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Subject: Re: A call to arms for fellow CCC members

Author: Stuart Cracraft

Date: 10:16:25 01/17/06

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On January 17, 2006 at 10:12:26, Murat wrote:

>Hello everyone,
>
>After receiving a Novag universal chess board, I have discovered that the only
>way I can utilize the board is to use a winboard adapter which simulates a PC
>engine.
>
>This of course works perfectly when playing serious games. However winboard
>adapter can not take back moves.
>
>The last official driver from Novag’s site  is from 2001 and it is for Fritz6.
>And it does not work properly. I have tried it on WindowsMe, Windows2000 and XP
>with no luck.
>
>Let me cote you a section from the UCB manual.
>
>“NOVAG will endeavor to upgrade these instructions whenever new and popular
>chess software programs are available on the market.”
>
>Now Novag is still in the market. Here is their contact information
>
>Perfect Technology Ltd.
>Rm. 406-407, Yu Yuet Lai Building
>43-55 Wyndham Street,
>Central, Hong Kong
>Tel:  (852) 2810 8202
>Fax:  (852) 2810 8177
>E-Mail:  sales@novag.com
>Web Site:  www.novag.com
>
>If enough of us contact them regarding updated and working native drivers for
>the UCB we may force them to act on it.
>
>Please call, write or email Novag and let them know as future customers we
>expect them to support their own products.
>
>Please be polite and use real email address in case they reply.
>
>I thank you for helping out
>
>Best
>
>Murat :.


This won't help I know but I wanted to put in a good comment about
Novag Universal Board -- I know DGT is all whizz-bang, and far
better, and detects actual piece type (using the number of coils
inside the piece?)

Anyway, I got the Universal board with David Kittinger's WChess
program from ICD originally and had a great time with it. WChess
had just come off an enormous victory against multiple grandmaster's
and this was many many many years ago -- pretty much the best performance
up to that point of any chess program. I do not recall the event.

Anyway, I plugged the board into my PC's serial port and got a free
driver in C and glommed it onto my C chess program (not my current one)
and watched what went across the interface for various moves, put that
into my program, and voila, my program was interfaced with the Unviersal.

It was easy. I no longer have that C driver but I am sure any serial
interface driver out there for the PC can do the same thing for any
similar need.

I am sure the DGT provides this kind of capability as well - and it
is great fun interfacing one of these kinds of boards to your program.

Enjoy,

Stuart



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