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Subject: Re: Survey proposal: Importance of Auto232 compatibility

Author: Danniel Corbit

Date: 13:01:16 09/10/98

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On September 10, 1998 at 13:11:24, Robert Hyatt wrote:
[snip]
>I agree totally.  the Auto232 standard is gross.  Completely gross.  There are
>many better ways to accomplish this task.  First problem is that the message
>format is rediculous, with the original auto232 interface not supporting *real*
>chess since it didn't allow underpromotion.  Then there were the timing issues
>that resulted in hangs when a program moved too quickly.  Cryptic move format
>requiring a tab here, no tab there, etc...
>
>None of it made any sense from a software engineering point of view.  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.
>
>We ought to be able to also provide some basic software that will let this work
>on both unix and windows boxes (IE I can do the unix part myself, and we can
>take that to make a "auto232" library that anyone using unix can call).  I have
>been trying to study the windows auto232 interface, but it is a nightmare,
>still, because it uses the old auto232 message format with two levels of parsing
>(which makes little sense). IE I send a somewhat cryptic message to the driver
>(cryptic because of a byzantine format) that the driver then modifies and sends
>to the other driver over the interface, which has to modify that to send it to
>the engine, which has to modify that to interpret what the devil it means.
>
>That is not necessary.  And there is *no* sense in thinking "windoze" only for
>this interface, because it can work linux to windows, and linux to linux, as
>well as windows to windows, if done correctly.
>
>Anyone interested?  Shareware/Freeware guys want to take the lead here and do
>this right, once and for all?
I would suggest using ACE for communication, since it supports many protocols
and runs on dozens of UNIX flavors and WinNT, and MVS and...

How about something even more advanced -- a tournament server!



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