Author: Richard A. Fowell (fowell@netcom.com)
Date: 22:47:17 02/12/00
Go up one level in this thread
On February 12, 2000 at 12:54:18, LANCE SCHUTTENHELM wrote:
>what is it comparable to and is it useable and helpful
I've appended a review I started, but never finished.
I try to give links for things I mention, but you might also check my
"Macintosh Chess Software Index" at:
http://dmoz.org/Games/Board_Games/Chess/Software/Macintosh/
Regarding your question, Lance:
Essentia (http://www.bookup.com/essentia.htm) is principally
a million chess games of data, with a search engine, on a CD-ROM.
The search engine is much simpler and less flexible than the competition,
but cheaper as well. Other ways of getting similar capability would be:
1) the Chessbase 1.1 package
(http://www.chessbaseusa.com/cbmac.htm) which includes 1.2 million games
and the Chessbase chess database program, a much more powerful search engine
than the Essentia one.
2) Any other "purely data" million game collection, such as this one:
http://www.chess-space.com/columns/kk/nevens137.shtml,
together with ExaChess Pro (http://www.exachess.com) as the search engine.
(Note that ExaChess has many, many more capabilities than just "search engine",
and is also a much more powerful (and faster, if you are willing to spend the
hard drive space it needs to create an index) than Essentia.
In any one of these cases, you'll get a million+ unannotated chess games,
which are good for looking for sample games in lines you are interested,
or looking up almost any famous grandmaster game of the last century,
and a nice tool for searching/exporting them. I mainly use it when I
come across a reference to a grandmaster game (for example, in an opening
book) and want to see the full game, or when I'm looking over a game I
played and want to find other games in the same line.
Essentia is a cheaper solution than either alternative, but the search
engine is more bare-bones. It is great if it meets all your needs - it
is a turnkey, self-contained solution for having a huge reference file of
grandmaster games. It also has the advantage of being self-contained on
the CD - you don't need to devote any hard drive space to it. I find that
most of the things I want to do with a megagame database can be done with
Essentia. However, when I'm searching for endgames of a certain pattern,
Myself, I bought Essentia, then moved the database to my hard drive and
bought ExaChessPro to give me more flexible (and faster) searching, analysis
engines, printing with diagrams, and lots more. The ExaChess indexing consumed
a lot more hard drive space, though, to add the speed, and in time I took it
off my hard drive to reclaim the space.
I'm very delinquent on investigating the worth of the ChessBase approach -
I bought Chessbase 1.1 a long time ago, but I always seem to have more
pressing projects than playing with it.
One link for Essentia is:
http://www.bookup.com/essentia.htm
My (incomplete) review of Essentia follows:
Richard A. Fowell (fowell@netcom.com)
==========[ Essentia CD Mac review, (c) Richard Fowell, 1997 ]==========
Program Name: Essentia CD Mac
Type: Chess Database with Viewer
Requires: CD-ROM, 4.3MB RAM
List Price: $72 US ($69 + $3 S&H))
Street Price: N/A
Copy Protection: No
PPC Native: Yes
Publisher: Chess For Less
Essentia CD Mac is a 1,005,000 game database on CD-ROM with a viewing/
searching program. The database is included in both an Essentia
proprietary format and in ChessBase (.cbf) format. The .cbf file can
be read by other chess database programs, such as ChessBase Mac and
ExaChess Pro. There are also several "bonus" chess files on the CD-ROM.
True to the publisher's name, Essentia provides a search engine and a
megadatabase for less than the cost of any other Mac database capable
of handling sizable game collections. It is an interesting option both for
those without a database program, and for owners of ExaChess Pro or
ChessBase.
The viewing program lets you search for and view games, as well
as export them to the standard .PGN format. It isn't a full database
program, however - you can't view files that aren't in the Essentia
database, and you can't add files to that database. Additionally,
while it has the essential database search capabilities, its search
capabilities aren't as extensive as those of full database programs.
The "bonus files" are:
- The freeware chess program MacChess (versions 3.0 (PPC) and 2.5.1 (68K))
- The freeware Internet chess client Fixation 1.3
- Information on the Internet Chess Club
- Rating lists for FIDE, USCF, ICCF, CANADA, GERMANY and more.
- ECO opening codes in two formats (from FICS)
I'm working on a review like the HIARCS one. The interface stuff is attached.
Drawbacks found so far:
- max of 2500 "hits" per search.
- can't "refine" search results within Essentia (find intersections).
- the "specify opening sequence" doesn't find transpositions.
However, it is pretty fast, and including a search engine and a mega-database
for less than the cost of any other Mac database capable of doing anything
simiilar is pretty good.
ExaChess may get some sales from people
who bought Essentia, and now want a more capable database search engine
to mine it with, add their own games, etc.
fowell@netcom.com (Richard A. Fowell)
Where to buy Essentia Mac
http://www.Chess4Less.com/
Notes
The Essentia Dialog Boxes:
=================
Search for Games:
=================
White Player From [__________] To [__________]
Black Player From [__________] To [__________]
ECO Codes From [__________] To [__________]
Year From [__________] To [__________]
Results [x] 1-0 [x] 0-1 [x] Draw
Move Order [ ]
[Clear] [Cancel] [Revert] [OK]
===============
Search Results: ( Scrolling window with 21 rows visible at any time)
===============
ECO White Player Black Player Result Year Site
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A00 Coenen,N Kasparov 1/2-1/2 1992 Budapest Spring op
A04 Chess Genius X Kasparov,Garik 1/2-1/2 1995 Cologne TV
A04 Damljanovic, Branko Kasparov,Garik 0-1 1989 Belgrade
... ... ... ... ... ...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Load Game] [Save Found Games to PGN File ...] Number of hits: 291 [New Search]
=========
Essentia
=========
8 ...___...___...___...___ A38
7 ___...___.r.___...___.P. Cvitan,Ognjen
6 ...___...___.K._p_.P.___ Kasparov,Garik
5 ___...___..._p_...___... 1-0 44 Moves
4 ...___.R.___...___..._p_ 1994
3 ___.P.___...___.k.___... Munich
2 ...___...___...___...___
1 ___...___...___...___... [ scrolling move list ]
a b c d e f g h [ Next Game ] [ Animate ]
[ Previous Game ] [ Search Results ]
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==========[ Essentia CD Mac review, (c) Richard Fowell, 1997 ]==========
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