Author: Richard A. Fowell (fowell@netcom.com)
Date: 00:00:21 12/10/99
Well, the port of Chessmaster 6000 from the PC to the Mac seems to be done -
I recieved my copy today from www.zones.com, aka "MacZone". ICD doesn't show
Chessmaster 6000 on their Macintosh software page.
I won't be able to get much time in on it until the weekend, but I have started
playing with it - played three blitz games against
some of the weaker personalities.
Pros: (vs. CM4000 Mac)
? The same engine as CM6000 PC
(don't know this yet - it talks about The King, but doesn't cite version # )
- Includes a nice 2D diagram set as a set choice.
- GUI more Mac-standard than CM4000
- PGN output (sort of)
- PGN input (tried one sample)
- Provides different strength opponents (including very weak)
and rates your play.
- Multimedia stuff (In CM4000, the "natural language advice" was just
a text display. In CM6000, similar text is generated, then read to you
by digitized voice (better than Macintalk) while the moves being described
are made on the board, pieces are highlighted, arrows drawn, etc.)
This digitized voice, piece animation & highlighting are also used in
the Josh Waitzken lessons, which also let you choose between the
elementary and advanced annotations.
Cons
- You have to have the CD-ROM mounted to play
- GUI still has oddball elements
(e.g.: resizable and non-resizable windows look the same).
- PGN output has only one fullmove per line in movetext
- Doesn't seem to include the 1000s of games the PC version does
Why I'll be using HIARCS Mac more than Chessmaster 6000 ...
- CM6K lacks "monitor mode" to analyze as you manually move pieces
- CM6K lacks multi-variable analysis
- CM6K's requirement to insert the CD-ROM is a pain.
- CM6K doesn't annotate EPD files (e.g., problem tests or C.A.P fragments)
Richard A. Fowell (fowell@netcom.com)
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