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Subject: Playing over a LAN - the final solution

Author: Andreas Stabel

Date: 01:31:46 11/30/00


I think that the only proper way to match two programs is to run them on two
different computers with some sort of communication between them. Today almost
all computer-computer communication is done with TCP/IP, so I think it is time
that we moved the standard chess interface between programs to this protocol.

I have long experience of programming TCP/IP based systems, so my proposal is
to make a TCP/IP server which will work as a coordinator between two chess
programs. I will also program a simple client for this server which use the
Winboard interface and perhaps other interfaces too, so most of todays chess
programs wouldn't have to be rewritten.

In future extentions it would be easy for the TCP/IP server to alow more than
two programs to connect and to run matches between all the programs and so on.

The final system would be used in approximately the following way:

On computer X - which doesn't have to be any of the computers running the
               chess programs:
   Here you start the server:
      chesserver -port 1234 -games 10

On computer 1:
   Here the first chess program is started:
      chessclient -server computerX -port 1234 -engine crafty ....

On computer 2:
   Here the second chess program is started:
      chessclient -server computerX -port 1234 -engine arasan ....

Now 10 matches between the two engines on the two computers would be run
automatically.

What do you all think about this suggestion and what features should this
system incorporate ?

Best regards
Andreas Stabel



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