Author: Stefan Meyer-Kahlen
Date: 07:42:12 02/25/00
LANs are getting more and more popular so I want to remind everybody of a special feature of my autoplayer code for Windows that has been available with source code for quite a while now and that has been implemented in Shredder since version 2. I am addressing particularly the programmers of windows GUIs of chess programs or the ones who have used my code in their programs. With my code is it possible to play automatically against another windows program in a network without the need to connect the two machines with a serial cable. All communication is done via the network. Yesterday I let Shredder play a match against ChessTiger and felt very stupid being forced to connect the two machines with an additional cable. It is very easy to add this feature, more precisely it is harder to remove it from the source code than to just leave it in there. There is no difference to the engine as all communication is done by my code. The engine and also the interface can’t tell weather the two computers are connected via network or via a serial cable. To my knowledge Shredder is currently the only program that is capable of playing automatically on two machines without a serial cable by using the network connection. Many programs are using my code for their autoplayer but everyone seems to have removed the code for playing in a network. I have no idea why, so please help me to understand it. If any programmer needs more support for adding this feature please contact me as it is getting boring to play Shredder vs. Shredder in my network only. It was discussed here recently that it is possible to connect com1 and com2 on one machine and use the autoplayer on one machine with two different programs. This works fine, especially on a dual machine, but if you think about that it seems very strange to have to connect one computer to itself with a serial cable. Well, you can have a more elegant solution for that with my network autoplayer code because as a side effect you can also play with two programs on one machine without any cable at all. As I have already addressed this subject here some time ago but didn’t get much feedback I would be happy to hear about your thoughts about that and to learn about the motivation of the ones who have removed the network code from my autoplayer source code. I would be happy if more programs support this feature in the future. Stefan
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