Author: Keith Ian Price
Date: 19:46:01 09/10/98
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On September 10, 1998 at 21:19:09, Dan Homan wrote: > >I like this idea very much. It seems as though the Xboard protocol is >becoming rather standard as an interface communication. Xboard naturally >supports ICS protocol, so why not make the ICS protocol the standard? >I know it is not ideal, but its current wide use makes it convienent and new >programs that match the standard can play on ICC or FICS with no >modification. > >The FICS software is freely available and supports timestamping. It >does require an intermediate computer to play the role as judge, but this >can be an old 486 and can serve as the judge for many simultaneous >matches between computers. The TCP/IP protocol is very wide-spread >so matches between many types of computers are possible. > >The FICS software does have many features that are not necessary for >comp-comp testing in your basement or over the internet, but these features >don't need to be included in the offical protocol. We could define a board >style (Xboard and Robofics use 12) and other essential commands as >'must have' and the rest can be at the descretion of the programmer. > >Not a new standard, but perhaps a convienent one. > > - Dan The only trouble I see with this, is that this has been available for some time without any programmers save Bob and some other freeware programs supporting it. If we declare a subset of it to be a 'standard', what incentive will there be to have it included in commercial programs? The way Auto232 got to be the current 'standard' is by implementing the same double parsing scheme that Bob complained about, in order to trick the commercial programs into thinking they were receiving commands through their normal interface. Once it became the standard, then the commercials began including code for it in their programs. A standard is useless if no one implements it. I believe the official standard for measurement in the U.S. has been metric since 1980, but no one implemented it. How can we avoid the same fate for this standard? kp
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