2 XBoard and WinBoard: Frequently Asked Questions</TITLE></HEAD>
4 <H1>XBoard and WinBoard: Frequently Asked Questions</H1>
6 This document answers some frequently asked questions about the
7 graphical chess interfaces XBoard and WinBoard.
8 A hyperlinked version of this FAQ is available on
9 the Web through the page
11 "http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html"
12 >http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html</A>.
14 <i>This FAQ is in need of revision. Please contact us if you'd like
15 to help update it.</i>
21 <LI><A HREF="#[A0]">[A] Introduction and hot topics</A></LI>
22 <LI><A HREF="#[B0]">[B] XBoard and WinBoard</A></LI>
23 <LI><A HREF="#[C0]">[C] XBoard and WinBoard, bugs and problems</A></LI>
24 <LI><A HREF="#[D0]">[D] Crafty and other topics</A></LI>
28 <H2>Detailed contents</H2>
31 <LI><A NAME="[A0]" HREF="#[A]">[A] Introduction and hot topics</A></LI>
33 <LI><a href="#[A.1]">[A.1] What are XBoard and WinBoard?</a></li>
34 <LI><A HREF="#[A.2]">[A.2] Where can I get chess information and chess
36 <LI><A HREF="#[A.3]">[A.3] What are the current version numbers for
37 XBoard and WinBoard?</A></LI>
38 <LI><A HREF="#[A.4]">[A.4] Who is working on this project?</A></LI>
39 <LI><A HREF="#[A.5]">[A.5] How do I report bugs, offer help, etc.?</A></LI>
40 <LI><a href="#[A.6]">[A.6] What are the future plans for XBoard and
44 <LI><A NAME="[B0]" HREF="#[B]">[B] XBoard and WinBoard</A></LI>
46 <LI><A HREF="#[B.1]">[B.1] What is XBoard?</A></LI>
47 <LI><A HREF="#[B.2]">[B.2] Is there an XBoard for Microsoft Windows? What is
48 WinBoard? How do I install WinBoard?</A></LI>
49 <LI><A HREF="#[B.3]">[B.3] Is there an XBoard for the Amiga? What is
51 <LI><A HREF="#[B.4]">[B.4] Is there an XBoard for the Macintosh?</A></LI>
52 <LI><A HREF="#[B.5]">[B.5] Does XBoard run on VMS?</A></LI>
53 <LI><A HREF="#[B.6]">[B.6] What is cmail?</A></LI>
54 <LI><A HREF="#[B.7]">[B.7] How do I build XBoard? Do I have to have
56 <LI><A HREF="#[B.8]">[B.8] Can I use XBoard or WinBoard to play a game
57 of chess with another human?</A></LI>
58 <LI><A HREF="#[B.9]">[B.9] Will WinBoard run on Windows 3.1?
59 How about Windows CE (also known as Pocket PC)?</A></LI>
60 <LI><A HREF="#[B.10]">[B.10] How do I use XBoard or WinBoard as an external
61 viewer for PGN files with my Web browser?</A></LI>
62 <LI><A HREF="#[B.11]">[B.11] How do I use WinBoard as an external viewer for
63 PGN files with the MS Windows File Manager or Explorer?</A></LI>
64 <LI><A HREF="#[B.12]">[B.12] How do I use ICC timestamp or FICS timeseal
66 <LI><A HREF="#[B.13]">[B.13] How do I use ICC timestamp or FICS timeseal
67 with WinBoard?</A></LI>
68 <LI><A HREF="#[B.14]">[B.14] How do I play bughouse with XBoard or WinBoard?
70 <li><a href="#[B.16]">[B.16]
71 What is Zippy? How can I interface a chess program to the Internet
72 Chess Servers?</a></li>
73 <li><a href="#[B.17]">[B.17]
74 How can I interface my own chess program to XBoard or WinBoard?</a></li>
75 <li><a href="#[B.18]">[B.18]
76 How can I recompile WinBoard from source?</a></li>
77 <li><a href="#[B.19]">[B.19]
78 How can I use XBoard or WinBoard to talk
79 to an Internet Chess Server through a firewall or proxy?</a></li>
80 <li><a href="#[B.20]">[B.20]
81 How can I use XBoard or WinBoard on chess.net with accuclock?</a></li>
82 <li><a href="#[B.21]">[B.21]
83 Can I get Zippy to do one or more ICS commands automatically at the
84 start or end of each game?</a></li>
85 <li><a href="#[B.22]">[B.22]
86 How do I print from WinBoard?</a></li>
87 <li><a href="#[B.23]">[B.23]
88 Can I get Zippy to automatically reconnect to ICS when its connection
90 <li><a href="#[B.24]">[B.24]
91 The chess engines are too strong and always beat me. How can I adjust
92 the difficulty level to make them weaker?</a></li>
93 <li><a href="#[B.25]">[B.25]
94 May I use the piece bitmaps from XBoard/WinBoard in my own program?</a></li>
98 <LI><A NAME="[C0]" HREF="#[C]">[C] XBoard and WinBoard, bugs and
101 <LI><A HREF="#[C.1]">[C.1] I can't build XBoard because the
102 X11/Xaw/... include files are not found.</A></LI>
103 <LI><A HREF="#[C.2]">[C.2] Configuring or building XBoard fails due to
104 missing header files, missing libraries, or undefined symbols.</a></li>
105 <LI><A HREF="#[C.3]">[C.3] I have problems using WinBoard on ICS with a modem.
106 I'm not running SLIP or PPP, but just dialing in to an ordinary login account
107 ("shell account").</A></LI>
108 <LI><A HREF="#[C.4]">[C.4]
109 I have problems using WinBoard on ICS with Windows 95 and SLIP
110 or PPP. When trying to start up, it gets the error "Address family
111 not supported by protocol family" (or some equally strange message).
113 <LI><A HREF="#[C.5]">[C.5] When I try to run WinBoard, I get the message
114 "Failed to start chess program gnuchess on localhost: NO LANGFILE (file
115 gnuchess.lan not found)".</A></LI>
116 <LI><A HREF="#[C.6]">[C.6] I want to use XBoard or WinBoard as an Internet
117 Chess Server interface, but the ICS Client option is grayed out on the
119 <LI><A HREF="#[C.7]">[C.7] How do I give command-line options to
120 a Windows program like WinBoard?</A></LI>
121 <LI><A HREF="#[C.9]">[C.9]
122 When I exit from WinBoard after using it to play against a chess
123 program on my machine, the chess program keeps running in the background.
125 <li><a href="#[C.12]">[C.12]
127 opponents often get extra time after they make their moves?
128 Why do I sometimes lose time off my clock after I make my move?
130 <li><a href="#[C.13]">[C.13]
131 I can't run WinBoard unless I delete the WinBoard.ini file each time!
133 <li><a href="#[C.15]">[C.15]
134 I get errors compiling XBoard's parser.c.
136 <li><a href="#[C.16]">[C.16]
137 I get an error building WinBoard from source because "flex" is not found.
139 <li><a href="#[C.17]">[C.17]
140 XBoard hangs shortly after connecting to an ICS when used with dxterm,
141 cmdtool, dtterm, kterm, konsole, or other substitutes for xterm.
143 <li><a href="#[C.18]">[C.18]
144 The WinBoard pieces show up in the wrong colors, appear distorted,
145 or are not visible at all.
147 <LI><A HREF="#[C.19]">[C.19] XBoard or WinBoard tells me
148 "Error: first chess program (...) exited unexpectedly".</A></LI>
149 <li><a href="#[C.20]">[C.20]
150 XBoard tells me "Warning: Cannot allocate colormap entry", or
151 "too few colors available; trying monochrome mode", or
152 "XPM pieces cannot be used in monochrome mode".
154 <li><a href="#[C.21]">[C.21]
155 When I log in to freechess.org, the Enter key doesn't work, and I
156 have to use Ctrl+J instead. But when I use WinBoard, Ctrl+J doesn't
157 work either, so I'm stuck.
159 <li><a href="#[C.22]">[C.22]
160 XBoard says, "Failed to start first chess program gnuchessx
161 on localhost: gnuchessx: No such file or directory."
165 <LI><A NAME="[D0]" HREF="#[D]">[D] Crafty and other topics</A></LI>
167 <LI><A HREF="#[D.1]">[D.1] What is XChess?</A></LI>
168 <LI><A HREF="#[D.2]">[D.2] What is Winsock Chess?</A></LI>
169 <LI><A HREF="#[D.3]">[D.3] What is Crafty?</A></LI>
170 <LI><A HREF="#[D.4]">[D.4] How do I use Crafty with XBoard?</A></LI>
171 <LI><A HREF="#[D.5]">[D.5] How do I use Crafty with WinBoard?</A></LI>
172 <LI><A HREF="#[D.6]">[D.6] How do I use GNU Chess 5 with XBoard?</A></LI>
177 <H2><A NAME="[A]">[A] Introduction and hot topics</A></H2>
179 <H3><A NAME="[A.1]">[A.1] What are XBoard and WinBoard?</A></H3>
181 XBoard and WinBoard are graphical user interfaces for chess.
182 XBoard runs with the X Window System on Unix systems (including
183 GNU/Linux); see topic
184 <A HREF="#[B.1]">[B.1]</A>.
185 WinBoard runs on true 32-bit Microsoft Windows operating
186 systems, such as Windows 95, 98, NT,
187 2000, ME, XP, and should continue to work
188 on future 32-bit Windows systems. It does
189 not work on Windows CE (also known as Pocket PC), nor does it work on
190 16-bit Windows systems such as Windows 3.1. See topic
191 <A HREF="#[B.2]">[B.2]</A>.
194 <H3><A NAME="[A.2]">[A.2] Where can I get chess information and chess
197 As a shortcut to most things mentioned in this FAQ, try Tim Mann's
198 Chess Web page, <A HREF= "http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html"
199 >http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html</A>. This page page is a good
200 place to get the latest released versions of XBoard and WinBoard and
201 the most up-to-date version of this FAQ. Also see our Savannah
202 project pages at <a href="https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/"
203 >https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/</a>.
205 <p>If you have other questions about XBoard/WinBoard that aren't answered
206 in this FAQ, you can try Aaron Tay's WinBoard and Chess Engines FAQ, at
207 <a href="http://www.aarontay.per.sg/Winboard/"
208 >http://www.aarontay.per.sg/Winboard/</a>.
210 <P>For general news and information about chess, try the newsgroup hierarchy
211 rec.games.chess.*, especially the groups rec.games.chess.misc and
212 rec.games.chess.computer. Both of the latter groups have very informative
213 FAQs maintained by Steve Pribut; look for them on the newsgroups or at
215 "http://www.clark.net/pub/pribut/chess.html"
216 >http://www.clark.net/pub/pribut/chess.html</A>.
218 <P>Like other GNU software, you can get XBoard, and
219 WinBoard by anonymous FTP from
221 "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/"
222 >ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/</A>
223 and its many mirror sites. Look in the subdirectories xboard, and winboard.
224 The .tar.gz suffix on the files there indicates they were packed with tar
225 and compressed with gzip. The .exe or .zip suffixes indicate files that
226 were packed and compressed with zip.
228 <P>For other chess software, try the Internet Chess Library. Use anonymous FTP
229 to connect to ftp.freechess.org, or go to the Web page
231 "http://www.freechess.org/"
232 >http://www.freechess.org/</A>.
233 You can get chess software, game
234 collections, the FAQ file for rec.games.chess, and other chess-related
235 material there, in the directory pub/chess. The FTP server can
236 automatically decompress files for you as you download them, useful if you
239 <P>Here is a sample anonymous ftp session. Some of the ftp server's responses
240 are abbreviated, but all the commands you must type are included.
244 Connected to ftp.gnu.org
246 Password: your-email-address@your-site
249 ftp> cd /pub/gnu/xboard
251 -rw-r--r-- 1 14910 wheel 1057625 May 20 00:25 xboard-4.2.7.tar.gz
252 ftp> get xboard-4.2.7.tar.gz
253 150 BINARY connection for xboard-4.2.7.tar.gz (1057625 bytes).
254 226 Transfer complete.
259 <H3><A NAME="[A.3]">[A.3] What are the current version numbers for
260 XBoard and WinBoard?</A></H3>
262 At this writing, the current version numbers are:
265 <LI>XBoard 4.2.7</LI>
266 <LI>WinBoard 4.2.7</LI>
270 <H3><A NAME="[A.4]">[A.4] Who is working on this project?</A></H3>
272 Please see our Savannah project pages at <a
273 href="https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/"
274 >https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/</a> for a list of active
275 developers. Many others occasionally contribute suggestions and
276 snippets of code, for which we are grateful.
279 <H3><A NAME="[A.5]">[A.5] How do I report bugs, offer help, etc.?</A></H3>
281 <P>Bug reports, suggestions, and offers to help on XBoard
282 or WinBoard should be sent to
283 bug-xboard<a name="nospam">@</a>gnu.org.
285 <p>Beginner questions and discussion about the program may get faster
286 answers on the WinBoard Forum at <a
287 href="http://f11.parsimony.net/forum16635/"
288 >http://f11.parsimony.net/forum16635/</a>.
290 <p>If you are developing a
291 chess engine that works with XBoard or WinBoard (or an alternative
292 GUI that works with such engines), see the Chess Engines mailing
294 <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chess-engines"
295 >http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chess-engines</a>.
297 <P>Any time you want to report a possible bug in XBoard or WinBoard,
298 we need to know exactly what you did, and exactly what error (or
299 other) messages you got.
301 <P>If you are using Unix, run the "script" program, run XBoard with
302 the -debug flag (if you get as far as running it), do whatever is
303 necessary to reproduce the problem, type "exit" to the shell, and mail
304 us the resulting typescript file. We also need to know what
305 hardware/operating system combination you are using. The command
306 "uname -a" will usually tell you this; include its output in your
309 <P>If you are using MS Windows, run WinBoard with the -debug flag, and
310 send us a copy of the WinBoard.debug file. If you aren't sure how to
311 add command-line flags to WinBoard, you can hit Ctrl+Alt+F12 to create
312 a WinBoard.debug file after WinBoard starts, but that is not as good,
313 because a few messages that would have been printed at the start are
316 <p>Either way, please send us the exact text of the commands you typed
317 and the output you got, not just your recollection of approximately
318 what they were. The messages may seem meaningless to you, but they
319 are very meaningful to us and essential for diagnosing problems.
322 <h3><a name="[A.6]">[A.6] What are the future plans for XBoard and
325 <p>Our plans are always in flux. As with most free software projects,
326 the next release will happen when it happens -- or it may never
327 happen. This has always been the policy for XBoard/WinBoard.
328 Releases have never been promised in specific time frames.
330 <p>Starting in November 2003, several new developers have joined the
331 project, and work is now hosted at <a
332 href="https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/"
333 >https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/</a>. Lots of work is just
334 getting underway, but nothing is far along yet.
336 <p>Here is a partial list of items that have a nonzero probability of
337 happening in finite time.
340 <li>Small bug fixes. Occasionally someone sends us a fix, or reports
341 a small bug very clearly so that we're able to fix it in a few minutes
344 <li>Protocol version 3. The members of the chess engine authors'
345 mailing list discussed a set of proposed features for the next version
346 of the XBoard/WinBoard chess engine communication protocol.
347 Unfortunately, this project has gotten only as far as that discussion
348 took it; no revisions of the protocol spec or coding have been done
349 yet. A few simple features are very clearly needed, though, and will
350 probably appear in time.<p>
352 <li>Contributed features. Several people have mailed me code to add
353 various features. Most of this code is available on the
354 XBoard/WinBoard extensions page at <a
355 href="http://www.tim-mann.org/extensions.html"
356 >http://www.tim-mann.org/extensions.html</a>, but it is not in any
357 official releases yet. We are in the process of getting folks to
358 formally assign the copyrights on their contributions to the Free
359 Software Foundation so that we can include it in official releases in
362 <li>Internationalization. Several people have expressed interest in
363 internationalizing XBoard/WinBoard, and so hopefully this project will
364 go forward. Once the internationalization support is in, we will need
365 more translators. Watch for news on the xboard-devel mailing list on
371 <H2><A NAME="[B]">[B] XBoard and WinBoard</A></H2>
373 <H3><A NAME="[B.1]">[B.1] What is XBoard?</A></H3>
375 XBoard is a graphical user interface for chess. It displays a
376 chessboard on the screen, accepts moves made with the mouse, and loads
377 and saves games in Portable Game Notation (PGN). XBoard is free software.
378 It serves as a front-end for many different chess services, including:
380 <p><strong>Chess engines</strong> that will run on your machine and
381 play a game against you or help you analyze, such as GNU Chess and
382 Crafty (topic <A HREF="#[D.3]">[D.3]</A> below).
384 <p><strong>Chess servers</strong> on the Internet, where you can
385 connect to play chess with people from all over the world, watch other
386 users play, or just hang out and chat.
388 <p><strong>Correspondence chess</strong> played by electronic
389 mail. The cmail program (topic <A HREF="#[B.6]">[B.6]</A> below)
390 automates the tasks of parsing email from your opponent, playing his
391 moves out on your board, and mailing your reply move after you've
394 <p><strong>The Web</strong> and your own saved games. You can use
395 XBoard as a helper application to view PGN games in your
396 Web browser, or to load and save your own PGN files.
398 <P>XBoard runs under Unix or Unix-compatible systems. It requires the
399 X Window System, version X11R4 or later. There are also ports of
400 XBoard to 32-bit Microsoft Windows and to
401 the Amiga. See topics <A HREF="#[B.2]">[B.2]</A> and <A
402 HREF="#[B.3]">[B.3]</A> respectively.
405 <H3><A NAME="[B.2]">[B.2] Is there an XBoard for Microsoft Windows? What is WinBoard? How do I install WinBoard?</A></H3>
407 WinBoard is a port of XBoard to 32-bit Microsoft Windows systems, such
408 as Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, ME, and XP. It uses the same back end
409 chess code as XBoard, but the front end graphics code is a complete
410 rewrite. WinBoard is free software.
412 <P>The WinBoard distribution includes a port of GNU Chess to Win32.
413 The GNU Chess port is distributed in executable form, with instructions for
414 rebuilding it from the standard GNU Chess sources (available separately). You
415 should have at least 16 to 24 MB of memory to run GNU Chess with WinBoard.
417 <P>The WinBoard distribution also includes the ICC timestamp and FICS
418 timeseal programs (topic <A HREF="#[B.12]">[B.12]</A>).
420 <P>cmail (topic <A HREF="#[B.6]">[B.6]</A>) has not been ported to
421 Windows. All the other XBoard functions are included in WinBoard.
422 The International Email Chess Group web site at <a
423 href="http://www.iecg.org/" >http://www.iecg.org/</a> recommends
424 ECTool (<a href="http://www.ectool.nu/" >http://www.ectool.nu/</a>)
425 for playing correspondence chess under Windows.
427 <p>You install WinBoard as follows. Download the WinBoard package to
428 your PC (see topic <A HREF="#[A.2]">[A.2]</A>). It will be a file
429 with a name like winboard-4_0_0.exe. Double-click on this file
430 in the Explorer or File Manager to run it. Follow the on-screen
434 <H3><A NAME="[B.3]">[B.3] Is there an XBoard for the Amiga? What is AmyBoard?</A></H3>
436 AmyBoard is a port of XBoard to the Amiga, by Jochen Wiedmann.
437 The distribution includes a port of GNU Chess.
438 AmyBoard is free software.
440 <p>The current version of AmyBoard is 330.5 (based on XBoard 3.3.0).
441 No one is currently maintaining it.
443 <P>System requirements:
446 <LI>An Amiga (obviously :-), running OS 2.04 or later, 2Mb RAM or more.</LI>
447 <LI>MUI 2.0 or later.</LI>
448 <LI>Workbench or another screen with no less than 640x400 pixels (adjustable
449 with the MUI-Prefs); this restriction is just because we don't have
450 bitmaps with less than 40x40 pixels per square. If someone contributes
451 bitmaps with 20x20 or 20x25, they will work with any Hires mode.</LI>
454 If you would like to use an ICS, you need an Internet connection via either
457 <LI>a telnet-like program, or</LI>
458 <LI>a terminal program reading from stdin and writing to stdout.</LI>
461 AmyBoard is available in the Internet Chess Library (topic <A HREF="#[A.2]">[A.2]</A>).
464 <H3><A NAME="[B.4]">[B.4] Is there an XBoard for the Macintosh?</A></H3>
466 Because MacOS X has a Unix base, XBoard will compile and run on it.
467 You do need an X11 (X Window System) server and client libraries.
468 These do not come with Mac OS, but both free and commercial versions
469 are available. Once you install the X11 package, XBoard is reported
470 to compile and run without changes. I am not a Mac user and have not
471 tried this myself, so I cannot answer questions about it.
473 Version 4.2.6 and earlier of XBoard come with an old copy of the
474 config.sub utility that does not recognize Mac OS X, so to build
475 XBoard, you'll have to tell the configure program what OS you are
476 running. Follow the instructions in topic <A HREF="#[B.7]">[B.7]</A>
477 of this FAQ, but add the argument <tt>--host=powerpc-apple-bsd</tt> to
478 the end of the "configure" command line.
480 There is no version of XBoard or WinBoard that runs with the native
481 (non-X11) Mac graphical interface, and none that runs on MacOS 9 or
486 <H3><A NAME="[B.5]">[B.5] Does XBoard run on VMS?</A></H3>
488 No. This port would probably be a lot easier than the Win32 and Amiga
489 ports were, because VMS has the X Window system (under the name
490 DECwindows) and is now POSIX compliant. However, I don't know enough
491 about VMS to do the port myself, and I don't have time. If you do,
492 give it a try! Send mail to me,
493 tim<a name="nospam2">@</a>tim-mann.org (Tim Mann), if you're
497 <H3><A NAME="[B.6]">[B.6] What is cmail?</A></H3>
499 cmail is a program that helps you play and keep track of electronic mail
500 correspondence chess games using XBoard. It is distributed with XBoard and
501 has its own manual page. cmail is free software. It was written by
502 Even Welsh. cmail has not been ported to Windows; sorry.
505 <H3><A NAME="[B.7]">[B.7] How do I build XBoard? Do I need gcc?</A></H3>
507 The first step to building XBoard is to get the distribution file. See topic
508 <A HREF="#[A.2]">[A.2]</A> for places you can ftp the software from.
510 <P>Next, decide what directory tree you are going to install XBoard
511 in. The default is /usr/local, but you probably don't have write
512 access to that directory unless you are a system administrator. If
513 you do, type the following to install it there:
516 gzip -cd xboard-*.tar.gz | tar -xvf -
524 If you want to install xboard in your personal home directory ($HOME/bin),
528 gzip -cd xboard-*.tar.gz | tar -xvf -
530 ./configure --prefix=$HOME
535 <P>If the first step above fails because you don't have gzip, see
536 topic <A HREF="#[A.2]">[A.2]</A>, and ask a local Unix expert if you
537 need more help. If you have any problems with the last two steps,
538 read the READ_ME and INSTALL files in the xboard-*/ directory. You
539 will also find this FAQ there.
541 <P>You don't need to have gcc to build XBoard. Almost any Unix C
545 <H3><A NAME="[B.8]">[B.8] Can I use XBoard or WinBoard to play a game
546 of chess with another human?</A></H3>
548 The only way for two humans on different machines to play chess in
549 real time using XBoard/WinBoard is to use an Internet Chess Server
550 as an intermediary. That is, each player runs his own copy of XBoard
551 or WinBoard, both of them log into an ICS, and they play a game there.
552 Two copies of XBoard/WinBoard cannot communicate with each other
555 <P>Instructions on how to get started with Internet chess are included
556 with the XBoard and WinBoard distributions. The network addresses
557 included in the distribution may not always be current. The oldest
558 and largest ICS is the Internet Chess Club at chessclub.com, which now
559 has a fee for registered use, but still allows free unregistered use.
560 There are also many newer sites with no fees, using the Free Internet
561 Chess Server implementation (FICS). The most active FICS site is
562 freechess.org. On these and most other chess servers,
563 the port number to use is 5000.
565 <P>If you don't have network connectivity to any ICS site, you
566 can run your own server using a version of the FICS code, but this
567 is not easy. See <a href="http://www.tim-mann.org/ics.html#ownics"
568 >http://www.tim-mann.org/ics.html#ownics</a> for advice and pointers.
570 <P>The cmail program included with XBoard lets you play email postal games with
571 another human; see topic <A HREF="#[B.6]">[B.6]</A>.
573 <P>Two humans can play chess on the same machine using one copy of
575 Edit Game mode, but the clocks don't run in this mode, so it's of limited
578 <P>See also topic <A HREF="#[D.2]">[D.2]</A>, Winsock Chess.
581 <H3><A NAME="[B.9]">[B.9] Will WinBoard run on Windows 3.1?
582 How about Windows CE (also known as Pocket PC)?
585 WinBoard does not run on Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, etc.,
586 not even with the Win32s compatibility package. The main problem is
587 that Win32s does not have threads or real concurrent processes. A
588 port of WinBoard to Windows 3.1 is possible in theory, but it would be
589 difficult and messy, and no one is going to do it.
591 <p>WinBoard does not run on Windows CE (also
592 known as Pocket PC). I don't know what would be required to port it.
594 <P>WinBoard does run well on full 32-bit versions of Windows, such as
595 Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, ME, and XP, and should continue to work
596 on future 32-bit Windows systems.
599 <H3><A NAME="[B.10]">[B.10] How do I use XBoard or WinBoard as an external viewer for PGN files
600 with my Web browser?</A></H3>
604 - Add the following line to the file .mime.types in your home directory.
605 (Create the file if it doesn't exist already.)
607 application/x-chess-pgn pgn
610 - Add the following line to the file .mailcap in your home directory.
611 (Create the file if it doesn't exist already.)
613 application/x-chess-pgn; xboard -ncp -lgf %s
616 - Exit from your Web browser and restart it.
618 <P>2) On MS Windows systems:
620 <P>The exact procedure depends on which Web browser you are using.
621 The current version of WinBoard automatically configures itself as
622 your PGN viewer for local files, Netscape 4.x and later, and Internet
623 Explorer. This automatic setup probably works for all other current Web
627 <H3><A NAME="[B.11]">[B.11] How do I use WinBoard as an external viewer
628 for PGN files with the MS Windows File Manager or Explorer?</A></H3>
630 WinBoard sets this up automatically when you install it, except on old
631 versions of Windows NT (prior to 4.0). On Windows NT 3.51 or earlier,
632 go to the File Manager, click on the File menu, select Associate,
633 enter "pgn" as the extension, and use the Browse button to find your
634 copy of WinBoard and set up the association.
637 <H3><A NAME="[B.12]">[B.12] How do I use ICC timestamp or FICS timeseal
638 with XBoard?</A></H3>
640 First, get the appropriate version of timestamp or timeseal for your
641 machine from ftp.chessclub.com or ftp.freechess.org.
642 Second, be sure that you can connect using XBoard <I>without</I>
643 timestamp/timeseal. Third, be sure that you can connect using
644 timestamp/timeseal without XBoard. See the help files on ICC and FICS
645 or ask people online if you have problems.
647 <P>If you are in a completely ordinary situation, where your machine
648 is directly on the Internet and you can connect to ICC or FICS
649 without timestamp/timeseal using
650 just the command "xboard -ics" or "xboard -ics -icshost freechess.org",
651 change that command to one of the following:
654 xboard -ics -icshost 204.178.125.65 -icshelper timestamp
656 xboard -ics -icshost 164.58.253.13 -icshelper timeseal
659 <p>If you have a firewall between your machine and the ICS, see topic
660 <A HREF="#[B.19]">[B.19]</A>.
662 <P>If you normally have to use the "/icscomm" command line option on
663 xboard to log into a second machine, and then telnet to ICC or FICS
664 from there, you are going to have to run the Unix version of timestamp
665 or timeseal on the second machine. (If the second machine is not
666 running Unix, you are out of luck.) Get the appropriate version of
667 timestamp or timeseal onto the shell machine via FTP; see the help
668 files on ICC and FICS for instructions. Then simply run it when you
669 would normally run telnet. In this configuration you are not
670 protected against lag between your PC and the shell machine, or for
671 lag caused by heavy load on the shell machine itself from other users.
673 <P>For further information on timestamp and timeseal, see the help
674 files on ICC and FICS.
677 <H3><A NAME="[B.13]">[B.13] How do I use ICC timestamp or FICS timeseal
678 with WinBoard?</A></H3>
680 <P>If you select an ICS from either the WinBoard Startup dialog or the
681 Windows Start submenu that WinBoard installs, WinBoard automatically
682 runs timestamp or timeseal if the ICS you chose is known to support it.
684 <P>If you are constructing a WinBoard command line by hand, add the
685 option "/icshelper timestamp" or "/icshelper timeseal" to the WinBoard
686 command line to use timestamp or timeseal. Both timestamp.exe and
687 timeseal.exe are included in the WinBoard distribution. They both
688 function identically to the Unix versions, as documented in "help
689 timestamp" on ICC and "help timeseal" on FICS.
691 <p>If you have a firewall between your machine and the ICS, see topic
692 <A HREF="#[B.19]">[B.19]</A>.
694 <P>If you normally have to use the "/icscomm" command line option on
695 WinBoard to log into a shell account, and then telnet to ICC or FICS
696 from there, you are going to have to run the Unix version of timestamp
697 or timeseal on the shell machine. (If the shell account is not on a
698 Unix machine, you are out of luck.) Get the appropriate version of
699 timestamp or timeseal onto the shell machine via FTP; see the help
700 files on ICC and FICS for instructions. Then simply run it when you
701 would normally run telnet. In this configuration you are not protected
702 against lag between your PC and the shell machine, or for lag caused by
703 heavy load on the shell machine itself from other users.
705 <P>For further information on timestamp and timeseal, see the help
706 files on ICC and FICS.
709 <H3><A NAME="[B.14]">[B.14] How do I play bughouse with XBoard or WinBoard?
712 XBoard and WinBoard have simple but effective bughouse support.
713 Offboard piece holdings are shown in the board window's banner, and
714 you drop offboard pieces using the right mouse button. Press it over
715 the destination square to pop up a menu of pieces.
717 <P>XBoard and WinBoard can display only one board at a time, but you
718 can observe your partner's game by running a second copy of the
719 program and logging in as a guest. (Unfortunately, this is not
720 possible if you are using the /icscomm option.) To observe your
721 partner's games automatically, use the "follow" or "pfollow" ICS
722 command; see the ICS online help for details.
725 <h3><a name="[B.16]">[B.16] What is Zippy? How can I interface a
726 chess program to the Internet Chess Servers?</a></h3>
728 Zippy is an interface that lets a compatible chess engine (such as GNU
729 Chess or Crafty) act as a computer
730 player on an Internet Chess Server. Zippy is included in both the
731 XBoard and WinBoard distributions. It is implemented as a small
732 amount of additional code within XBoard or WinBoard.
733 For documentation, see the file
734 zippy.README, included in both distributions or available
735 from my chess Web page,
737 "http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html"
738 >http://www.tim-mann/chess.html</A>.
739 The version of zippy.README on my Web page is often more up-to-date
740 than those in the XBoard/WinBoard distributions.
741 You'll also find a "biography" of Zippy and pointers to the original
742 Zippy the Pinhead comic strips on my Web page.
743 Please read zippy.README carefully before you ask me any questions about Zippy.
745 <p>Using a computer to choose your moves on a chess server is
746 considered cheating unless your account is on the computer (C) list.
747 Read "help computer" on your favorite server for details on their
748 policy. Most of the servers have plenty of computers running now, so they
749 will not be excited about having you run a new one unless you have
750 written your own chess engine. They don't really need yet another
751 Crafty or GNU Chess clone.
754 <h3><a name="[B.17]">[B.17] How can I interface my own chess program
755 to XBoard or WinBoard?</a></h3>
757 This is a non-trivial task. XBoard and WinBoard were not designed
758 with a clean interface for talking to chess programs; they were
759 written to work with an existing version of GNU Chess that expects to
760 be talking to a person. Your program has to emulate GNU Chess's
761 rather idiosyncratic command structure to work with XBoard and
762 WinBoard. We are gradually cleaning up, improving, and documenting
763 the interface as newer versions of XBoard and WinBoard come out,
766 <p>For documentation, see the file engine-intf.html, included in both
767 distributions or available from my chess Web page, <A HREF=
768 "http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html"
769 >http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html</A>.
770 The version of engine-intf.html on my Web page is often more up-to-date
771 than those in the XBoard/WinBoard distributions.
774 <h3><a name="[B.18]">[B.18] How can I recompile WinBoard from source?</a></h3>
776 The source code for WinBoard is available from the author's Web page,
778 "http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html"
779 >http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html</A>.
781 <p>WinBoard is currently developed using Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0.
782 You can build the program from the MSVC++ GUI by opening the project
783 file (winboard.dsp) and telling MSVC++ to build the project. You can
784 also build it from the the command line by using the nmake program
785 supplied with MSVC++.
787 <p>To build WinBoard with the free Cygwin tools, available from <a
788 href= "http://www.cygwin.com/" >http://www.cygwin.com/</a>), use the
789 command "make -f cygwin.mak". WinBoard 4.2.5 was successfully
790 compiled with the net release of Cygwin as downloaded on 20-March-2001
791 (cygwin1.dll 1.1.8, gcc 2.95.2-6, binutils 20001221-1, flex 2.5.4-1),
792 but exhibits a command-line parsing bug; see item 511 in the ToDo file
793 that comes with WinBoard. WinBoard 4.1.0 does not compile with
794 Cygwin. WinBoard 4.0.7 is known to compile with Cygwin BL20.1.
796 <p>To build WinBoard with Borland C++ 4.5, use "borland.mak", supplied
797 with the WinBoard sources, as the Makefile. Support for Borland C++
798 was contributed by Don Fong and has not been tested by the author of WinBoard.
800 <p>WinBoard is a Win32 application, so you definitely need a compiler
801 and tool set that supports Win32. In particular, older versions of
802 DJGPP can build only 32-bit MSDOS programs; that is, programs that use
803 a DOS extender to get a 32-bit address space and do not make any
804 Windows calls. The latest versions of DJGPP are said to be able to
805 build Win32 programs when used with the proper extension package(s),
806 but this is not known to work with WinBoard. Use Cygwin instead.
808 <p>See also topic <A HREF="#[C.16]">[C.16]</A>.
811 <H3><A NAME="[B.19]">[B.19]
812 How can I use XBoard or WinBoard to talk
813 to an Internet Chess Server through a firewall or proxy?
816 <p>There is no single answer to this question, because there are many
817 different kinds of firewalls in use. They work in various different
818 ways and have various different security policies. This answer can
821 <p>Note that you can't access Internet Chess Servers through a Web proxy,
822 because they are not a Web service. You talk to them through a raw
823 TCP connection, not an HTTP connection. If you can only access the
824 Web through a proxy, there may be a firewall that stops you from
825 making direct TCP connections, but there may also be a way through it.
826 Read on for hints, and contact your local system administrator if you
827 need more information about your local configuration.
829 <p>A helpful user mailed me the following explanation of how to use
830 WinBoard with WinGate:
832 "I have managed to setup WinBoard though my WinGate proxy. I have the
833 Office version. What I needed to do was to setup the TCP/IP
834 connection to add the User/Host name and my provider service name for
835 the DNS, but I had to leave the HOST IP address blank. I have not
836 played with all the variations, so it may be just that I have the DNS
839 I hope this helps, though I don't find it very clear. I don't have
840 a copy of WinGate myself and can't help if you have questions about it.
842 <p>If you are using some other non-SOCKS firewall, read the FIREWALLS section
843 in your XBoard or WinBoard documentation (man page, info document, or
844 Help file). If you can telnet to a chess server in some way, then you
845 can almost certainly connect to it with xboard/WinBoard, though in
846 some cases you may not be able to run timestamp or timeseal. The
847 timestamp and timeseal protocols require a clean, 8-bit wide TCP
848 connection from your machine to the ICS, which some firewalls do not
851 <p>If you have a SOCKS firewall and are using <strong>XBoard</strong>,
852 you should be able to SOCKSify xboard and use it. See <a
853 href="http://www.socks.nec.com/">http://www.socks.nec.com/</a> for
854 information about SOCKS and socksification. However, if you do this,
855 you can't use timestamp or timeseal; what you really need is a
856 socksified version of timestamp or timeseal. This is hard because the
857 source code for timestamp and timeseal is proprietary; the folks
858 running the chess servers don't give it out because that would make it
859 too easy to cheat. On some versions of Unix, you may be able to
860 socksify a program that you don't have the source code to by running
861 it with an appropriate dynamic library; see <a
862 href="http://www.socks.nec.com/">http://www.socks.nec.com/</a>. For
863 others, you might be able to get a pre-built socksified version from
864 the chess server administrators. For timeseal versions, see <a
865 href="ftp://ftp.freechess.org/pub/chess/timeseal/"
866 >ftp://ftp.freechess.org/pub/chess/timeseal/</a>. For timestamp
867 versions, the directory would be <a
868 href="ftp://ftp.chessclub.com/pub/icc/timestamp/"
869 >ftp://ftp.chessclub.com/pub/icc/timestamp/</a>, but at this writing
870 there don't seem to be any socksified timestamps there. Once you have
871 a socksified timestamp or timeseal, simply run it with a normal,
872 non-socksified xboard in place of the standard timestamp or timeseal.
874 <p>If you have a SOCKS firewall and you are using
875 <strong>WinBoard</strong>, we now know how to make this configuration
876 work, complete with timestamp or timeseal!
878 <p>Start by getting SocksCap32. This software is freely available
879 from <a href="http://www.socks.nec.com/">http://www.socks.nec.com/</a>.
880 Install it on your machine, read the documentation, and learn to use
881 it. You may find it useful with many other programs besides WinBoard.
883 <p>Next, <strong>don't</strong> socksify WinBoard. Socksifying
884 WinBoard itself doesn't let you use it with timestamp or timeseal.
885 For some reason I don't understand -- something strange that
886 SocksCap32 does -- the socksified WinBoard runs but does nothing, and
887 timestamp/timeseal runs all by itself in its own window.
889 <p>Instead, use the following workaround. Follow the instructions
890 exactly; don't try to skip steps or simplify things.
892 <p>First, make SocksCap32 application profiles for timestamp and
893 timeseal. Use the following command lines in the SocksCap32
894 profiles. Name the first profile "timestamp" and the second
898 "c:\program files\winboard\timestamp.exe" chessclub.com 5000 -p 5000
899 "c:\program files\winboard\timeseal.exe" freechess.org 5000 -p 5000
902 <p>Second, run timestamp or timeseal by itself, socksified, using its
903 profile. This will open an unneeded, black window that will not
904 respond to typing. Minimize it to the task bar and ignore it. It will
905 go away when you exit from WinBoard.
907 <p>Next, run WinBoard using the following command line. Make a shortcut
908 or type this command into an MS-DOS Prompt box. Don't run WinBoard
909 itself socksified, just run it directly.
912 "c:\program files\winboard.exe" /ics /icshost=localhost /icsport=5000
915 <p>After you get this working, you can try getting the timestamp window to
916 auto-minimize by starting it from a shortcut instead of from the
917 SocksCap32 control window. As it says in the SocksCap32 help file, put
918 the following in the Target field of a shortcut's Properties page:
921 "c:\program files\sockscap32\sc32.exe" timestamp
924 Then select "Run: Minimized" on the same page. Do the same for timeseal.
926 <p>Another method that can work is to use a .bat file to start both
927 timestamp and WinBoard. It would look something like this:
932 REM -- Start timestamp under SocksCap32 and use WinBoard to connect to it.
933 REM -- The string "timestamp" refers to a SocksCap32 profile for timestamp.
934 REM -- Do not change it to the filename of the timestamp program!
936 start /minimized "c:\program files\sockscap32\sc32.exe" timestamp
937 cd "c:\program files\winboard"
938 winboard /ics /icshost=localhost /icsport=5000
941 <p>This workaround has a problem if you want to run two copies of
942 WinBoard at once, talking to the same chess server twice (for
943 bughouse) or to two different chess servers. If you need to do that,
944 you will need to run a separate copy of timestamp with <i>a different
945 port number</i> for each connection. You'll need to make a second set of
946 profile entries with a different value after the -p flag (say, 5001)
947 and you'll need to change the WinBoard command line /icsport=5000 for
948 the second WinBoard to match.
951 <H3><A NAME="[B.20]">[B.20]
952 How can I use XBoard or WinBoard on chess.net with accuclock?
955 <p>I believe chess.net provides a Win32 command-line version of
956 accuclock that will work with WinBoard. Please see the documentation
957 on the chess.net server itself; don't ask the author of WinBoard.
959 <p>I don't know whether chess.net provides versions of accuclock for
960 Unix at this time. Ask them.
963 <h3><a name="[B.21]">[B.21]
964 Can I get Zippy to do one or more ICS commands automatically at the
965 start or end of each game?</a></h3>
967 <p>By default, Zippy automatically sends the command "gameend" to ICS
968 at the end of each game. You can alias this command (using the ICS
969 "alias" feature) to anything you want. On ICC, you can use the
970 "multi" feature to alias gameend to several commands, but other
971 servers don't have that feature. Zippy doesn't send anything at the
972 start of the game by default.
974 <p>You can get Zippy to send one or more commands of your choosing, at
975 the start and/or end of each game, by using the -zippyGameStart and
976 -zippyGameEnd command line options, newly added in version 4.0.3.
977 Both xboard and WinBoard have (somewhat obscure) ways of getting
978 newlines into this option to send several commands. Here is an
979 example of one way to do it for each.
982 xboard -ics -zp -xrm '*zippyGameStart: say hi\nsay prepare to die\n'
984 WinBoard /ics /zp /zippyGameEnd='say thanks\nseek 5 0\nseek 2 12\n'
988 <h3><a name="[B.22]">[B.22]
989 How do I print from WinBoard?
992 WinBoard does not have built-in printing functionality.
993 If you want to print a picture of the board, press Alt+PrintScrn, run the
994 standard Windows application Paintbrush, select Paste, and print from there.
995 If you want to print a list of moves, save your game as a PGN file,
996 then open the PGN file with Notepad or any other plain text editor and
1000 <h3><a name="[B.23]">[B.23]
1001 Can I get Zippy to automatically reconnect to ICS when its connection
1004 <p>There isn't a perfect solution to this problem yet, but a pretty
1005 good one is to write a shell script (for xboard) or .bat script (for
1006 WinBoard) that automatically restarts the program whenever it exits.
1007 Use the -xexit flag so that you don't get a popup dialog that must be
1008 dismissed with the OK button before the program will exit. The gap in
1009 this solution is that your connection to ICS can sometimes get into a
1010 state where the program does not notice that the connection is broken
1011 until the next time it tries to send a command. Perhaps some future
1012 version of xboard/WinBoard will have an option to send a harmless
1013 command every five minutes or so.
1015 <p>Anyway, here is a sample Windows .bat file that restarts WinBoard each
1016 time it exits. Thanks to Jason Williamson. It assumes that you have put
1017 your computer account's name and password in a file named logon.ini.
1022 REM -- Start WinBoard in Zippy mode, and restart it each time it exits.
1023 REM -- Add or change parameters as needed for your application.
1026 start /w winboard /zp /ics /icslogon logon.ini /xexit /xautoraise
1027 REM -- The next line is to have a short delay setup for 139 seconds.
1028 REM -- Leave it out if it doesn't work on the version of Windows you use.
1029 TYPE NUL | CHOICE.COM /N /CY /TY,99 >NUL
1033 <p>Here is a Unix shell script to do the same thing for xboard.
1034 It's a bit more elaborate. It is based on the script I use for the
1035 original Zippy. It logs all ICS output to a file named zippy.out,
1036 and it lets you type commands to Zippy by running "cat > zippy.fifo".
1040 host="204.178.125.65 -icsport 5000 -telnet -telnetProgram timestamp"
1041 #host="164.58.253.13 -icsport 5000 -telnet -telnetProgram timeseal"
1044 ZIPPYPASSWORD='something'
1045 export ZIPPYPASSWORD
1046 ZIPPYPASSWORD2='orother'
1047 export ZIPPYPASSWORD2
1048 ZIPPYLINES=`pwd`/all.lines
1050 ZIPPYGAMEEND='say Yow, that was FUN!
1053 zippylogon=`pwd`/logon.ini
1054 DISPLAY=`hostname`:0.0
1056 mv -f $out ${out}.old
1060 ( while [ true ] ; do cat -u $fifo ; done ) | \
1061 ( while [ true ] ; do
1062 xboard -iconic -ics -icshost $host \
1063 -zt -zp -xbell -xanimate \
1064 -xautosave -xquiet -fcp "gnuchessx -h" \
1065 -icslogon $zippylogon -xexit -autoflag -xautoraise $*
1067 done ) > $out 2>&1 &
1071 <h3><a name="[B.24]">[B.24]
1072 The chess engines are too strong and always beat me. How can I adjust
1073 the difficulty level to make them weaker?</a></h3>
1075 <p>The simplest way to get that effect is to make sure the
1076 XBoard/WinBoard Auto Flag option is off, set a very fast time control
1077 so that the chess engine can't think for long, but take as much time
1078 over your own moves as you want. Also feel free to use Retract Move if
1081 <p>Many chess coaches will let you switch sides after
1082 they get a stronger position so that you can get experience playing
1083 positions where you are winning. You can try this with XBoard/WinBoard
1084 by using the Machine White or Machine Black menu command to make the
1085 machine take over your position.
1087 <p>The -depth command-line option to XBoard/WinBoard can also be used to
1088 weaken the engine (see the man page or Help file). It's a bit of a
1089 nuisance to set command line options in Windows, but see topic <A
1090 HREF="#[C.7]">[C.7]</A> for instructions.
1092 <p>Other ways of weakening engines are engine-specific. Many of them
1093 let you adjust various parameters, and if you choose bad settings, the
1094 engine will play more poorly. Consult whatever documentation came with
1095 the engine you are using.
1098 <h3><a name="[B.25]">[B.25]
1099 May I use the piece bitmaps from XBoard/WinBoard in my own program?</a></h3>
1101 <p>The piece bitmaps used in XBoard and WinBoard were designed by
1102 Elmar Bartel. He released them under the <a
1103 href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU General Public
1104 License</a>. This means that if your program is also free software
1105 distributed under the GPL, you can use them freely. If your program
1106 is distributed under some other license, including commercial,
1107 shareware, or non-GPL freeware, then you cannot use the bitmaps unless
1108 you obtain special permission from Elmar. See the file README.bitmaps
1109 that comes with the XBoard and WinBoard source code for more
1110 information and an email address you can write to.
1112 <HR><H2><A NAME="[C]">[C] XBoard and WinBoard, bugs and problems</A></H2>
1114 <HR><H3><A NAME="[C.1]">[C.1] I can't build XBoard
1115 because the X11/Xaw/... include files are not found.</A></H3>
1117 These are the header files for the Athena Widgets library, which XBoard uses
1118 heavily. Some versions of Unix don't supply these files, but they are part of
1119 the standard X distribution, freely available from MIT.
1121 <P>For general information on getting missing X sources, see the FAQ on
1122 comp.windows.x. Note that you may be missing only the header files, or you
1123 may be missing the libraries themselves too.
1125 <P>HP-UX users are missing only the header files. You can get them by
1126 anonymous FTP as follows. (But first check with your system
1127 administrator to see if someone else at your site has already done
1128 this.) Get the archive file /hpux9/X11R5/Core/Xaw-5.00.tar.gz (Xaw
1129 header files) via anonymous FTP from the site hpux.csc.liv.ac.uk
1130 (138.253.42.172), or one of the other official sites---Germany:
1131 hpux.ask.uni-karlsruhe.de (129.13.200.57), US: hpux.cae.wisc.edu
1132 (144.92.4.15), France: hpux.cict.fr (192.70.79.53) or Netherlands:
1133 hpux.ced.tudelft.nl (130.161.140.100). Unpack the archive using gzip
1134 and follow the instructions in its README and/or HPUX.Install files.
1135 Thanks to Richard Lloyd for this information.
1137 <P>If you have the Xaw header files installed in a different place
1138 than the other X11 headers, you may need to configure XBoard with an
1139 extra flag to help it find them. For example, if yours are in
1140 /foo/bar/X11/Xaw, try this:
1144 (setenv CFLAGS -I/foo/bar ; configure)
1147 Also see topic <A HREF="#[C.2]">[C.2]</A>.
1150 <H3><A NAME="[C.2]">[C.2] Configuring or building XBoard fails due to
1151 missing header files, missing libraries, or undefined symbols.
1154 Perhaps you have the X server and client programs installed on your
1155 machine, but not the X header files and link-time libraries. If so,
1156 you can run existing X programs, but you cannot compile a new X
1157 program from source code. In this case the XBoard configure script
1158 will fail and will tell you to look at this question in the FAQ. Many
1159 GNU/Linux distributions put the headers and libraries in a separate
1160 package, which you might not have installed. If you are using RedHat,
1161 install the XFree86-devel package. If you are using some other
1162 kind of Unix, ask your system administrator where to find the X header
1163 files and link-time libraries. If this is not your problem, read on.
1165 <p>The configure script for XBoard looks for X libraries and header
1166 files in some common places. Sometimes it fails: If yours are
1167 installed in an odd place, it may not find them at all. If you have
1168 more than one version of X installed on your system, it may find the
1169 "wrong" one, or occasionally it may find libraries from one version
1170 and incompatible header files from another. You can work around these
1171 problems by telling the configure script where the files are. For
1175 configure --x-includes=/odd/place/include \
1176 --x-libraries=/odd/place/lib
1179 <P>The directory named in the argument to --x-includes must have a
1180 subdirectory "X11" that contains the actual .h files. That is, if
1181 your X.h file has full pathname /odd/place/X11R6/include/X11/X.h, then
1182 you must give the argument --x-includes=/odd/place/X11R6/include.
1184 <P>Some linkers have bugs that cause bogus error messages when you try
1185 to link X programs. The configure script includes a workaround for a
1186 bug of this kind that exists in some SunOS 4.x.x installations. See
1187 the FAQ on comp.windows.x for more information about problems of this
1190 <P>If all else fails, check whether anyone else at your site has been able to
1191 compile any X programs on your system. Your X installation might be buggy.
1192 If so, the system administrator at your site might know how to fix or work
1195 <P>Also see topic <A HREF="#[C.1]">[C.1]</A>.
1197 <HR><H3><A NAME="[C.3]">[C.3] I have problems using WinBoard on ICS
1198 with a modem. I'm not running SLIP or PPP, but just dialing in to an
1199 ordinary login account ("shell account").</A></H3>
1201 Here are solutions to some common problems in this area.
1203 <P>Some people want to connect to ICS through HyperTerminal or some other
1204 terminal program first, then run WinBoard. This is not how it works.
1205 WinBoard wants to talk directly with your modem, acting as a terminal program
1206 itself. Start out with the modem "on hook" (not making a call).
1208 <P>Run WinBoard with a command line like this (adding more options if desired):
1211 WinBoard /ics /icscom com1
1214 Use com2, com3, or com4 in place of com1 if your modem is connected to one of
1217 <P>After you start WinBoard, you may need to change some of the options in the
1218 Communications dialog (on the Options menu). The dialog has the usual options
1219 for talking to modems: bits per second, bits per byte, parity, number of stop
1220 bits. You will probably want to use Save Settings Now when you're done.
1222 <P>Next, type dialing commands to your modem in the text window that WinBoard
1223 creates. You may need to turn off Local Line Editing on the Options menu
1224 while you are typing commands to your modem. Turn it back on when you're
1225 done. See the WinBoard Help file for instructions if you see your typing
1226 echoed an extra time after you hit Enter.
1229 <H3><A NAME="[C.4]">[C.4]
1230 I have problems using WinBoard on ICS with Windows 95 and SLIP
1231 or PPP. When trying to start up, it gets the error "Address family
1232 not supported by protocol family" (or some equally strange message).
1235 WinBoard is a 32-bit application, but some Winsock (TCP/IP) implementations
1236 support only 16-bit applications. You get a strange looking error message
1237 if you try to use a 32-bit application because
1238 there is no standard Winsock error code number
1239 for "32-bit application not supported."
1241 <P>Microsoft TCP/IP works with both 16-bit and
1242 32-bit applications, supports SLIP, PPP, Ethernet, etc., and is included
1243 with Windows 95 and later Windows systems.
1244 If possible, I recommend that you uninstall
1245 whatever Winsock you are using and install Microsoft TCP/IP instead.
1246 For more information, see
1248 "http://walden.mo.net/~rymabry/95winfaq.html"
1249 >http://walden.mo.net/~rymabry/95winfaq.html (the Win95-L FAQ)</A>.
1251 <P>Trumpet Winsock 2.1 (and earlier) supports only 16-bit
1252 applications, and hence does not work with WinBoard. But there is a
1253 beta-test release available that does support 32-bit applications.
1254 I have not tried it with WinBoard, but it
1255 should work. See Trumpet's Web page
1257 "http://www.trumpet.com.au/wsk/winsock.htm"
1258 >http://www.trumpet.com.au/wsk/winsock.htm</A>
1259 for more information.
1261 <P>The 16-bit versions of America On-Line's software do not support
1262 32-bit Winsock applications. Get the 32-bit version. At one time the
1263 32-bit version was called "AOL for Windows 95," but I imagine that has
1264 changed. Hopefully the current versions are all 32-bit.
1266 <P>A few versions of Winsock may have bugs that prevent
1267 Windows timestamp/timeseal from working with them. I'm not sure if
1268 such bugs exist in any versions that actually have 32-bit support,
1269 so this point might be moot. Again, Microsoft TCP/IP is known to work.
1271 <HR><H3><A NAME="[C.5]">[C.5] When I try to run WinBoard, I get the
1272 message "Failed to start chess program gnuchess on localhost: NO
1273 LANGFILE (file gnuchess.lan not found)".</A></H3>
1275 <p>This message means that WinBoard is trying to run GNU Chess, but
1276 GNU Chess cannot find a file that it needs, named gnuchess.lan.
1277 If you see it, you've probably customized WinBoard's /fcp, /fd, /scp,
1278 and/or /sd options and made a mistake in the process. Review what
1279 you did, and see the WinBoard help file.
1282 <H3><A NAME="[C.6]">[C.6] I want to use XBoard or WinBoard as an Internet
1283 Chess Server interface, but the ICS Client option is grayed out on the
1286 XBoard and WinBoard have three major modes that can't be changed from the
1287 menus: local chess engine mode,
1288 ICS mode, and standalone mode.
1290 <p>With XBoard, you have to set the mode using command-line options.
1291 Local chess engine mode is the default, -ics selects ICS mode, and
1292 -ncp ("no chess program") selects standalone mode.
1294 <p>With WinBoard, if you don't set the mode using command-line
1295 options, you get a dialog box asking which mode you want. To bypass
1296 the dialog box, use -cp ("chess program") for local chess engine mode,
1297 or -ics or -ncp as with XBoard. Also see topic <A HREF="#[C.7]">[C.7]</A>.
1300 <H3><A NAME="[C.7]">[C.7] How do I give command-line options to
1301 a Windows program like WinBoard?</A></H3>
1303 <P>There are many ways; pick your favorite:
1306 <LI>Type the command line into an MS-DOS Prompt box. Example:
1309 <LI>Make a Windows shortcut for WinBoard. You can do this by
1310 right-dragging WinBoard.exe to the desktop and selecting "Create
1311 Shortcut(s) Here" from the menu that appears. Right-click on the
1312 shortcut, select Properties, and click the Shortcut tab. The
1313 command-line text box is labelled "Target" instead of "Command line"
1314 just to confuse you. Edit the text in this box, adding the command
1315 line options to the end.</LI>
1317 <LI>Choose Run from the Start menu, or File / Run from the Program
1318 Manager or File Manager, and type the command line into the dialog you
1319 get. You may have to give WinBoard's full drivespec and filename if
1320 it is not in a directory on your search path.</LI>
1322 <LI>Make a Program Manager icon for WinBoard. You can do this by
1323 dragging WinBoard.exe from the File Manager into the Program Manager,
1324 or by using File / New in the Program Manager. Select the icon and
1325 choose File / Properties. Edit the Command Line text box to add the
1326 command-line options to the end.</LI>
1330 <H3><A NAME="[C.9]">[C.9]
1331 When I exit from WinBoard after using it to play against a chess
1332 program on my machine, the chess program keeps running in the background.
1335 <p>Be sure you have the current versions of WinBoard and the chess
1336 engine you are using. WinBoard 3.4.1 and earlier had a bug that
1337 caused this problem to occur with all chess engines. A buggy chess
1338 engine that does not respond to the "quit" command will also cause
1341 <p>If you still see this problem, you can stop the rogue chess engine
1342 by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del, selecting the chess engine process from the
1343 menu, and pressing the End Task button.
1346 <h3><a name="[C.12]">[C.12]
1348 opponents often get extra time after they make their moves?
1349 Why do I sometimes lose time off my clock after I make my move?
1352 If you are playing with the ICS incremental clock, both you and your
1353 opponent get a set amount of extra time after each move.
1355 <p>If your or your opponent has netlag, your opponent might appear to
1356 get extra time, especially if your opponent is using timestamp or
1357 timeseal. The ICS charges each player who is using timestamp or
1358 timeseal only for the time between when the player received his
1359 opponent's move and the time he sent his own move. Thus delays in
1360 network transmission do not count against either player. But WinBoard
1361 counts down the display of your opponent's clock on your screen under
1362 the assumption that there is no netlag. When his move comes in, if
1363 there was netlag, the ICS may not have really charged him for that
1364 much time, and WinBoard corrects the clock to what the ICS says it
1367 <p>If you are not using timestamp or timeseal, you may appear to lose
1368 time off your clock at some point after you make your move. In this
1369 case, the ICS charges you for the time between when it sent you your
1370 opponent's move and the time it received your move. Thus delays in
1371 network transmission count against you. WinBoard stops counting down
1372 the display of your clock on your screen (and starts your opponent's)
1373 when you make your move. When the ICS echoes your move back to you, it
1374 may have charged you for more time than that, and WinBoard corrects
1375 the clocks to what the ICS says they should read.
1377 <p>See "help lag" and "help timestamp" or "help timeseal" on your ICS for
1378 more detailed information.
1381 <h3><a name="[C.13]">[C.13]
1382 I can't run WinBoard unless I delete the WinBoard.ini file each time!
1385 <p>Most people don't have this problem, but two or three people using
1386 Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 3 or 4 have reported it. I have no
1387 idea what causes this problem. Contrary to what was reported in a
1388 previous version of this FAQ, reinstalling the service pack after
1389 installing WinBoard does not seem to solve the problem.
1392 <h3><a name="[C.15]">[C.15]
1393 I get errors compiling XBoard's parser.c.
1396 <p>The file parser.c is automatically generated from parser.l. The
1397 copy included with XBoard 4.0.2 was generated by lex on Tru64 Unix and
1398 has problems compiling and linking on current GNU/Linux versions. The
1399 copy included with XBoard 4.0.3 was generated by flex on a GNU/Linux
1400 machine, but it too won't necessarily work on other versions of Unix.
1401 If you have this problem, you can fix it by deleting parser.c and
1402 letting the Makefile re-create it from parser.l. This will work if
1403 you have either lex or flex on your system. Flex is available in all
1404 GNU/Linux distributions and can be obtained at no charge from the Free
1405 Software Foundation, www.fsf.org.
1408 <h3><a name="[C.16]">[C.16]
1409 I get an error building WinBoard from source because "flex" is not found.
1412 <p>The file parser.c is automatically generated from parser.l. The
1413 Makefile included with the WinBoard source kit has a rule for
1414 generating parser.c using the program "flex", which will fail if you
1415 don't have flex. However, the source kit also includes a ready-made
1416 copy of parser.c, so you don't really need flex unless you have made
1417 changes to parser.l. Check that you still have a copy of parser.c; if
1418 you don't, unpack the WinBoard source zip file again to get one.
1419 Either set the last-modified time of parser.c to be later than that of
1420 parser.l, delete parser.l, or comment out the Makefile rule for
1421 building parser.c from parser.l, and then try building WinBoard again.
1423 <p>If you do want to change parser.l and rebuild parser.c, you can get
1424 flex as part of the free Cygwin kit from
1425 <a href="http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/"
1426 >http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/</a>. You can
1427 probably also get flex for Windows by itself from various other places
1428 around the Internet. It is free software distributed by the Free
1429 Software Foundation, www.fsf.org.
1432 <h3><a name="[C.17]">[C.17]
1433 XBoard hangs shortly after connecting to an ICS when used with dxterm,
1434 cmdtool, dtterm, kterm, konsole, or other substitutes for xterm.
1437 <p>After connecting to a chess server, XBoard 4.0.2 and later sends an
1438 escape sequence to its terminal that is meant to display your handle
1439 and the ICS host name (for example, "user@chessclub.com") in the
1440 terminal's banner and icon. It seems that several of the alternative
1441 X terminal programs have a bug that makes them hang when sent this
1445 around the problem by using xterm, nxterm, rxvt, aterm, xiterm, or
1446 gnome-terminal, all of which seem to work fine. In fact, current
1447 versions of kterm and konsole seem to work fine too, so if you are
1448 having problems with one of them, be sure you are not running an
1451 <p>Alternatively, you can disable this feature by commenting out the
1452 body of DisplayIcsInteractionTitle in xboard.c and recompling xboard.
1455 <h3><a name="[C.18]">[C.18]
1456 The WinBoard pieces show up in the wrong colors, appear distorted,
1457 or are not visible at all.
1460 <p>This can happen if you have a bug in your Windows display driver.
1461 Check with the manufacturer of your display card, the manufacturer of
1462 your computer, or Microsoft to see if there is an updated driver
1463 available. You can usually download updated drivers from the Web.
1465 <p>If you can't find an updated driver, you can try running Windows
1466 using a different number of colors and/or disabling some of the
1467 hardware acceleration features on your display card. To change the
1468 number of colors, go to Windows Start / Settings / Control Panel /
1469 Display / Settings / Color Palette. To disable hardware acceleration
1470 features, go to Windows Start / Settings / Control Panel / Display /
1471 Settings / Advanced Properties / Performance / Hardware Acceleration.
1473 <p>It's also possible that Windows has the right driver for your
1474 hardware already but you are not using it. It may help to reinstall
1475 your driver. Go to Windows Start / Settings / Control Panel / System
1476 and delete your display card (maybe even your monitor too), then
1477 reboot. Windows should automatically re-detect your card and monitor
1478 and re-install the drivers; if it doesn't, run Start / Settings /
1479 Control Panel / Add New Hardware to force it to.
1481 <p>If all else fails, try Monochrome mode. On WinBoard's menus, go
1482 to Options / Color and check Monochrome. WinBoard will display in black
1486 <H3><A NAME="[C.19]">[C.19] XBoard or WinBoard tells me "Error: first chess
1487 program (...) exited unexpectedly".</A></H3>
1489 <p>This message means that your chess engine crashed, probably due to
1490 a bug in the engine, or because you have it configured incorrectly.
1491 You can try running XBoard or WinBoard again with the "-debug" flag on
1492 the command line. This will print out all the messages received from
1493 the chess engine. (With WinBoard, the messages go into a file called
1494 WinBoard.debug; with XBoard, they go to the xterm that you started
1497 <P>If you are using GNU Chess and you see this problem as soon as it
1498 starts up, most likely GNU Chess is exiting with an error message. If
1499 you see the message "NO LANGFILE", it means that you did not install
1500 GNU Chess correctly, and it is unable to find the file gnuchess.lang.
1501 Make sure that you defined LIBDIR in the gnuchess Makefile, and that
1502 gnuchess.lang is in that directory. If gnuchess.lang is not there,
1503 you probably didn't type "make install" in the gnuchess src directory;
1504 you must do this to install gnuchess.lang (and the gnuchess book). If
1505 you defined LIBDIR to something that is not an absolute pathname (that
1506 is, to something that does not start with a "/"), GNU Chess will work
1507 only if you run it from the GNU Chess "src" directory where you built
1510 <hr><h3><a name="[C.20]">[C.20]
1511 XBoard tells me "Warning: Cannot allocate colormap entry", or
1512 "too few colors available; trying monochrome mode", or
1513 "XPM pieces cannot be used in monochrome mode".
1516 <p>You are running your X server with 8-bit color depth, and you are running
1517 some program that has used up all 256 of your colors. Netscape tends
1518 to do this, or maybe you have a background image that uses up all of
1521 <p>If you have a modern machine, you probably have enough display
1522 memory to run your X server with 16-, 24-, or 32-bit color depth. If
1523 you're using "startx" to start the X server, try giving the command as
1524 "<tt>startx -- -bpp 24</tt>" (or 16, or 32). On newer X servers you
1525 may have to use -depth instead of -bpp. Further details on
1526 configuring your X server are beyond the scope of this FAQ.
1528 <p>If you must run in 8-bit mode, try the following:
1529 Avoid background images that use up all your colors. If you
1530 run Netscape, try starting it up with the <tt>-install</tt> command-line
1531 option; this gives Netscape its own private colormap that X will
1532 switch to when Netscape has the keyboard focus.
1534 <P>If all else fails, another possibility is to run xboard in
1535 monochrome (black and white) mode by giving it the <tt>-mono</tt>
1536 command-line option. XBoard will try this by itself in some cases.
1537 Monochrome mode works only with bitmap pieces, not pixmap pieces, so
1538 trying to use it may give you the error "XPM pieces cannot be used in
1539 monochrome mode". To get around this, either use the -bitmapDirectory
1540 command line option to point XBoard to the directory containing the
1541 bitmap pieces included with the XBoard source code, or rebuild XBoard
1542 with pixmap support disabled, using "./configure --disable-xpm ; make
1545 <hr><h3><a name="[C.21]">[C.21]
1546 When I log in to freechess.org, the Enter key doesn't work, and I
1547 have to use Ctrl+J instead. But when I use WinBoard, Ctrl+J doesn't
1548 work either, so I'm stuck.
1551 <p>This is a pretty rare problem. It should only arise if you have to
1552 reach freechess.org by telnetting (or connecting with WinBoard
1553 /icsport=23) from a Windows PC to a Unix box, and then telnetting from
1554 there to freechess.org. The Enter key should always work when
1555 connecting directly from your PC to freechess.org.
1557 <p>The best way to get around the problem is to run timeseal on the
1558 intermediate Unix box instead of telnet. Get the appropriate version
1559 of timeseal for your box from ftp.freechess.org and follow the
1560 directions in the help files on FICS.
1562 <p>If you can't run timeseal for some reason, there are some things
1563 you can do to make telnet stay in line mode instead of going to
1564 character mode. Then the Enter key will work. First, try "telnet
1565 freechess.org 5000" instead of "telnet freechess.org."
1566 If that still doesn't work, then when the Enter key stops working,
1567 type the following. Here <tt><</tt> and <tt>></tt> surround the
1571 <Ctrl+S><Ctrl+]>mode line<Enter>
1574 <hr><h3><a name="[C.22]">[C.22]
1575 XBoard says, "Failed to start first chess program gnuchessx
1576 on localhost: gnuchessx: No such file or directory."
1579 <p>XBoard is looking for GNU Chess 4.0. If you didn't want to use
1580 XBoard with GNU Chess, please see topic <A HREF="#[C.6]">[C.6]</A>.
1581 If you did want to use GNU Chess 4.0, be sure you have it installed and
1582 that it is on your $PATH. If you wanted to use GNU Chess 5 instead,
1583 see topic <A HREF="#[D.6]">[D.6]</A>.
1586 <H2><A NAME="[D]">[D] Crafty and other topics</A></H2>
1588 <H3><A NAME="[D.1]">[D.1] What is XChess?</A></H3>
1590 XChess is an older chessboard program that is no longer supported. XChess was
1591 written for X version 10, and you may or may not be able to build and run it
1594 <P>XChess has only one significant feature that is not present in XBoard: Two
1595 humans can play chess using XChess on different machines, without using the
1596 Internet Chess Server as an intermediary. This feature is of interest only if
1597 you don't have network connectivity to the Internet Chess Server.
1599 <P>Note: There actually have been several different programs called "XChess" in
1600 circulation at various times. The above describes one that was associated
1604 <H3><A NAME="[D.2]">[D.2] What is Winsock Chess?</A></H3>
1606 Winsock Chess is a program that lets two people play chess across a
1607 network. It runs only under Microsoft Windows. Some of the code in
1608 Winsock Chess is derived from GNU Chess, but it is not maintained by
1609 the GNU Chess team. You can get a copy from the Internet Chess
1610 Library; see topic <A HREF="#[A.2]">[A.2]</A>. For more information,
1611 contact its author, Donald Munro, ccahdm@beluga.upe.ac.za.
1614 <H3><A NAME="[D.3]">[D.3] What is Crafty?</A></H3>
1616 Crafty is a freely-available chess program written by Bob Hyatt.
1617 Bob is the main author of the well-known chess program Cray
1618 Blitz. Crafty is a very strong program, its code is available, commented
1619 and fairly readable, and its author is actively working on improvements.
1621 <p>You can download Crafty from <a
1622 href="ftp://ftp.cis.uab.edu/pub/hyatt/"
1623 >ftp://ftp.cis.uab.edu/pub/hyatt/</a>. Start by getting the <a
1624 href="ftp://ftp.cis.uab.edu/pub/hyatt/read.me" >read.me</a> file and
1625 reading it. Among other things, this file contains instructions on
1626 how to install Crafty as a command-line application on your machine.
1628 <p>There is a Crafty mailing list.
1629 To subscribe, send email to majordomo@cis.uab.edu, with
1630 "subscribe crafty-list" in the body.
1633 <H3><A NAME="[D.4]">[D.4] How do I use Crafty with XBoard?</A></H3>
1635 <p>First, you need to get Crafty and install it as a command-line
1636 application on your machine. See topic <A HREF="#[D.3]">[D.3]</A>.
1638 <p>To use Crafty with XBoard, give the -fcp
1639 parameter like this:
1642 xboard -fcp "./crafty" -fd <I>crafty_directory</I>
1645 Here <I>crafty_directory</I> is the directory where you installed Crafty.
1646 You can add more xboard options at the end of the command line.
1648 <p>Crafty 15.14 or later is required to work properly with XBoard
1649 4.0.0 or later. We generally recommend using the latest versions of
1650 both XBoard and Crafty.
1653 <H3><A NAME="[D.5]">[D.5] How do I use Crafty with WinBoard?</A></H3>
1655 <p>First, you need to get Crafty and install it as a command-line
1656 application on your machine. See topic <A HREF="#[D.3]">[D.3]</A>.
1657 It is best to use the latest version of Crafty with the latest version
1658 of WinBoard to make sure all features are compatible and function
1659 correctly. You can install Crafty in any directory you like.
1661 <p>You also need to get WinBoard and install it in the normal way
1662 using its built-in installer. You can do that either before or after
1665 <p>After both Crafty and WinBoard are installed separately, follow the
1666 directions in the WinBoard Help file (included with WinBoard) for
1667 connecting new chess engines to WinBoard.
1669 <p>If you want to have Crafty act as an automated computer player on a
1670 chess server, see topic <A HREF="#[B.16]">[B.16]</A>. Before you try
1671 to get that working, be sure you can play against Crafty locally,
1672 first without WinBoard, then with it. Also be sure you can use
1673 WinBoard to play on the chess server yourself, without having Crafty
1674 connected to it. You have to crawl before you can walk!
1677 <H3><A NAME="[D.6]">[D.6] How do I use GNU Chess 5 with XBoard?</A></H3>
1679 <p>By default, XBoard still tries to use GNU Chess 4 by running the
1680 command "gnuchessx". That's why if you don't have GNU Chess 4, you
1681 get the error message "Failed to start first chess program gnuchessx
1682 on localhost: gnuchessx: No such file or directory."
1684 <p>If you have GNU Chess 5, the command should be "gnuchess xboard"
1685 instead. To make XBoard use this command, give the -fcp parameter
1689 xboard -fd <I>gnuchess_directory</I> -fcp "./gnuchess xboard"
1692 Here <I>gnuchess_directory</I> is the directory where you installed
1693 GNU Chess 5 and its book. You can add more xboard options at the
1694 end of the command line.
1698 ** End of XBoard/WinBoard FAQ **