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Subject: Re: PocketCrafty for the ARM PocketPC

Author: Ian Osgood

Date: 15:40:56 06/10/01

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On June 10, 2001 at 14:59:12, Christophe Theron wrote:

>On June 09, 2001 at 13:43:17, Ian Osgood wrote:
>
>>Dr. Hyatt let me distribute my port of crafty 18.6 to the PocketPC (only tested
>>on the Compaq iPAQ) on his FTP site:
>>
>>ftp://ftp.cis.uab.edu/pub/hyatt/iPAQ/ARMRel/PocketCrafty.exe
>>ftp://ftp.cis.uab.edu/pub/hyatt/iPAQ/install.txt
>>ftp://ftp.cis.uab.edu/pub/hyatt/iPAQ/features.txt
>>
>>Later, these will be available here:
>>
>>ftp://ftp.cis.uab.edu/pub/hyatt/iPAQ/PocketCrafty.exe
>>ftp://ftp.cis.uab.edu/pub/hyatt/iPAQ/PocketCrafty10-src.zip
>>
>>I believe this is currently the strongest program you can put in your pocket.
>>It plays on the FICS account NewtonChess if you want to see how it performs.
>>
>>Enjoy!
>>
>>Ian
>
>
>
>Can you tell us about your programming experience on PocketPC?
>
>Has it been difficult to port Crafty?
>
>I'm planning to port Chess Tiger to PocketPC later this year and I'm interested
>in hearing about your experience.

You can see for yourself:  the code and diffs to the crafty 18.6 source are also
there in the iPAQ directory.  Pretty easy really.  Most of the standard ANSI C
library calls are supported (notable exception: time.h).  The bulk of the code I
wrote was in the GUI; the remainder is in emulate.cpp.  Writing the GUI was very
like writing a simple Windows app.  Using MFC also helped, I'm sure.

Of course, it helped that crafty had already been ported to a number of OS's,
including NT.

>Ahem... And I need to buy a PocketPC computer. I guess everybody would suggest
>the iPaq is the best?

Well, I like it.  :)  The main problem (a few months ago at least) was
availablity.  Demand exceeded supply.  That's why I got mine on eBay instead of
through a retailer.  You might look into the grayscale version: much cheaper and
more available.  Conventional wisdom would suggest targeting a slower PocketPC,
so you know that performance is acceptable on the lowest common denominator of
your market.

Also, if you have Windows 2000 you can run your app in an emulated PocketPC on
your development computer.  This helped me immensely, especially in the early
development.  Besides, you are going to need a diverse set of beta-testers since
there are so many implementations of WinCE out there (a disadvantage compared
with PalmOS).

Ian

>    Christophe



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