Author: Bob Durrett
Date: 07:12:21 09/11/03
Open letter to Chessbase 8 Programmers: I would like to be able to use ALL existing chess engines as analysis engines running under Chessbase 8. Please do the following: (1) Modify the Chessbase 8 software so that it can run UCI and Winboard engines. If the Fritz GUI can accommodate UCI engines, then it should be possible for Chessbase 8 to do it too. Chessbase 8 and UCI should not be incompatible. [UCI and Winboard (actually xboard) are 2 different protocols used by the engines to communicate, kind of like 2 different languages. Fritz 8 appears to "understand" UCI but not xboard. Anything chess engine that supports the xboard communication protocol is a winboard/xboard engine. The details on how to make a chess engine compatible by the author I mean not the user) can be found here: http://www.tim-mann.org/xboard/engine-intf.html similarly any chess engine that supports the UCI protocol is a uci engine. The equalavent document for UCI can be found here: http://161.58.237.201/download/uci-protocol.rtf] (2) As an interim measure, publish your Chessbase protocol so that all chess engine programmers who wish to do so can create Chessbase-native versions of their engines. How can you expect people to write chessbase-native versions of their engines [especially amateur engines] when you do not publish the protocol? Do you expect people to pay you for that? Did Bob Hyatt have to give you money so that his engine, Crafty, would run under Chessbase 8? (3) Keep up with your competition. Chess Assistant supports both winboard and uci engines. Why cannot Chessbase 8 do that too? It should not be necessary to eliminate the Chessbase protocol. Just expand the capability of your software. See: http://www.aarontay.per.sg/Winboard/interface.html (4) Fix Chessbase 8 so that Chessmaster 9000’s engine, The King, can be used as an analysis engine running under Chessbase 8. This may require some coordination between you and the Chessmaster 9000 programmers. Generally, please note that Microsoft has made a lot of money because they published their protocols. If you follow the lead of Bill Gates, you will get as rich as he is! Bob D. P.S. This was a synthesis of comments made by myself and others in a separate thread. I hope I have faithfully restated the facts and have not botched it up too badly. Apologies to whomever if I misinterpreted their comments. : )
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