Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 06:07:13 09/11/98
Go up one level in this thread
On September 11, 1998 at 05:06:34, Moritz Berger wrote: >On September 10, 1998 at 22:19:36, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On September 10, 1998 at 21:14:21, Keith Ian Price wrote: >> >>>On September 10, 1998 at 13:11:24, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>> >>>>On September 09, 1998 at 21:26:18, Keith Ian Price wrote: > >>>>I agree totally. the Auto232 standard is gross. Completely gross. There are >>>>many better ways to accomplish this task. ><snip> >>>>I would >>>>be more than happy to sit down with a group and work out a standard >>>>communication interface that is easy to implement, easy to parse, and easy to >>>>understand how it is supposed to work. > >I don't think that your approach is likely to succeed: > >- before Auto232 there was no standard. None of the commercial guys even talked >about this, there were always rumors about proprietary autoplayers to gain >competitive advantage by testing against competitors. > >- it's hard enough to keep Auto232 in the present form as a default in >commercial programs, e.g. just look at the Fritz 5 and Rebel 10 discussions. > >- Probably nobody will take the pains to retrofit your "hyatt autoplayer" onto >Genius, Rebel, M-Chess, Hiarcs, Fritz, Shredder, Nimzo, ... An autoplayer that >exclusively works with Crafty and Nero is worthless to me. > > >Moritz I won't argue, but an autoplayer that doesn't allow under-promotion is also useless. I once introduced a bug into xboard that broke underpromotion, and I lost two games in a week as a result, one a drawn KNN vs KP where winboard refused to let me underpromote to a knight which was a check. Also, an autoplayer that is so touchy (timing-wise) is also less than useful. And finally, one where the protocol is highly unusual and not well-defined is just as bad. Fortunately the winboard/xboard engine protocol is accepted by almost all the freeware programs. Which is a larger number of programs than those supporting the archaic auto232 interface. Perhaps time and numbers will settle this. But clearly, auto232 is a poorly designed interface...
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.