6 Timeseal is a program that has been developed to improve chess on internet.
7 Netlag often causes players to lose valuable seconds or even minutes on their
8 chess clocks. Transmission time is counted against you, unless the chess
9 server can tell exactly when information is transmitted. What timeseal does
10 is record your thinking time, so that transmission time is not counted against
11 you. Timeseal will not prevent netlag but it makes the games fairer when lag
14 HOW DO I USE TIMESEAL?!
16 What you need to do is get a version of timeseal working on the computer
17 that connects you to the chess server. The timeseal program will work as a
18 relay station, and will keep track of transimission times.
20 The following versions of timeseal are currently available (as of December
27 HP-UX-A.09.05-9000.705
28 HP-UX-B.09.03-9000.42E
31 IRIX64.6.0.1.IP21.mips
39 TW-SunOS-TW2.0.1-twin2
41 Windows-Winsock (file is called tmsl11j.zip)
43 To see if anyone of these may fit the hardware you are using, do "uname -a" in
44 your unix shell and see which unix system you have operating. Then, determine
45 whether you need one of the special Windows or SOCKS versions.
50 Follow these directions:
52 (1) Login to your unix/inet provider. (VAX/VMS not supported yet). Type
53 "uname -a" and remember the output. You will need this output to figure
54 out which version of timeseal will work on your system.
56 (2) Type "ftp 164.58.253.10" which will get you to the onenet ftp site. When
57 you are asked for a login ID type: "ftp" or "anonymous". When you are
58 asked for a password, type your email address.
60 (3) Type "cd pub/chess/timeseal" (in order to get to the correct
61 onenet directory) and type "dir" (in order to see which versions of
62 timeseal are currently available). Compare the available timeseal
63 versions to the type of unix operating system you have.
65 (4) When you have found the timeseal version that will work on your system,
66 type "bin" (for "binary" transmission format) and then type "get
67 filename" (where "filename" is the name of the version from the
70 (5) Wait for the ftp file transmission to complete, then type "quit". The
71 file should now be in your current directory -- probably the home dir.
73 (6) Type "gunzip filename", "chmod 700 filename", and "mv filename timeseal".
74 These various commands make the timeseal program available on your
75 operating system. NOTE: There are times when using "chmod 700 filename"
76 does not work on your system. In this case, try "chmod 755 filename".
78 Here is an example after you have ftp'd the version called
79 timeseal.ULTRIX-4.3-RISC.gz:
81 gunzip timeseal.ULTRIX-4.3-RISC.gz
82 chmod 700 timeseal.ULTRIX-4.3-RISC
83 mv timeseal.ULTRIX-4.3-RISC timeseal
85 Now you are ready ... to go to the next step. ;-)
88 TO RUN TIMESEAL WITH YOUR INTERFACE
90 There are different procedures depending on which interface/system you are
91 using. If you use Xwindows +Xboard / xics, then go to A); if you have winsock,
92 then go to B); otherwise go to C).
94 A) For Xwindows users, there are two methods (listed in order of preference).
95 Whichever approach you use, make sure that xboard and timeseal are in the same
96 directory. Use one or the other -- NOT BOTH!
98 (1) Use this command (it is the more direct, simpler approach):
100 ./xboard -ics -icshost 164.58.253.10 -telnet -telnetProgram timeseal
102 (2) Executing "./timeseal 164.58.253.10 5000 -p xxxx &" causes timeseal
103 to bind itself to port xxxx and wait for a connection to the chess
104 server. Then you can start xboard / xics like this (remember to
105 exchange xxxx with a valid port number, like 5500, 5501, whatever you
108 ./xboard -ics -icshost localhost -icsport xxxx
109 ./xics localhost xxxx
111 You MUST use the string "localhost". Do NOT write the chess server
112 host because then timeseal will not be on. "localhost" is a perfectly
113 valid address since it's aliased to 127.0.0.1 (loopback) which always
114 means the machine you are using.
116 B) There are two steps: INSTALL and USE:
118 INSTALL: Move the file tmseal.exe to the same directory as your client
119 program. Create a program manager icon for TMSEAL, using the normal
120 methods. (Select File|New from the program manager menu; click on New
121 Program Item, then in the dialog set the Directory field to the same
122 directory as above; set the command line to TMSEAL; you may check the Run
123 Minimized checkbox if you wish.)
125 USE: Double-click on the TMSEAL icon before beginning your FICS session.
126 Then, in your client program, connect to "localhost" instead of the usual
127 "chess.onenet.net". Soon the usual logon messages will appear. Errors
128 if any will show up in the TMSEAL window.
130 C) For other users (no xboard, no winsock) such as ziics, jiics, E-ICS, etc:
132 Modify your interface configuration to replace the normal telnet command
133 with: "./timeseal 164.58.253.10 5000".
138 Questions? Ask channel 1 or an admin.
141 See Also: chan_1 ftp_hints interface lag
143 [Written by Hawk, August 15, 1995; last modified: December 17, 1995 -- Friar]