menu, place the
mouse pointer and release the RIGHT mouse button.
PROJECT
START GAME WITH AMIGA BLACK
This option causes a game to begin. Normally, the pieces will arrange
themselves on the board in the standard opening position. However, if
you have previously selected one of the Edit options to set up a chess
position, play will begin from the position you have set. No play can
commence unless there are both Kings on the board.
START GAME WITH AMIGA WHITE
This option is exactly the same as above except that the Amiga will play
white and you will play black.
NOTE: If you have selected the Amiga vs Amiga or Human vs Human option
from the Play menu, this position on the Project menu will offer the
single option Start Game.
QUIT/RESIGN GAME
Select this option to quit/resign from a game in progress, select it
again to remove all pieces from the board.
LOAD NEW GAME
this option allows you either to load one of the Grandmaster games
already saved on your Art of Chess disk, or to load a game which you
previously saved. In either case, you are asked to type in the name of
the game you wish to load. For details of the library, see 'The
Grandmaster Classic Library' section in this manual. Click the pointer
on the text 'my-game' and delete the text. Then type in the game name
to be loaded and press return. Now select the OK icon below your
filename.
SAVE CURRENT GAME
Follow the same procedure laid out for loading a file as detailed above.
When you have done this, all the moves so far in the current game will
be saved on The Art of Chess disk.
QUIT CHESS
This option does not exit itself from The Art of Chess, it merely
displays instructions for doing so. To quit The Art of Chess, remove
The Art of Chess disk and press the CTRL and the two Amiga keys
together. The machine will then be reset and after a few seconds the
standard Workbench request screen will appear.
SHOW/CLEAR BOARD CO-ORDINATES
Select this option to display chess board co-ordinates along the sides
of the board. To remove the co-ordinates, simply re-select the option.
CHANGE SIZE AND SHAPE OF BOARD
Once selected, you may drag the bottom right corner of the board and
rotate it in any direction.
TOURNAMENT RULES
Tournament games are played with a chess-clock at a pre-determined move
rate, with the moves being recorded. Each player is given a certain
amount of time on his clock for a given number of moves. The usual rate
of play at tournaments is one of the following:
A: 40 moves for the first 2½ hours, 16 moves for every subsequent
hour
(the session lasts 5 hrs).
B: 45 moves for the first 2½ hours, 18 moves for every subsequent
hour
(session lasts 4 hrs).
C: 36 moves for the first 2 hours, 18 moves for every subsequent
hour
(session lasts 4 hrs).
D: 40 moves for the first 2 hours, 20 moves for every subsequent
hour
(session lasts 4 hrs).
E: 50 moves for the first 2½ hours, 20 moves for every subsequent
hour
(session lasts 5 hrs).
Select one of the sub-options. Type A, Type B, Type C, Type D or Type E
to select your choice.
PRINT A GAME
When you have selected this option, you are presented with the same
requester as loading/saving a game. Type in the name you wish to call
the printed file and select OK. The file is then saved to disk for
printing. To print the saved file do the following:
1. Use your Workbench disks to start the Amiga in the normal way.
2. Insert The Art of Chess in the internal drive.
3. Double click over The Art of Chess icon to open The Art of Chess
window.
4. Now run the program 'Print-Game'.
5. Select the appropriate number 1-3.
6. Type in the filename to be printed.
Once the file has been printed, the program will end returning you to
the Workbench screen. It is important that preferences are correctly
set-up for your printer. (See section 6-1 of your owners manual for
assistance on preferences).
SAVE GRAPHIC SETTINGS
Art of Chess allows you to manipulate the board in many ways. These
include rotate, change colours etc. When you use 'Save Graphic
Settings', Art of Chess will save all the parameters that are required
to set up the board to how you designed it to look.
PLAY
CHANGE SIDES
Allows you to swap sides at any time during the game.
HUMAN VS HUMAN
When you start a game (see Project) with this option selected, you can
use The Art of Chess display like a regular chess board and play the
ordinary game of chess. The Art of Chess will, however, only allow
legal moves. All the analysis options are still available and you can
still use facilities such as Show Legal Moves and Show Attack Moves or
Show Defence.
AMIGA VS AMIGA
This causes the Amiga to play against itself. Unless the game is in
progress, play will not commence until you select one of the Start Game
options. Use this option to make The Art of Chess solve problems on its
own.
HUMAN VS AMIGA
This is self explanatory. Unless a game is currently in progress, play
will not commence until you select one of the Start Game options.
WHITE TO PLAY
This option can be used to tell The Art of Chess that White is to play
when a chess problem has been set up or to force a particular side to
play when a game (or problem analysis) is in progress.
BLACK TO PLAY
This option tells the program that it is 'Black to Play'.
FORCE A MOVE
Use this option while the Amiga is thinking to force the Amiga to make a
move. You also need to use it to control the 'no time limit' option
(see Change Skill). This option will not always operate immediately.
MOUNTAINS
Instead of a conventional chess board, the 'Mountains' feature
introduces mountains onto the board.
SUGGEST A MOVE
As the title implies, this option makes the Amiga to evaluate your
current position and suggest a move. As this is only a suggestion, it
is for you to decide if you are going to use it.
EDIT
The three options under this heading let you set up a chess position for
later play or analysis.
SET FROM EMPTY BOARD
Clears any pieces from the board.
SET FROM OPENING POSITION
Arranges the pieces in the standard opening position.
SET FROM CURRENT POSITION
Does not change the current board position at all and can be used to
'cheat' by changing the position while the game is in progress.
When you have selected one of these options, you can move pieces around
it quite freely. To remove a piece from the board, simply move it to
the bottom of the screen. It will arrange itself in the row of
'captured' pieces. To place a piece on the board, simply pick it up in
the usual way and position it on a square. Once you have set up a
position you should let the Amiga know which side is to play first by
selecting White to Play or Black to Play under the Project menu.
Finally, to start play select Start Game With Amiga White or Amiga Black
from the Project menu.
SPECIAL
CHANGE COLOURS
There are four sub-options under this option.
REGULAR: This is the default power-up colours.
CAFE: This is a pre-defined colour setting.
CLUB: This is a pre-defined colour setting.
CUSTOM: When you select this sub-option, the usual preferences style
colour sliders appear on the screen. To select the colour you wish to
adjust, position the arrow so that it points to an area of this colour,
click the left button and adjust the sliders. Click on OK when you have
finished.
CHANGE BOARD
This option gives you a choice of five standard board views represented
as minature pictures of the chess board; three views of a 3D board and
two views of a 2D. In addition to these five standard views, there is
also a 3D edit view. To use any of the five standard views, just
release the right mouse button when you have hi-lighted your choice.
EDIT: You can, however, move the board to any position without selecting
a menu option simply by 'grabbing' the edge of the board, just as you
would a piece, and dragging it to a new position. A sideways motion
causes board rotation and an up/down motion causes tilt movement.
CHANGE SKILL
There are three present levels in addition to an editable level. The
editable level appears with two slider controls. The slider marked
'skill', adjusts the length of time the Amiga is, on average, to be
allowed for a move. The scale runs from 6 seconds to 3.2 minutes with
no limit time setting at the end of the scale. If you move the slider
into the no time limit area, The Art of Chess will never make a move
until you select Force a Move from the Play menu. You can use this
facility to allow the Amiga to think overnight or longer about the
tricky position. The second slider marked Aggression changes the level
of Aggresiveness displayed by The Art of Chess. A middle setting
produces an average style game. Click on OK when you have finished.
SHOW LEGAL MOVES
To display the possible moves for a particular piece, select this option
and then click (left button) on a piece. The squares reachable by that
piece in a single move will change colour. You will need to select this
option for each selected piece.
PERFORMANCE METER ON/OFF
This option displays an on-screen indication of the Amiga's assessment
of the current game position. If the meter shows equal amounts of
'black' and 'white', the Amiga considers that black is 'neck and neck'
with white. The more of a particular colour shown on the scale, the
better the position of that side.
SHOW ATTACK
This works just like Show Defence, except that the highlighted squares
identify pieces that could capture one of your pieces should it occupy
that square.
SHOW DEFENCE
When you select this option and then click (left button) on a square,
certain other squares will change colour. The pieces on these squares
'defend' the square you have selected in the sense that they may capture
one of the Amiga's pieces on the selected square in a single move.
WATCH THE AMIGA THINK ON/OFF
This option produces a very revealing graphic's display of the Amiga's
analysis of the current board position. The areas indicate what The Art
of Chess considers the best move, the best reply to that move, the best
reply to that reply and so on.
USE CUSTOM/REGULAR PIECES
This option causes any user defined pieces to be displayed instead of
the regular Art of Chess ones. To revert to The Art of Chess pieces,
simply select that option again. For further details on customising
your pieces, refer to the 'designing your own pieces' section in the
gameplay instructions.
CLOCKS
The options under this headings are:-
Pause, Start Clock, Stop Clock and Zero Clocks (White, black or both)
The clocks are standard chess clocks. Each one shows how much time that
player has used so far in considering his moves.
SOUND
VOICE COMMENTARY
This causes the Amiga to speak a commentary on the game and the use of
various facilities.
VOICE CUING
In this mode the Amiga announces each move only.
VELVETY SILENCE
This option cancels both Voice Commentary and Voice Cuing.
WARNING: Whenever you save a file on The Art of Chess disk, make sure
the disk is NOT write protected. Otherwise an unrecoverable error will
occur.
GRANDMASTER CLASSIC LIBRARY
The following classic games are provided in the SAVED GAME drawer of
your Art of Chess disk. To load one of the classic games, select the
LOAD GAME option from the PROJECT menu. When requested, type in the
name of the game you wish to load. The games have GM1 to GM30 as
follows. Once a game has been loaded, you can use the 'Time Travel
Gadget' to browse through the game or start play at any point.
GM1. Andre Danican Philador - Captain Smith, Paris, 1790
GM2. Charles Mahe de la Bourdonnais - Alexander McDonnell, London,
1834
GM3. Howard Staunton - Pierre Saint-Amant, Paris, 1843
GM4. Adolf Anderssen - Lionel Kieseritzky, London, 1851
GM5. Adolf Anderssen - J Dufresne, Berlin, 1853
GM6. Joseph Henry Blackburne - Amos Burn, New York, 1889
GM7. Henry Bird - Paul Morphy, London, 1858
GM8. Johannes Zukertort - Joseph Henry Blackburne, London, 1883
GM9. Wilhelm Steinitz - Mikhail Tchigoria, Havana, 1891
GM10. Wilhelm steinitz - Kurt Von Bardelben, Moscow, 1895
GM11. Harry Nelson Pillsbury - Emanual Lasker, St Petersburg, 1895
GM12. Emanual Lasker - Jose Raul Capablanca, St Petersburg, 1914
GM13. Harry Nelson Pillsbury - Sieghert Tarrasch, Hastings, 1895
GM14. G Rotterie - Akiba Rubinstein, Lodz, 1908
GM15. Lewitzky - Frank Marshall, Breslau, 1912
GM16. Aaron Mimzorich - Salwe, Carlsbad, 1911
GM17. J Corzo - Jose Raul Capablanca, Havana, 1900
GM18. Ossip Bernstein - Jose Raul Capablanca, 1914
GM19. Richard Reti - Alexander Alekhine, Baden-Baden, 1925
GM20. Max Evwe - Alexander Alekhine, Zandvoort, 1935
GM21. Richard Reti - F Gruber, Vienna, 1923
GM22. Paul Keres - Mikhail Botvinnik, Moscow, 1941
GM23. Paul Keres - Vasily Smyslov, Zurich, 1954
GM24. Mikhail Botvinnik - Vasily Smyslov, 1954
GM25. Mikhail Tal - Gideon Barczq, Sofia, 1962
GM26. Tigran Petroian - Mikhail Botvinnik, Moscow, 1961
GM27. Boris Spassky - David Bronstein, Lenningrad, 1960
GM28. Donald Byrne - Bobby Fischer, New York, 1956
GM29. Boris Spassky - Bobby Fischer, Rejkjavik, 1972
GM30. Victor Korchnoi - Anatoly Karpov, Bagvio City, 1979
End.