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24 <h1>XBoard and WinBoard: Frequently Asked Questions</h1>
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26 <p>This document answers some frequently asked questions about the
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27 graphical chess interfaces XBoard and WinBoard.
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28 A hyperlinked version of this FAQ is available on
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29 the Web through the page
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30 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/FAQ.html">
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31 http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/FAQ.html</a>.</p>
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33 <p><i>This FAQ is in need of revision. Please contact us if you'd like
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34 to help update it.</i></p>
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40 <li><a href="#tag-A0">[A] Introduction and hot topics</a></li>
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41 <li><a href="#tag-B0">[B] XBoard and WinBoard</a></li>
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42 <li><a href="#tag-C0">[C] XBoard and WinBoard, bugs and problems</a></li>
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43 <li><a href="#tag-D0">[D] Crafty and other topics</a></li>
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47 <h2>Detailed contents</h2>
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50 <li><a name="tag-A0" href="#tag[A">[A] Introduction and hot topics</a>
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52 <li><a href="#tag-A.1">[A.1] What are XBoard and WinBoard?</a></li>
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53 <li><a href="#tag-A.2">[A.2] Where can I get chess information and chess software?</a></li>
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54 <li><a href="#tag-A.3">[A.3] What are the current version numbers for XBoard and WinBoard?</a></li>
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55 <li><a href="#tag-A.4">[A.4] Who is working on this project?</a></li>
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56 <li><a href="#tag-A.5">[A.5] How do I report bugs, offer help, etc.?</a></li>
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57 <li><a href="#tag-A.6">[A.6] What are the future plans for XBoard and WinBoard?</a></li>
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60 <li><a name="tag-B0" href="#tag[B">[B] XBoard and WinBoard</a>
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62 <li><a href="#tag-B.1">[B.1] What is XBoard?</a></li>
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63 <li><a href="#tag-B.2">[B.2] Is there an XBoard for Microsoft Windows? What is WinBoard? How do I install WinBoard?</a></li>
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64 <li><a href="#tag-B.3">[B.3] Is there an XBoard for the Amiga? What is AmyBoard?</a></li>
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65 <li><a href="#tag-B.4">[B.4] Is there an XBoard for the Macintosh?</a></li>
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66 <li><a href="#tag-B.5">[B.5] Does XBoard run on VMS?</a></li>
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67 <li><a href="#tag-B.6">[B.6] What is cmail?</a></li>
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68 <li><a href="#tag-B.7">[B.7] How do I build XBoard? Do I have to have gcc?</a></li>
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69 <li><a href="#tag-B.8">[B.8] Can I use XBoard or WinBoard to play a game of chess with another human?</a></li>
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70 <li><a href="#tag-B.9">[B.9] Will WinBoard run on Windows 3.1? How about Windows CE (also known as Pocket PC)?</a></li>
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71 <li><a href="#tag-B.10">[B.10] How do I use XBoard or WinBoard as an external viewer for PGN files with my Web browser?</a></li>
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72 <li><a href="#tag-B.11">[B.11] How do I use WinBoard as an external viewer for PGN files with the MS Windows File Manager or Explorer?</a></li>
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73 <li><a href="#tag-B.12">[B.12] How do I use ICC timestamp or FICS timeseal with XBoard?</a></li>
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74 <li><a href="#tag-B.13">[B.13] How do I use ICC timestamp or FICS timeseal with WinBoard?</a></li>
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75 <li><a href="#tag-B.14">[B.14] How do I play bughouse with XBoard or WinBoard?</a></li>
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76 <li><a href="#tag-B.16">[B.16] What is Zippy? How can I interface a chess program to the Internet Chess Servers?</a></li>
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77 <li><a href="#tag-B.17">[B.17] How can I interface my own chess program to XBoard or WinBoard?</a></li>
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78 <li><a href="#tag-B.18">[B.18] How can I recompile WinBoard from source?</a></li>
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79 <li><a href="#tag-B.19">[B.19] How can I use XBoard or WinBoard to talk to an Internet Chess Server through a firewall or proxy?</a></li>
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80 <li><a href="#tag-B.20">[B.20] How can I use XBoard or WinBoard on chess.net with accuclock?</a></li>
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81 <li><a href="#tag-B.21">[B.21] Can I get Zippy to do one or more ICS commands automatically at the start or end of each game?</a></li>
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82 <li><a href="#tag-B.22">[B.22] How do I print from WinBoard?</a></li>
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83 <li><a href="#tag-B.23">[B.23] Can I get Zippy to automatically reconnect to ICS when its connection breaks?</a></li>
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84 <li><a href="#tag-B.24">[B.24] The chess engines are too strong and always beat me. How can I adjust the difficulty level to make them weaker?</a></li>
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85 <li><a href="#tag-B.25">[B.25] May I use the piece bitmaps from XBoard/WinBoard in my own program?</a></li>
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88 <li><a name="tag-C0" href="#tag-C">[C] XBoard and WinBoard, bugs and problems</a>
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90 <li><a href="#tag-C.1">[C.1] I can't build XBoard because the X11/Xaw/... include files are not found.</a></li>
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91 <li><a href="#tag-C.2">[C.2] Configuring or building XBoard fails due to missing header files, missing libraries, or undefined symbols.</a></li>
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92 <li><a href="#tag-C.3">[C.3] I have problems using WinBoard on ICS with a modem. I'm not running SLIP or PPP, but just dialing in to an ordinary login account("shell account").</a></li>
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93 <li><a href="#tag-C.4">[C.4] I have problems using WinBoard on ICS with Windows 95 and SLIP or PPP. When trying to start up, it gets the error "Address family not supported by protocol family" (or some equally strange message).</a></li>
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94 <li><a href="#tag-C.5">[C.5] When I try to run WinBoard, I get the message "Failed to start chess program gnuchess on localhost: NO LANGFILE (file gnuchess.lan not found)".</a></li>
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95 <li><a href="#tag-C.6">[C.6] I want to use XBoard or WinBoard as an Internet Chess Server interface, but the ICS Client option is grayed out on the menu.</a></li>
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96 <li><a href="#tag-C.7">[C.7] How do I give command-line options to a Windows program like WinBoard?</a></li>
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97 <li><a href="#tag-C.9">[C.9] When I exit from WinBoard after using it to play against a chess program on my machine, the chess program keeps running in the background.</a></li>
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98 <li><a href="#tag-C.12">[C.12] Why do my ICS opponents often get extra time after they make their moves? Why do I sometimes lose time off my clock after I make my move?</a></li>
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99 <li><a href="#tag-C.13">[C.13] I can't run WinBoard unless I delete the WinBoard.ini file each time!</a></li>
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100 <li><a href="#tag-C.15">[C.15] I get errors compiling XBoard's parser.c.</a></li>
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101 <li><a href="#tag-C.16">[C.16] I get an error building WinBoard from source because "flex" is not found.</a></li>
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102 <li><a href="#tag-C.17">[C.17] XBoard hangs shortly after connecting to an ICS when used with dxterm, cmdtool, dtterm, kterm, konsole, or other substitutes for xterm.</a></li>
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103 <li><a href="#tag-C.18">[C.18] The WinBoard pieces show up in the wrong colors, appear distorted, or are not visible at all.</a></li>
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104 <li><a href="#tag-C.19">[C.19] XBoard or WinBoard tells me "Error: first chess program (...) exited unexpectedly".</a></li>
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105 <li><a href="#tag-C.20">[C.20] XBoard tells me "Warning: Cannot allocate colormap entry", or "too few colors available; trying monochrome mode", or "XPM pieces cannot be used in monochrome mode".</a></li>
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106 <li><a href="#tag-C.21">[C.21] When I log in to freechess.org, the Enter key doesn't work, and I have to use Ctrl+J instead. But when I use WinBoard, Ctrl+J doesn't work either, so I'm stuck.</a></li>
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107 <li><a href="#tag-C.22">[C.22] XBoard says, "Failed to start first chess program gnuchessx on localhost: gnuchessx: No such file or directory."</a></li>
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110 <li><a name="tag-D0" href="#tag-D">[D] Crafty and other topics</a>
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112 <li><a href="#tag-D.1">[D.1] What is XChess?</a></li>
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113 <li><a href="#tag-D.2">[D.2] What is Winsock Chess?</a></li>
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114 <li><a href="#tag-D.3">[D.3] What is Crafty?</a></li>
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115 <li><a href="#tag-D.4">[D.4] How do I use Crafty with XBoard?</a></li>
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116 <li><a href="#tag-D.5">[D.5] How do I use Crafty with WinBoard?</a></li>
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117 <li><a href="#tag-D.6">[D.6] How do I use GNU Chess 5 with XBoard?</a></li>
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122 <h2><a name="tag-A">[A] Introduction and hot topics</a></h2>
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125 <h3><a name="tag-A.1">[A.1] What are XBoard and WinBoard?</a></h3>
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127 <p>XBoard and WinBoard are graphical user interfaces for chess.
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128 XBoard runs with the X Window System on Unix systems (including
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129 GNU/Linux); see topic <a href="#tag-B.1">[B.1]</a>. WinBoard runs
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130 on true 32-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems, such as Windows
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131 95, 98, NT, 2000, ME, XP, and should continue to work on future
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132 32-bit Windows systems. It does not work on Windows CE (also known
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133 as Pocket PC), nor does it work on 16-bit Windows systems such as
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134 Windows 3.1. See topic <a href="#tag-B.2">[B.2]</a>.</p>
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137 <h3><a name="tag-A.2">[A.2] Where can I get chess information and chess
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140 <p>As a shortcut to most things mentioned in this FAQ, try Tim Mann's
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141 Chess Web page, <a href= "http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html"
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142 >http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html</a>. This page page is a good
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143 place to get the latest released versions of XBoard and WinBoard and
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144 the most up-to-date version of this FAQ. Also see our Savannah
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145 project pages at <a href="https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/"
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146 >https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/</a>.</p>
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148 <p>If you have other questions about XBoard/WinBoard that aren't
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149 answered in this FAQ, you can try Aaron Tay's WinBoard and Chess
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151 at<a href="http://www.aarontay.per.sg/Winboard/">defunct
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154 <p>For general news and information about chess, try the newsgroup hierarchy
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155 rec.games.chess.*, especially the groups rec.games.chess.misc and
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156 rec.games.chess.computer. Both of the latter groups have very informative
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157 FAQs maintained by Steve Pribut; look for them on the newsgroups or at
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158 <a href="http://www.clark.net/pub/pribut/chess.html">defunct URL</a>.</p>
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160 <p>Like other GNU software, you can get XBoard, and WinBoard by anonymous FTP from
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161 <a href="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/</a>
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162 and its many mirror sites. Look in the subdirectories xboard, and winboard.
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163 The .tar.gz suffix on the files there indicates they were packed with tar
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164 and compressed with gzip. The .exe or .zip suffixes indicate files that
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165 were packed and compressed with zip.</p>
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167 <p>For other chess software, try the Internet Chess Library. Use
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168 anonymous FTP to connect to ftp.freechess.org, or go to the Web page
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169 <a href="http://www.freechess.org/">http://www.freechess.org/</a>.
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170 You can get chess software, game
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171 collections, the FAQ file for rec.games.chess, and other chess-related
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172 material there, in the directory pub/chess. The FTP server can
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173 automatically decompress files for you as you download them, useful if you
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174 don't have gzip.</p>
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176 <p>Here is a sample anonymous ftp session. Some of the ftp server's responses
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177 are abbreviated, but all the commands you must type are included.</p>
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181 Connected to ftp.gnu.org
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183 Password: your-email-address@your-site
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186 ftp> cd /pub/gnu/xboard
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188 -rw-r--r-- 1 14910 wheel 1057625 May 20 00:25 xboard-4.2.7.tar.gz
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189 ftp> get xboard-4.2.7.tar.gz
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190 150 BINARY connection for xboard-4.2.7.tar.gz (1057625 bytes).
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191 226 Transfer complete.
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196 <h3><a name="tag-A.3">[A.3] What are the current version numbers for
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197 XBoard and WinBoard?</a></h3>
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199 <p>At this writing, the current version numbers are:</p>
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202 <li>XBoard 4.2.7</li>
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203 <li>WinBoard 4.2.7</li>
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207 <h3><a name="tag-A.4">[A.4] Who is working on this project?</a></h3>
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209 Please see our Savannah project pages
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210 at <a href="https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/">https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/</a>
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211 for a list of active developers. Many others occasionally contribute
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212 suggestions and snippets of code, for which we are grateful.
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215 <h3><a name="tag-A.5">[A.5] How do I report bugs, offer help, etc.?</a></h3>
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217 <p>Bug reports, suggestions, and offers to help on XBoard
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218 or WinBoard should be sent to bug-xboard<a name="nospam01">@</a>gnu.org.</p>
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220 <p>Beginner questions and discussion about the program may get faster
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221 answers on the WinBoard Forum at <a
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222 href="http://f11.parsimony.net/forum16635/"
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223 >http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/</a>.
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224 This forum also constains a section dedicated to propose and discuss
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225 new features for WinBoard / XBoard or WinBoard protocol,
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226 and reposrt bugs.</p>
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228 <p>If you are developing a
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229 chess engine that works with XBoard or WinBoard (or an alternative
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230 GUI that works with such engines), see the Chess Engines mailing
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232 <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chess-engines"
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233 >http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chess-engines</a>.
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234 For better response, join the above-mentioned WinBoard forum,
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235 or the <a href="http://www.talkchess.com/forum">CCC forum</a>.</p>
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238 <p>Any time you want to report a possible bug in XBoard or WinBoard,
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239 we need to know exactly what you did, and exactly what error (or
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240 other) messages you got.</p>
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242 <p>If you are using Unix, run the "script" program, run XBoard with
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243 the -debug flag (if you get as far as running it), do whatever is
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244 necessary to reproduce the problem, type "exit" to the shell, and mail
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245 us the resulting typescript file. We also need to know what
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246 hardware/operating system combination you are using. The command
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247 "uname -a" will usually tell you this; include its output in your
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250 <p>If you are using MS Windows, run WinBoard with the -debug flag, and
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251 send us a copy of the WinBoard.debug file. If you aren't sure how to
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252 add command-line flags to WinBoard, you can hit Ctrl+Alt+F12 to create
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253 a WinBoard.debug file after WinBoard starts, but that is not as good,
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254 because a few messages that would have been printed at the start are
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257 <p>Either way, please send us the exact text of the commands you typed
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258 and the output you got, not just your recollection of approximately
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259 what they were. The messages may seem meaningless to you, but they
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260 are very meaningful to us and essential for diagnosing problems.</p>
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263 <h3><a name="tag-A.6">[A.6] What are the future plans for XBoard and
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266 <p>Our plans are always in flux. As with most free software projects,
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267 the next release will happen when it happens -- or it may never
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268 happen. This has always been the policy for XBoard/WinBoard.
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269 Releases have never been promised in specific time frames.</p>
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271 <p>Starting in November 2003, several new developers have joined the
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272 project, and work is now hosted at <a
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273 href="https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/"
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274 >https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/</a>. Lots of work is just
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275 getting underway, but nothing is far along yet.</p>
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277 <p>Here is a partial list of items that have a nonzero probability of
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278 happening in finite time.</p>
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281 <li>Small bug fixes. Occasionally someone sends us a fix, or reports
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282 a small bug very clearly so that we're able to fix it in a few minutes
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285 <li>Protocol version 3. The members of the chess engine authors'
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286 mailing list discussed a set of proposed features for the next version
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287 of the XBoard/WinBoard chess engine communication protocol.
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288 The WinBoard 4.3 fork has taken the protocol in a different direction,
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289 though, extending version 2 with new features as they were needed,
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290 rather than upgrading to a new protocol in a single sweep.
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291 It does not seem likely that there will be a v3 protocol in the
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292 foreseeable future.
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295 <li>Contributed features. Several people have mailed me code to add
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296 various features. Most of this code is available on the
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297 XBoard/WinBoard extensions page
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298 at <a href="http://www.tim-mann.org/extensions.html">http://www.tim-mann.org/extensions.html</a>,
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299 but it is not in any official releases yet. We are in the process of
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300 getting folks to formally assign the copyrights on their contributions
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301 to the Free Software Foundation so that we can include it in official
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302 releases in the future.</li>
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304 <li>Internationalization. Several people have expressed interest in
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305 internationalizing XBoard/WinBoard. Version 4.4 implements
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306 internationalization in its XBoard branch, and includes (partial)
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307 Turkish and German translations. For WinBoard a suitable way o
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308 internationalization still has to be found, as all menu strings there
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309 are not in the C code, but in a Windows resource file. In any case, we
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310 will need more translators, to update the existing translations (for
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311 version 4.3.7) to the current version, and to provide translaions for
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312 oter languages. Watch for news on the xboard-devel mailing list on
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313 our Savannah pages.</li>
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318 <H2><a name="tag-B">[B] XBoard and WinBoard</a></H2>
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320 <h3><a name="tag-B.1">[B.1] What is XBoard?</a></h3>
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322 <p>XBoard is a graphical user interface for chess. It displays a
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323 chessboard on the screen, accepts moves made with the mouse, and loads
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324 and saves games in Portable Game Notation (PGN). XBoard is free software.
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325 It serves as a front-end for many different chess services, including:</p>
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327 <p><strong>Chess engines</strong> that will run on your machine and
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328 play a game against you or help you analyze, such as GNU Chess and
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329 Crafty (topic <a href="#tag-D.3">[D.3]</a> below).</p>
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331 <p><strong>Chess servers</strong> on the Internet, where you can
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332 connect to play chess with people from all over the world, watch other
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333 users play, or just hang out and chat.</p>
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335 <p><strong>Correspondence chess</strong> played by electronic
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336 mail. The cmail program (topic <a href="#tag-B.6">[B.6]</a> below)
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337 automates the tasks of parsing email from your opponent, playing his
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338 moves out on your board, and mailing your reply move after you've
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341 <p><strong>The Web</strong> and your own saved games. You can use
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342 XBoard as a helper application to view PGN games in your
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343 Web browser, or to load and save your own PGN files.</p>
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345 <p>XBoard runs under Unix or Unix-compatible systems. It requires the
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346 X Window System, version X11R4 or later. There are also ports of
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347 XBoard to 32-bit Microsoft Windows and to
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348 the Amiga. See topics <a href="#tag-B.2">[B.2]</a> and <a
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349 HREF="#tag-B.3">[B.3]</a> respectively.</p>
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352 <h3><a name="tag-B.2">[B.2] Is there an XBoard for Microsoft Windows? What is WinBoard? How do I install WinBoard?</a></h3>
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354 <p>WinBoard is a port of XBoard to 32-bit Microsoft Windows systems, such
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355 as Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, ME, and XP. It uses the same back end
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356 chess code as XBoard, but the front end graphics code is a complete
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357 rewrite. WinBoard is free software.</p>
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359 <p>The WinBoard distribution includes a sample Chess engine.</p>
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361 <p>The WinBoard distribution also includes the ICC timestamp and FICS
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362 timeseal programs (topic <a href="#tag-B.12">[B.12]</a>).</p>
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364 <p>cmail (topic <a href="#tag-B.6">[B.6]</a>) has not been ported to
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365 Windows. All the other XBoard functions are included in WinBoard.
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366 The International Email Chess Group web site at <a
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367 href="http://www.iecg.org/" >http://www.iecg.org/</a> recommends
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368 ECTool (<a href="http://www.ectool.nu/" >http://www.ectool.nu/</a>)
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369 for playing correspondence chess under Windows.</p>
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371 <p>You install WinBoard as follows. Download the WinBoard package to
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372 your PC (see topic <a href="#tag-A.2">[A.2]</a>). It will be a file
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373 with a name like winboard-4_0_0.exe. Double-click on this file
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374 in the Explorer or File Manager to run it. Follow the on-screen
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378 <h3><a name="tag-B.3">[B.3] Is there an XBoard for the Amiga? What is AmyBoard?</a></h3>
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380 <p>AmyBoard is a port of XBoard to the Amiga, by Jochen Wiedmann.
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381 The distribution includes a port of GNU Chess.
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382 AmyBoard is free software.</p>
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384 <p>The current version of AmyBoard is 330.5 (based on XBoard 3.3.0).
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385 No one is currently maintaining it.</p>
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387 <p>System requirements:</p>
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390 <li>An Amiga (obviously :-), running OS 2.04 or later, 2Mb RAM or more.</li>
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391 <li>MUI 2.0 or later.</li>
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392 <li>Workbench or another screen with no less than 640x400 pixels (adjustable
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393 with the MUI-Prefs); this restriction is just because we don't have
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394 bitmaps with less than 40x40 pixels per square. If someone contributes
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395 bitmaps with 20x20 or 20x25, they will work with any Hires mode.</li>
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398 <p>If you would like to use an ICS, you need an Internet connection via either</p>
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401 <li>a telnet-like program, or</li>
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402 <li>a terminal program reading from stdin and writing to stdout.</li>
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405 <p>AmyBoard is available in the Internet Chess Library (topic <a href="#tag-A.2">[A.2]</a>).</p>
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408 <h3><a name="tag-B.4">[B.4] Is there an XBoard for the Macintosh?</a></h3>
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410 <p>Note: I am not a Mac user and have not tried this myself, so I cannot
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411 answer questions about it. </p>
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413 <p>Because MacOS X has a Unix base, XBoard will compile and run on it.
\r
414 You do need an X11 (X Window System) server and client libraries. I'm
\r
415 told that these come standard with MacOS X 10.3 and later. Once you
\r
416 install the X11 package, XBoard is reported to compile and run without
\r
419 <p>You can avoid having to compile XBoard (and GNU Chess) yourself by
\r
420 using the Fink sofware packaging system. See
\r
421 http://fink.sourceforge.net/ and
\r
422 http://finkcommander.sourceforge.net/ for more info on Fink.</p>
\r
424 <p>There is no version of XBoard or WinBoard that runs with the native
\r
425 (non-X11) Mac graphical interface, and none that runs on MacOS 9 or
\r
430 <h3><a name="tag-B.5">[B.5] Does XBoard run on VMS?</a></h3>
\r
432 <p>No. This port would probably be a lot easier than the Win32 and Amiga
\r
433 ports were, because VMS has the X Window system (under the name
\r
434 DECwindows) and is now POSIX compliant. If you are working on this,
\r
435 send mail to bug-xboard<a name="nospam02">@</a>gnu.org to let us know.</p>
\r
439 <h3><a name="tag-B.6">[B.6] What is cmail?</a></h3>
\r
441 <p>cmail is a program that helps you play and keep track of electronic mail
\r
442 correspondence chess games using XBoard. It is distributed with XBoard and
\r
443 has its own manual page. cmail is free software. It was written by
\r
444 Even Welsh. cmail has not been ported to Windows; sorry.</p>
\r
447 <h3><a name="tag-B.7">[B.7] How do I build XBoard? Do I need gcc?</a></h3>
\r
449 <p>The first step to building XBoard is to get the distribution file. See topic
\r
450 <a href="#tag-A.2">[A.2]</a> for places you can ftp the software from.</p>
\r
452 <p>Next, decide what directory tree you are going to install XBoard
\r
453 in. The default is /usr/local, but you probably don't have write
\r
454 access to that directory unless you are a system administrator. If
\r
455 you do, type the following to install it there:</p>
\r
458 gzip -cd xboard-*.tar.gz | tar -xvf -
\r
466 <p>If you want to install xboard in your personal home directory ($HOME/bin),
\r
470 gzip -cd xboard-*.tar.gz | tar -xvf -
\r
472 ./configure --prefix=$HOME
\r
477 <p>If the first step above fails because you don't have gzip, see
\r
478 topic <a href="#tag-A.2">[A.2]</a>, and ask a local Unix expert if you
\r
479 need more help. If you have any problems with the last two steps,
\r
480 read the READ_ME and INSTALL files in the xboard-*/ directory. You
\r
481 will also find this FAQ there.</p>
\r
483 <p>You don't need to have gcc to build XBoard. Almost any Unix C
\r
484 compiler should do.</p>
\r
487 <h3><a name="tag-B.8">[B.8] Can I use XBoard or WinBoard to play a game
\r
488 of chess with another human?</a></h3>
\r
490 <p>The only way for two humans on different machines to play chess in
\r
491 real time using XBoard/WinBoard is to use an Internet Chess Server
\r
492 as an intermediary. That is, each player runs his own copy of XBoard
\r
493 or WinBoard, both of them log into an ICS, and they play a game there.
\r
494 Two copies of XBoard/WinBoard cannot communicate with each other
\r
497 <p>Instructions on how to get started with Internet chess are included
\r
498 with the XBoard and WinBoard distributions. The network addresses
\r
499 included in the distribution may not always be current. The oldest
\r
500 and largest ICS is the Internet Chess Club at chessclub.com, which now
\r
501 has a fee for registered use, but still allows free unregistered use.
\r
502 There are also many newer sites with no fees, using the Free Internet
\r
503 Chess Server implementation (FICS). The most active FICS site is
\r
504 freechess.org. On these and most other chess servers,
\r
505 the port number to use is 5000.</p>
\r
507 <p>If you don't have network connectivity to any ICS site, you
\r
508 can run your own server using a version of the FICS code, but this
\r
509 is not easy. See <a href="http://www.tim-mann.org/ics.html#ownics"
\r
510 >http://www.tim-mann.org/ics.html#ownics</a> for advice and pointers.</p>
\r
512 <p>The cmail program included with XBoard lets you play email postal games with
\r
513 another human; see topic <a href="#tag-B.6">[B.6]</a>.</p>
\r
515 <p>Two humans can play chess on the same machine using one copy of
\r
517 Edit Game mode, but the clocks don't run in this mode, so it's of limited
\r
520 <p>See also topic <a href="#tag-D.2">[D.2]</a>, Winsock Chess.</p>
\r
523 <h3><a name="tag-B.9">[B.9] Will WinBoard run on Windows 3.1?
\r
524 How about Windows CE (also known as Pocket PC)?
\r
527 <p>WinBoard does not run on Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, etc.,
\r
528 not even with the Win32s compatibility package. The main problem is
\r
529 that Win32s does not have threads or real concurrent processes. A
\r
530 port of WinBoard to Windows 3.1 is possible in theory, but it would be
\r
531 difficult and messy, and no one is going to do it.</p>
\r
533 <p>WinBoard does not run on Windows CE (also
\r
534 known as Pocket PC). I don't know what would be required to port it.</p>
\r
536 <p>WinBoard does run well on full 32-bit versions of Windows, such as
\r
537 Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, ME, and XP, and should continue to work
\r
538 on future 32-bit Windows systems.</p>
\r
541 <h3><a name="tag-B.10">[B.10] How do I use XBoard or WinBoard as an external viewer for PGN files
\r
542 with my Web browser?</a></h3>
\r
545 <li> On Unix systems:
\r
547 <li> Add the following line to the file .mime.types in your home directory.
\r
548 (Create the file if it doesn't exist already.)
\r
550 application/x-chess-pgn pgn
\r
554 Add the following line to the file .mailcap in your home directory.
\r
555 (Create the file if it doesn't exist already.)
\r
557 application/x-chess-pgn; xboard -ncp -lgf %s
\r
561 Exit from your Web browser and restart it.
\r
565 <li> On MS Windows systems:
\r
566 <p>The exact procedure depends on which Web browser you are using.
\r
567 The current version of WinBoard automatically configures itself as
\r
568 your PGN viewer for local files, Netscape 4.x and later, and Internet
\r
569 Explorer. This automatic setup probably works for all other current Web
\r
575 <h3><a name="tag-B.11">[B.11] How do I use WinBoard as an external viewer
\r
576 for PGN files with the MS Windows File Manager or Explorer?</a></h3>
\r
578 <p>WinBoard sets this up automatically when you install it, except on old
\r
579 versions of Windows NT (prior to 4.0). On Windows NT 3.51 or earlier,
\r
580 go to the File Manager, click on the File menu, select Associate,
\r
581 enter "pgn" as the extension, and use the Browse button to find your
\r
582 copy of WinBoard and set up the association.</p>
\r
585 <h3><a name="tag-B.12">[B.12] How do I use ICC timestamp or FICS timeseal
\r
586 with XBoard?</a></h3>
\r
588 <p>First, get the appropriate version of timestamp or timeseal for your
\r
589 machine from ftp.chessclub.com or ftp.freechess.org.
\r
590 Second, be sure that you can connect using XBoard <I>without</I>
\r
591 timestamp/timeseal. Third, be sure that you can connect using
\r
592 timestamp/timeseal without XBoard. See the help files on ICC and FICS
\r
593 or ask people online if you have problems.</p>
\r
595 <p>If you are in a completely ordinary situation, where your machine
\r
596 is directly on the Internet and you can connect to ICC or FICS
\r
597 without timestamp/timeseal using
\r
598 just the command "xboard -ics" or "xboard -ics -icshost freechess.org",
\r
599 change that command to one of the following:</p>
\r
602 xboard -ics -icshost 204.178.125.65 -icshelper timestamp
\r
604 xboard -ics -icshost 164.58.253.13 -icshelper timeseal
\r
607 <p>If you have a firewall between your machine and the ICS, see topic
\r
608 <a href="#tag-B.19">[B.19]</a>.</p>
\r
610 <p>If you normally have to use the "/icscomm" command line option on
\r
611 xboard to log into a second machine, and then telnet to ICC or FICS
\r
612 from there, you are going to have to run the Unix version of timestamp
\r
613 or timeseal on the second machine. (If the second machine is not
\r
614 running Unix, you are out of luck.) Get the appropriate version of
\r
615 timestamp or timeseal onto the shell machine via FTP; see the help
\r
616 files on ICC and FICS for instructions. Then simply run it when you
\r
617 would normally run telnet. In this configuration you are not
\r
618 protected against lag between your PC and the shell machine, or for
\r
619 lag caused by heavy load on the shell machine itself from other users.</p>
\r
621 <p>For further information on timestamp and timeseal, see the help
\r
622 files on ICC and FICS.</p>
\r
625 <h3><a name="tag-B.13">[B.13] How do I use ICC timestamp or FICS timeseal
\r
626 with WinBoard?</a></h3>
\r
628 <p>If you select an ICS from either the WinBoard Startup dialog or the
\r
629 Windows Start submenu that WinBoard installs, WinBoard automatically
\r
630 runs timestamp or timeseal if the ICS you chose is known to support it.</p>
\r
632 <p>If you are constructing a WinBoard command line by hand, add the
\r
633 option "/icshelper timestamp" or "/icshelper timeseal" to the WinBoard
\r
634 command line to use timestamp or timeseal. Both timestamp.exe and
\r
635 timeseal.exe are included in the WinBoard distribution. They both
\r
636 function identically to the Unix versions, as documented in "help
\r
637 timestamp" on ICC and "help timeseal" on FICS.</p>
\r
639 <p>If you have a firewall between your machine and the ICS, see topic
\r
640 <a href="#tag-B.19">[B.19]</a>.</p>
\r
642 <p>If you normally have to use the "/icscomm" command line option on
\r
643 WinBoard to log into a shell account, and then telnet to ICC or FICS
\r
644 from there, you are going to have to run the Unix version of timestamp
\r
645 or timeseal on the shell machine. (If the shell account is not on a
\r
646 Unix machine, you are out of luck.) Get the appropriate version of
\r
647 timestamp or timeseal onto the shell machine via FTP; see the help
\r
648 files on ICC and FICS for instructions. Then simply run it when you
\r
649 would normally run telnet. In this configuration you are not protected
\r
650 against lag between your PC and the shell machine, or for lag caused by
\r
651 heavy load on the shell machine itself from other users.</p>
\r
653 <p>For further information on timestamp and timeseal, see the help
\r
654 files on ICC and FICS.</p>
\r
657 <h3><a name="tag-B.14">[B.14] How do I play bughouse with XBoard or WinBoard?
\r
660 <p>XBoard and WinBoard have full bughouse support.
\r
661 Offboard piece holdings are shown next to the board, and
\r
662 you drop offboard pieces by dragging them with the mouse
\r
663 (holding the left button down) to their drop square,
\r
664 or left-click the piece and the drop square, just like when you enter
\r
665 any ordinary move.</p>
\r
667 <p>XBoard and WinBoard can display only one board at a time, but you
\r
668 can observe your partner's game by running a second copy of the
\r
669 program and logging in as a guest. (Unfortunately, this is not
\r
670 possible if you are using the /icscomm option.) To observe your
\r
671 partner's games automatically, use the "follow" or "pfollow" ICS
\r
672 command; see the ICS online help for details.</p>
\r
675 <h3><a name="tag-B.16">[B.16] What is Zippy? How can I interface a
\r
676 chess program to the Internet Chess Servers?</a></h3>
\r
678 <p>Zippy is an interface that lets a compatible chess engine (such as GNU
\r
679 Chess or Crafty) act as a computer
\r
680 player on an Internet Chess Server. Zippy is included in both the
\r
681 XBoard and WinBoard distributions. It is implemented as a small
\r
682 amount of additional code within XBoard or WinBoard.
\r
683 For documentation, see the file
\r
684 zippy.README, included in both distributions or available
\r
685 from my chess Web page,
\r
687 "http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html"
\r
688 >http://www.tim-mann/chess.html</a>.
\r
689 The version of zippy.README on my Web page is often more up-to-date
\r
690 than those in the XBoard/WinBoard distributions.
\r
691 You'll also find a "biography" of Zippy and pointers to the original
\r
692 Zippy the Pinhead comic strips on my Web page.
\r
693 Please read zippy.README carefully before you ask me any questions about Zippy.</p>
\r
695 <p>Using a computer to choose your moves on a chess server is
\r
696 considered cheating unless your account is on the computer (C) list.
\r
697 Read "help computer" on your favorite server for details on their
\r
698 policy. Most of the servers have plenty of computers running now, so they
\r
699 will not be excited about having you run a new one unless you have
\r
700 written your own chess engine. They don't really need yet another
\r
701 Crafty or GNU Chess clone.</p>
\r
704 <h3><a name="tag-B.17">[B.17] How can I interface my own chess program
\r
705 to XBoard or WinBoard?</a></h3>
\r
707 <p>This is a non-trivial task. XBoard and WinBoard were not designed
\r
708 with a clean interface for talking to chess programs; they were
\r
709 written to work with an existing version of GNU Chess that expects to
\r
710 be talking to a person. Your program has to emulate GNU Chess's
\r
711 rather idiosyncratic command structure to work with XBoard and
\r
712 WinBoard. We are gradually cleaning up, improving, and documenting
\r
713 the interface as newer versions of XBoard and WinBoard come out,
\r
716 <p>For documentation, see the file engine-intf.html, included in both
\r
717 distributions or available from my chess Web page, <a href=
\r
718 "http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html"
\r
719 >http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html</a>.
\r
720 The version of engine-intf.html on my Web page is often more up-to-date
\r
721 than those in the XBoard/WinBoard distributions.</p>
\r
724 <h3><a name="tag-B.18">[B.18] How can I recompile WinBoard from source?</a></h3>
\r
726 <p>The source code for WinBoard is available from the author's Web page,
\r
728 "http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html"
\r
729 >http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html</a>.</p>
\r
731 <p>WinBoard is currently developed using Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0.
\r
732 You can build the program from the MSVC++ GUI by opening the project
\r
733 file (winboard.dsp) and telling MSVC++ to build the project. You can
\r
734 also build it from the the command line by using the nmake program
\r
735 supplied with MSVC++.</p>
\r
737 <p>To build WinBoard with the free Cygwin tools, available from <a
\r
738 href= "http://www.cygwin.com/" >http://www.cygwin.com/</a>), use the
\r
739 command "make -f cygwin.mak". WinBoard 4.2.5 was successfully
\r
740 compiled with the net release of Cygwin as downloaded on 20-March-2001
\r
741 (cygwin1.dll 1.1.8, gcc 2.95.2-6, binutils 20001221-1, flex 2.5.4-1),
\r
742 but exhibits a command-line parsing bug; see item 511 in the ToDo file
\r
743 that comes with WinBoard. WinBoard 4.1.0 does not compile with
\r
744 Cygwin. WinBoard 4.0.7 is known to compile with Cygwin BL20.1.</p>
\r
746 <p>To build WinBoard with Borland C++ 4.5, use "borland.mak", supplied
\r
747 with the WinBoard sources, as the Makefile. Support for Borland C++
\r
748 was contributed by Don Fong and has not been tested by the author of WinBoard.</p>
\r
750 <p>WinBoard is a Win32 application, so you definitely need a compiler
\r
751 and tool set that supports Win32. In particular, older versions of
\r
752 DJGPP can build only 32-bit MSDOS programs; that is, programs that use
\r
753 a DOS extender to get a 32-bit address space and do not make any
\r
754 Windows calls. The latest versions of DJGPP are said to be able to
\r
755 build Win32 programs when used with the proper extension package(s),
\r
756 but this is not known to work with WinBoard. Use Cygwin instead.</p>
\r
758 <p>See also topic <a href="#tag-C.16">[C.16]</a>.</p>
\r
761 <h3><a name="tag-B.19">[B.19]
\r
762 How can I use XBoard or WinBoard to talk
\r
763 to an Internet Chess Server through a firewall or proxy?
\r
766 <p>There is no single answer to this question, because there are many
\r
767 different kinds of firewalls in use. They work in various different
\r
768 ways and have various different security policies. This answer can
\r
769 only provide hints.</p>
\r
771 <p>Note that you can't access Internet Chess Servers through a Web proxy,
\r
772 because they are not a Web service. You talk to them through a raw
\r
773 TCP connection, not an HTTP connection. If you can only access the
\r
774 Web through a proxy, there may be a firewall that stops you from
\r
775 making direct TCP connections, but there may also be a way through it.
\r
776 Read on for hints, and contact your local system administrator if you
\r
777 need more information about your local configuration.</p>
\r
779 <p>A helpful user mailed me the following explanation of how to use
\r
780 WinBoard with WinGate:</p>
\r
782 "I have managed to setup WinBoard though my WinGate proxy. I have the
\r
783 Office version. What I needed to do was to setup the TCP/IP
\r
784 connection to add the User/Host name and my provider service name for
\r
785 the DNS, but I had to leave the HOST IP address blank. I have not
\r
786 played with all the variations, so it may be just that I have the DNS
\r
789 <p>I hope this helps, though I don't find it very clear. I don't have
\r
790 a copy of WinGate myself and can't help if you have questions about it.</p>
\r
792 <p>If you are using some other non-SOCKS firewall, read the FIREWALLS section
\r
793 in your XBoard or WinBoard documentation (man page, info document, or
\r
794 Help file). If you can telnet to a chess server in some way, then you
\r
795 can almost certainly connect to it with xboard/WinBoard, though in
\r
796 some cases you may not be able to run timestamp or timeseal. The
\r
797 timestamp and timeseal protocols require a clean, 8-bit wide TCP
\r
798 connection from your machine to the ICS, which some firewalls do not
\r
801 <p>If you have a SOCKS firewall and are using <strong>XBoard</strong>,
\r
802 you should be able to SOCKSify xboard and use it. See <a
\r
803 href="http://www.socks.nec.com/">http://www.socks.nec.com/</a> for
\r
804 information about SOCKS and socksification. However, if you do this,
\r
805 you can't use timestamp or timeseal; what you really need is a
\r
806 socksified version of timestamp or timeseal. This is hard because the
\r
807 source code for timestamp and timeseal is proprietary; the folks
\r
808 running the chess servers don't give it out because that would make it
\r
809 too easy to cheat. On some versions of Unix, you may be able to
\r
810 socksify a program that you don't have the source code to by running
\r
811 it with an appropriate dynamic library; see <a
\r
812 href="http://www.socks.nec.com/">http://www.socks.nec.com/</a>. For
\r
813 others, you might be able to get a pre-built socksified version from
\r
814 the chess server administrators. For timeseal versions, see <a
\r
815 href="ftp://ftp.freechess.org/pub/chess/timeseal/"
\r
816 >ftp://ftp.freechess.org/pub/chess/timeseal/</a>. For timestamp
\r
817 versions, the directory would be <a
\r
818 href="ftp://ftp.chessclub.com/pub/icc/timestamp/"
\r
819 >ftp://ftp.chessclub.com/pub/icc/timestamp/</a>, but at this writing
\r
820 there don't seem to be any socksified timestamps there. Once you have
\r
821 a socksified timestamp or timeseal, simply run it with a normal,
\r
822 non-socksified xboard in place of the standard timestamp or timeseal.</p>
\r
824 <p>If you have a SOCKS firewall and you are using
\r
825 <strong>WinBoard</strong>, we now know how to make this configuration
\r
826 work, complete with timestamp or timeseal!</p>
\r
828 <p>Start by getting SocksCap32. This software is freely available
\r
829 from <a href="http://www.socks.nec.com/">http://www.socks.nec.com/</a>.
\r
830 Install it on your machine, read the documentation, and learn to use
\r
831 it. You may find it useful with many other programs besides WinBoard.</p>
\r
833 <p>Next, <strong>don't</strong> socksify WinBoard. Socksifying
\r
834 WinBoard itself doesn't let you use it with timestamp or timeseal.
\r
835 For some reason I don't understand -- something strange that
\r
836 SocksCap32 does -- the socksified WinBoard runs but does nothing, and
\r
837 timestamp/timeseal runs all by itself in its own window.</p>
\r
839 <p>Instead, use the following workaround. Follow the instructions
\r
840 exactly; don't try to skip steps or simplify things.</p>
\r
842 <p>First, make SocksCap32 application profiles for timestamp and
\r
843 timeseal. Use the following command lines in the SocksCap32
\r
844 profiles. Name the first profile "timestamp" and the second
\r
848 "c:\program files\winboard\timestamp.exe" chessclub.com 5000 -p 5000
\r
849 "c:\program files\winboard\timeseal.exe" freechess.org 5000 -p 5000
\r
852 <p>Second, run timestamp or timeseal by itself, socksified, using its
\r
853 profile. This will open an unneeded, black window that will not
\r
854 respond to typing. Minimize it to the task bar and ignore it. It will
\r
855 go away when you exit from WinBoard.</p>
\r
857 <p>Next, run WinBoard using the following command line. Make a shortcut
\r
858 or type this command into an MS-DOS Prompt box. Don't run WinBoard
\r
859 itself socksified, just run it directly.</p>
\r
862 "c:\program files\winboard.exe" /ics /icshost=localhost /icsport=5000
\r
865 <p>After you get this working, you can try getting the timestamp window to
\r
866 auto-minimize by starting it from a shortcut instead of from the
\r
867 SocksCap32 control window. As it says in the SocksCap32 help file, put
\r
868 the following in the Target field of a shortcut's Properties page:</p>
\r
871 "c:\program files\sockscap32\sc32.exe" timestamp
\r
874 <p>Then select "Run: Minimized" on the same page. Do the same for timeseal.</p>
\r
876 <p>Another method that can work is to use a .bat file to start both
\r
877 timestamp and WinBoard. It would look something like this:</p>
\r
882 REM -- Start timestamp under SocksCap32 and use WinBoard to connect to it.
\r
883 REM -- The string "timestamp" refers to a SocksCap32 profile for timestamp.
\r
884 REM -- Do not change it to the filename of the timestamp program!
\r
886 start /minimized "c:\program files\sockscap32\sc32.exe" timestamp
\r
887 cd "c:\program files\winboard"
\r
888 winboard /ics /icshost=localhost /icsport=5000
\r
891 <p>This workaround has a problem if you want to run two copies of
\r
892 WinBoard at once, talking to the same chess server twice (for
\r
893 bughouse) or to two different chess servers. If you need to do that,
\r
894 you will need to run a separate copy of timestamp with <i>a different
\r
895 port number</i> for each connection. You'll need to make a second set of
\r
896 profile entries with a different value after the -p flag (say, 5001)
\r
897 and you'll need to change the WinBoard command line /icsport=5000 for
\r
898 the second WinBoard to match.</p>
\r
901 <h3><a name="tag-B.20">[B.20]
\r
902 How can I use XBoard or WinBoard on chess.net with accuclock?
\r
905 <p>I believe chess.net provides a Win32 command-line version of
\r
906 accuclock that will work with WinBoard. Please see the documentation
\r
907 on the chess.net server itself; don't ask the author of WinBoard.</p>
\r
909 <p>I don't know whether chess.net provides versions of accuclock for
\r
910 Unix at this time. Ask them.</p>
\r
913 <h3><a name="tag-B.21">[B.21]
\r
914 Can I get Zippy to do one or more ICS commands automatically at the
\r
915 start or end of each game?</a></h3>
\r
917 <p>By default, Zippy automatically sends the command "gameend" to ICS
\r
918 at the end of each game. You can alias this command (using the ICS
\r
919 "alias" feature) to anything you want. On ICC, you can use the
\r
920 "multi" feature to alias gameend to several commands, but other
\r
921 servers don't have that feature. Zippy doesn't send anything at the
\r
922 start of the game by default.</p>
\r
924 <p>You can get Zippy to send one or more commands of your choosing, at
\r
925 the start and/or end of each game, by using the -zippyGameStart and
\r
926 -zippyGameEnd command line options, newly added in version 4.0.3.
\r
927 Both xboard and WinBoard have (somewhat obscure) ways of getting
\r
928 newlines into this option to send several commands. Here is an
\r
929 example of one way to do it for each.</p>
\r
932 xboard -ics -zp -xrm '*zippyGameStart: say hi\nsay prepare to die\n'
\r
934 WinBoard /ics /zp /zippyGameEnd='say thanks\nseek 5 0\nseek 2 12\n'
\r
938 <h3><a name="tag-B.22">[B.22]
\r
939 How do I print from WinBoard?
\r
942 <p>WinBoard does not have built-in printing functionality.
\r
943 If you want to print a picture of the board, press Alt+PrintScrn, run the
\r
944 standard Windows application Paintbrush, select Paste, and print from there.
\r
945 If you want to print a list of moves, save your game as a PGN file,
\r
946 then open the PGN file with Notepad or any other plain text editor and
\r
947 print it from there.</p>
\r
950 <h3><a name="tag-B.23">[B.23]
\r
951 Can I get Zippy to automatically reconnect to ICS when its connection
\r
954 <p>There isn't a perfect solution to this problem yet, but a pretty
\r
955 good one is to write a shell script (for xboard) or .bat script (for
\r
956 WinBoard) that automatically restarts the program whenever it exits.
\r
957 Use the -xexit flag so that you don't get a popup dialog that must be
\r
958 dismissed with the OK button before the program will exit. The gap in
\r
959 this solution is that your connection to ICS can sometimes get into a
\r
960 state where the program does not notice that the connection is broken
\r
961 until the next time it tries to send a command. Perhaps some future
\r
962 version of xboard/WinBoard will have an option to send a harmless
\r
963 command every five minutes or so.</p>
\r
965 <p>Anyway, here is a sample Windows .bat file that restarts WinBoard each
\r
966 time it exits. Thanks to Jason Williamson. It assumes that you have put
\r
967 your computer account's name and password in a file named logon.ini.</p>
\r
972 REM -- Start WinBoard in Zippy mode, and restart it each time it exits.
\r
973 REM -- Add or change parameters as needed for your application.
\r
976 start /w winboard /zp /ics /icslogon logon.ini /xexit /xautoraise
\r
977 REM -- The next line is to have a short delay setup for 139 seconds.
\r
978 REM -- Leave it out if it doesn't work on the version of Windows you use.
\r
979 TYPE NUL | CHOICE.COM /N /CY /TY,99 >NUL
\r
983 <p>Here is a Unix shell script to do the same thing for xboard.
\r
984 It's a bit more elaborate. It is based on the script I use for the
\r
985 original Zippy. It logs all ICS output to a file named zippy.out,
\r
986 and it lets you type commands to Zippy by running "cat > zippy.fifo".</p>
\r
990 host="204.178.125.65 -icsport 5000 -telnet -telnetProgram timestamp"
\r
991 #host="164.58.253.13 -icsport 5000 -telnet -telnetProgram timeseal"
\r
994 ZIPPYPASSWORD='something'
\r
995 export ZIPPYPASSWORD
\r
996 ZIPPYPASSWORD2='orother'
\r
997 export ZIPPYPASSWORD2
\r
998 ZIPPYLINES=`pwd`/all.lines
\r
1000 ZIPPYGAMEEND='say Yow, that was FUN!
\r
1002 export ZIPPYGAMEEND
\r
1003 zippylogon=`pwd`/logon.ini
\r
1004 DISPLAY=`hostname`:0.0
\r
1006 mv -f $out ${out}.old
\r
1010 ( while [ true ] ; do cat -u $fifo ; done ) | \
\r
1011 ( while [ true ] ; do
\r
1012 xboard -iconic -ics -icshost $host \
\r
1013 -zt -zp -xbell -xanimate \
\r
1014 -xautosave -xquiet -fcp "gnuchessx -h" \
\r
1015 -icslogon $zippylogon -xexit -autoflag -xautoraise $*
\r
1017 done ) > $out 2>&1 &
\r
1021 <h3><a name="tag-B.24">[B.24]
\r
1022 The chess engines are too strong and always beat me. How can I adjust
\r
1023 the difficulty level to make them weaker?</a></h3>
\r
1025 <p>The best way is to get a weaker chess engine.
\r
1026 On the <a href="http://www.open-aurec.com/chesswar">ChessWar</a> website
\r
1027 you will find a rating list of virtually all engines that are able to
\r
1028 play under XBoard/WinBoard, from super-humanly strong to ridculously weak.
\r
1029 Most of them can be downloaded for free from the internet.</p>
\r
1031 <p>A way to get that effect is to limit the time the engine can use for
\r
1032 deciding on its move. The time-odds options or menu items in the
\r
1033 time-control dialog) can be used to this end. This is only of limited
\r
1034 help, as engines do not weeken that much at faster time-control,
\r
1035 and there is a practical limit to how fast you can order the engine
\r
1036 to go. Also feel free to use Retract Move if
\r
1037 you make a blunder. </p>
\r
1039 <p>Many chess coaches will let you switch sides after
\r
1040 they get a stronger position so that you can get experience playing
\r
1041 positions where you are winning. You can try this with XBoard/WinBoard
\r
1042 by using the Machine White or Machine Black menu command to make the
\r
1043 machine take over your position.</p>
\r
1045 <p>The -depth command-line option to XBoard/WinBoard can also be used to
\r
1046 weaken the engine (see the man page or Help file). It's a bit of a
\r
1047 nuisance to set command line options in Windows, but see topic <a
\r
1048 href="#tag-C.7">[C.7]</a> for instructions.</p>
\r
1050 <p>Other ways of weakening engines are engine-specific. Many of them
\r
1051 let you adjust various parameters, and if you choose bad settings, the
\r
1052 engine will play more poorly. Consult whatever documentation came with
\r
1053 the engine you are using.</p>
\r
1056 <h3><a name="tag-B.25">[B.25]
\r
1057 May I use the piece bitmaps from XBoard/WinBoard in my own program?</a></h3>
\r
1059 <p>The piece bitmaps used in XBoard and WinBoard were designed by
\r
1060 Elmar Bartel. He released them under the <a
\r
1061 href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU General Public
\r
1062 License</a>. This means that if your program is also free software
\r
1063 distributed under the GPL, you can use them freely. If your program
\r
1064 is distributed under some other license, including commercial,
\r
1065 shareware, or non-GPL freeware, then you cannot use the bitmaps unless
\r
1066 you obtain special permission from Elmar. See the file README.bitmaps
\r
1067 that comes with the XBoard and WinBoard source code for more
\r
1068 information and an email address you can write to.</p>
\r
1070 <hr /><h2><a name="tag-C">[C] XBoard and WinBoard, bugs and problems</a></h2>
\r
1072 <hr /><h3><a name="tag-C.1">[C.1] I can't build XBoard
\r
1073 because the X11/Xaw/... include files are not found.</a></h3>
\r
1075 <p>These are the header files for the Athena Widgets library, which XBoard uses
\r
1076 heavily. Some versions of Unix don't supply these files, but they are part of
\r
1077 the standard X distribution, freely available from MIT. </p>
\r
1079 <p>For general information on getting missing X sources, see the FAQ on
\r
1080 comp.windows.x. Note that you may be missing only the header files, or you
\r
1081 may be missing the libraries themselves too.</p>
\r
1083 <p>HP-UX users are missing only the header files. You can get them by
\r
1084 anonymous FTP as follows. (But first check with your system
\r
1085 administrator to see if someone else at your site has already done
\r
1086 this.) Get the archive file /hpux9/X11R5/Core/Xaw-5.00.tar.gz (Xaw
\r
1087 header files) via anonymous FTP from the site hpux.csc.liv.ac.uk
\r
1088 (138.253.42.172), or one of the other official sites---Germany:
\r
1089 hpux.ask.uni-karlsruhe.de (129.13.200.57), US: hpux.cae.wisc.edu
\r
1090 (144.92.4.15), France: hpux.cict.fr (192.70.79.53) or Netherlands:
\r
1091 hpux.ced.tudelft.nl (130.161.140.100). Unpack the archive using gzip
\r
1092 and follow the instructions in its README and/or HPUX.Install files.
\r
1093 Thanks to Richard Lloyd for this information.</p>
\r
1095 <p>If you have the Xaw header files installed in a different place
\r
1096 than the other X11 headers, you may need to configure XBoard with an
\r
1097 extra flag to help it find them. For example, if yours are in
\r
1098 /foo/bar/X11/Xaw, try this:</p>
\r
1102 (setenv CFLAGS -I/foo/bar ; configure)
\r
1105 <p>Also see topic <a href="#tag-C.2">[C.2]</a>.</p>
\r
1108 <h3><a name="tag-C.2">[C.2] Configuring or building XBoard fails due to
\r
1109 missing header files, missing libraries, or undefined symbols.
\r
1112 <p>Perhaps you have the X server and client programs installed on your
\r
1113 machine, but not the X header files and link-time libraries. If so,
\r
1114 you can run existing X programs, but you cannot compile a new X
\r
1115 program from source code. In this case the XBoard configure script
\r
1116 will fail and will tell you to look at this question in the FAQ. Many
\r
1117 GNU/Linux distributions put the headers and libraries in a separate
\r
1118 package, which you might not have installed. If you are using RedHat,
\r
1119 install the XFree86-devel package. If you are using some other
\r
1120 kind of Unix, ask your system administrator where to find the X header
\r
1121 files and link-time libraries. If this is not your problem, read on.</p>
\r
1123 <p>The configure script for XBoard looks for X libraries and header
\r
1124 files in some common places. Sometimes it fails: If yours are
\r
1125 installed in an odd place, it may not find them at all. If you have
\r
1126 more than one version of X installed on your system, it may find the
\r
1127 "wrong" one, or occasionally it may find libraries from one version
\r
1128 and incompatible header files from another. You can work around these
\r
1129 problems by telling the configure script where the files are. For
\r
1133 configure --x-includes=/odd/place/include \
\r
1134 --x-libraries=/odd/place/lib
\r
1137 <p>The directory named in the argument to --x-includes must have a
\r
1138 subdirectory "X11" that contains the actual .h files. That is, if
\r
1139 your X.h file has full pathname /odd/place/X11R6/include/X11/X.h, then
\r
1140 you must give the argument --x-includes=/odd/place/X11R6/include.</p>
\r
1142 <p>Some linkers have bugs that cause bogus error messages when you try
\r
1143 to link X programs. The configure script includes a workaround for a
\r
1144 bug of this kind that exists in some SunOS 4.x.x installations. See
\r
1145 the FAQ on comp.windows.x for more information about problems of this
\r
1148 <p>If all else fails, check whether anyone else at your site has been able to
\r
1149 compile any X programs on your system. Your X installation might be buggy.
\r
1150 If so, the system administrator at your site might know how to fix or work
\r
1151 around the problem.</p>
\r
1153 <p>Also see topic <a href="#tag-C.1">[C.1]</a>.</p>
\r
1155 <hr /><h3><a name="tag-C.3">[C.3] I have problems using WinBoard on ICS
\r
1156 with a modem. I'm not running SLIP or PPP, but just dialing in to an
\r
1157 ordinary login account ("shell account").</a></h3>
\r
1159 <p>Here are solutions to some common problems in this area.</p>
\r
1161 <p>Some people want to connect to ICS through HyperTerminal or some other
\r
1162 terminal program first, then run WinBoard. This is not how it works.
\r
1163 WinBoard wants to talk directly with your modem, acting as a terminal program
\r
1164 itself. Start out with the modem "on hook" (not making a call).</p>
\r
1166 <p>Run WinBoard with a command line like this (adding more options if desired):</p>
\r
1169 WinBoard /ics /icscom com1
\r
1172 <p>Use com2, com3, or com4 in place of com1 if your modem is connected to one of those ports.</p>
\r
1174 <p>After you start WinBoard, you may need to change some of the options in the
\r
1175 Communications dialog (on the Options menu). The dialog has the usual options
\r
1176 for talking to modems: bits per second, bits per byte, parity, number of stop
\r
1177 bits. You will probably want to use Save Settings Now when you're done.</p>
\r
1179 <p>Next, type dialing commands to your modem in the text window that WinBoard
\r
1180 creates. You may need to turn off Local Line Editing on the Options menu
\r
1181 while you are typing commands to your modem. Turn it back on when you're
\r
1182 done. See the WinBoard Help file for instructions if you see your typing
\r
1183 echoed an extra time after you hit Enter.</p>
\r
1186 <h3><a name="tag-C.4">[C.4]
\r
1187 I have problems using WinBoard on ICS with Windows 95 and SLIP
\r
1188 or PPP. When trying to start up, it gets the error "Address family
\r
1189 not supported by protocol family" (or some equally strange message).
\r
1192 <p>WinBoard is a 32-bit application, but some Winsock (TCP/IP) implementations
\r
1193 support only 16-bit applications. You get a strange looking error message
\r
1194 if you try to use a 32-bit application because
\r
1195 there is no standard Winsock error code number
\r
1196 for "32-bit application not supported."</p>
\r
1198 <p>Microsoft TCP/IP works with both 16-bit and
\r
1199 32-bit applications, supports SLIP, PPP, Ethernet, etc., and is included
\r
1200 with Windows 95 and later Windows systems.
\r
1201 If possible, I recommend that you uninstall
\r
1202 whatever Winsock you are using and install Microsoft TCP/IP instead.
\r
1203 For more information, see
\r
1205 "http://walden.mo.net/~rymabry/95winfaq.html"
\r
1206 >http://walden.mo.net/~rymabry/95winfaq.html (the Win95-L FAQ)</a>.</p>
\r
1208 <p>Trumpet Winsock 2.1 (and earlier) supports only 16-bit
\r
1209 applications, and hence does not work with WinBoard. But there is a
\r
1210 beta-test release available that does support 32-bit applications.
\r
1211 I have not tried it with WinBoard, but it
\r
1212 should work. See Trumpet's Web page
\r
1214 "http://www.trumpet.com.au/wsk/winsock.htm"
\r
1215 >http://www.trumpet.com.au/wsk/winsock.htm</a>
\r
1216 for more information.</p>
\r
1218 <p>The 16-bit versions of America On-Line's software do not support
\r
1219 32-bit Winsock applications. Get the 32-bit version. At one time the
\r
1220 32-bit version was called "AOL for Windows 95," but I imagine that has
\r
1221 changed. Hopefully the current versions are all 32-bit.</p>
\r
1223 <p>A few versions of Winsock may have bugs that prevent
\r
1224 Windows timestamp/timeseal from working with them. I'm not sure if
\r
1225 such bugs exist in any versions that actually have 32-bit support,
\r
1226 so this point might be moot. Again, Microsoft TCP/IP is known to work.</p>
\r
1229 <h3><a name="tag-C.5">[C.5] When I try to run WinBoard, I get the
\r
1230 message "Failed to start chess program gnuchess on localhost: NO
\r
1231 LANGFILE (file gnuchess.lan not found)".</a></h3>
\r
1233 <p>This message means that WinBoard is trying to run GNU Chess, but
\r
1234 GNU Chess cannot find a file that it needs, named gnuchess.lan.
\r
1235 If you see it, you've probably customized WinBoard's /fcp, /fd, /scp,
\r
1236 and/or /sd options and made a mistake in the process. Review what
\r
1237 you did, and see the WinBoard help file.</p>
\r
1240 <h3><a name="tag-C.6">[C.6] I want to use XBoard or WinBoard as an Internet
\r
1241 Chess Server interface, but the ICS Client option is grayed out on the
\r
1244 <p>XBoard and WinBoard have three major modes that can't be changed from the
\r
1245 menus: local chess engine mode,
\r
1246 ICS mode, and standalone mode.</p>
\r
1248 <p>With XBoard, you have to set the mode using command-line options.
\r
1249 Local chess engine mode is the default, -ics selects ICS mode, and
\r
1250 -ncp ("no chess program") selects standalone mode.</p>
\r
1252 <p>With WinBoard, if you don't set the mode using command-line
\r
1253 options, you get a dialog box asking which mode you want. To bypass
\r
1254 the dialog box, use -cp ("chess program") for local chess engine mode,
\r
1255 or -ics or -ncp as with XBoard. Also see topic <a href="#tag-C.7">[C.7]</a>.</p>
\r
1258 <h3><a name="tag-C.7">[C.7] How do I give command-line options to
\r
1259 a Windows program like WinBoard?</a></h3>
\r
1261 <p>There are many ways; pick your favorite:</p>
\r
1264 <li>Type the command line into an MS-DOS Prompt box. Example:
\r
1265 "WinBoard -ics".</li>
\r
1267 <li>Make a Windows shortcut for WinBoard. You can do this by
\r
1268 right-dragging WinBoard.exe to the desktop and selecting "Create
\r
1269 Shortcut(s) Here" from the menu that appears. Right-click on the
\r
1270 shortcut, select Properties, and click the Shortcut tab. The
\r
1271 command-line text box is labelled "Target" instead of "Command line"
\r
1272 just to confuse you. Edit the text in this box, adding the command
\r
1273 line options to the end.</li>
\r
1275 <li>Choose Run from the Start menu, or File / Run from the Program
\r
1276 Manager or File Manager, and type the command line into the dialog you
\r
1277 get. You may have to give WinBoard's full drivespec and filename if
\r
1278 it is not in a directory on your search path.</li>
\r
1280 <li>Make a Program Manager icon for WinBoard. You can do this by
\r
1281 dragging WinBoard.exe from the File Manager into the Program Manager,
\r
1282 or by using File / New in the Program Manager. Select the icon and
\r
1283 choose File / Properties. Edit the Command Line text box to add the
\r
1284 command-line options to the end.</li>
\r
1288 <h3><a name="tag-C.9">[C.9]
\r
1289 When I exit from WinBoard after using it to play against a chess
\r
1290 program on my machine, the chess program keeps running in the background.
\r
1293 <p>Be sure you have the current versions of WinBoard and the chess
\r
1294 engine you are using. WinBoard 3.4.1 and earlier had a bug that
\r
1295 caused this problem to occur with all chess engines. A buggy chess
\r
1296 engine that does not respond to the "quit" command will also cause
\r
1299 <p>If you still see this problem, you can stop the rogue chess engine
\r
1300 by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del, selecting the chess engine process from the
\r
1301 menu, and pressing the End Task button.</p>
\r
1304 <h3><a name="tag-C.12">[C.12]
\r
1306 opponents often get extra time after they make their moves?
\r
1307 Why do I sometimes lose time off my clock after I make my move?
\r
1310 <p>If you are playing with the ICS incremental clock, both you and your
\r
1311 opponent get a set amount of extra time after each move.</p>
\r
1313 <p>If your or your opponent has netlag, your opponent might appear to
\r
1314 get extra time, especially if your opponent is using timestamp or
\r
1315 timeseal. The ICS charges each player who is using timestamp or
\r
1316 timeseal only for the time between when the player received his
\r
1317 opponent's move and the time he sent his own move. Thus delays in
\r
1318 network transmission do not count against either player. But WinBoard
\r
1319 counts down the display of your opponent's clock on your screen under
\r
1320 the assumption that there is no netlag. When his move comes in, if
\r
1321 there was netlag, the ICS may not have really charged him for that
\r
1322 much time, and WinBoard corrects the clock to what the ICS says it
\r
1325 <p>If you are not using timestamp or timeseal, you may appear to lose
\r
1326 time off your clock at some point after you make your move. In this
\r
1327 case, the ICS charges you for the time between when it sent you your
\r
1328 opponent's move and the time it received your move. Thus delays in
\r
1329 network transmission count against you. WinBoard stops counting down
\r
1330 the display of your clock on your screen (and starts your opponent's)
\r
1331 when you make your move. When the ICS echoes your move back to you, it
\r
1332 may have charged you for more time than that, and WinBoard corrects
\r
1333 the clocks to what the ICS says they should read.</p>
\r
1335 <p>See "help lag" and "help timestamp" or "help timeseal" on your ICS for
\r
1336 more detailed information.</p>
\r
1339 <h3><a name="tag-C.13">[C.13]
\r
1340 I can't run WinBoard unless I delete the WinBoard.ini file each time!
\r
1343 <p>Most people don't have this problem, but two or three people using
\r
1344 Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 3 or 4 have reported it. I have no
\r
1345 idea what causes this problem. Contrary to what was reported in a
\r
1346 previous version of this FAQ, reinstalling the service pack after
\r
1347 installing WinBoard does not seem to solve the problem.</p>
\r
1350 <h3><a name="tag-C.15">[C.15]
\r
1351 I get errors compiling XBoard's parser.c.
\r
1354 <p>The file parser.c is automatically generated from parser.l. The
\r
1355 copy included with XBoard 4.0.2 was generated by lex on Tru64 Unix and
\r
1356 has problems compiling and linking on current GNU/Linux versions. The
\r
1357 copy included with XBoard 4.0.3 was generated by flex on a GNU/Linux
\r
1358 machine, but it too won't necessarily work on other versions of Unix.
\r
1359 If you have this problem, you can fix it by deleting parser.c and
\r
1360 letting the Makefile re-create it from parser.l. This will work if
\r
1361 you have either lex or flex on your system. Flex is available in all
\r
1362 GNU/Linux distributions and can be obtained at no charge from the Free
\r
1363 Software Foundation, www.fsf.org.</p>
\r
1366 <h3><a name="tag-C.16">[C.16]
\r
1367 I get an error building WinBoard from source because "flex" is not found.
\r
1370 <p>The file parser.c is automatically generated from parser.l. The
\r
1371 Makefile included with the WinBoard source kit has a rule for
\r
1372 generating parser.c using the program "flex", which will fail if you
\r
1373 don't have flex. However, the source kit also includes a ready-made
\r
1374 copy of parser.c, so you don't really need flex unless you have made
\r
1375 changes to parser.l. Check that you still have a copy of parser.c; if
\r
1376 you don't, unpack the WinBoard source zip file again to get one.
\r
1377 Either set the last-modified time of parser.c to be later than that of
\r
1378 parser.l, delete parser.l, or comment out the Makefile rule for
\r
1379 building parser.c from parser.l, and then try building WinBoard again.</p>
\r
1381 <p>If you do want to change parser.l and rebuild parser.c, you can get
\r
1382 flex as part of the free Cygwin kit from
\r
1383 <a href="http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/"
\r
1384 >http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/</a>. You can
\r
1385 probably also get flex for Windows by itself from various other places
\r
1386 around the Internet. It is free software distributed by the Free
\r
1387 Software Foundation, www.fsf.org.</p>
\r
1390 <h3><a name="tag-C.17">[C.17]
\r
1391 XBoard hangs shortly after connecting to an ICS when used with dxterm,
\r
1392 cmdtool, dtterm, kterm, konsole, or other substitutes for xterm.
\r
1395 <p>After connecting to a chess server, XBoard 4.0.2 and later sends an
\r
1396 escape sequence to its terminal that is meant to display your handle
\r
1397 and the ICS host name (for example,
\r
1398 "user<a name="nospam03">@</a>chessclub.com") in the
\r
1399 terminal's banner and icon. It seems that several of the alternative
\r
1400 X terminal programs have a bug that makes them hang when sent this
\r
1401 escape sequence.</p>
\r
1404 around the problem by using xterm, nxterm, rxvt, aterm, xiterm, or
\r
1405 gnome-terminal, all of which seem to work fine. In fact, current
\r
1406 versions of kterm and konsole seem to work fine too, so if you are
\r
1407 having problems with one of them, be sure you are not running an
\r
1408 outdated version. </p>
\r
1410 <p>Alternatively, you can disable this feature by commenting out the
\r
1411 body of DisplayIcsInteractionTitle in xboard.c and recompling xboard.</p>
\r
1414 <h3><a name="tag-C.18">[C.18]
\r
1415 The WinBoard pieces show up in the wrong colors, appear distorted,
\r
1416 or are not visible at all.
\r
1419 <p>This can happen if you have a bug in your Windows display driver.
\r
1420 Check with the manufacturer of your display card, the manufacturer of
\r
1421 your computer, or Microsoft to see if there is an updated driver
\r
1422 available. You can usually download updated drivers from the Web.</p>
\r
1424 <p>If you can't find an updated driver, you can try running Windows
\r
1425 using a different number of colors and/or disabling some of the
\r
1426 hardware acceleration features on your display card. To change the
\r
1427 number of colors, go to Windows Start / Settings / Control Panel /
\r
1428 Display / Settings / Color Palette. To disable hardware acceleration
\r
1429 features, go to Windows Start / Settings / Control Panel / Display /
\r
1430 Settings / Advanced Properties / Performance / Hardware Acceleration.</p>
\r
1432 <p>It's also possible that Windows has the right driver for your
\r
1433 hardware already but you are not using it. It may help to reinstall
\r
1434 your driver. Go to Windows Start / Settings / Control Panel / System
\r
1435 and delete your display card (maybe even your monitor too), then
\r
1436 reboot. Windows should automatically re-detect your card and monitor
\r
1437 and re-install the drivers; if it doesn't, run Start / Settings /
\r
1438 Control Panel / Add New Hardware to force it to.</p>
\r
1440 <p>If all else fails, try Monochrome mode. On WinBoard's menus, go
\r
1441 to Options / Color and check Monochrome. WinBoard will display in black
\r
1445 <h3><a name="tag-C.19">[C.19] XBoard or WinBoard tells me "Error: first chess
\r
1446 program (...) exited unexpectedly".</a></h3>
\r
1448 <p>This message means that your chess engine crashed, probably due to
\r
1449 a bug in the engine, or because you have it configured incorrectly.
\r
1450 You can try running XBoard or WinBoard again with the "-debug" flag on
\r
1451 the command line. This will print out all the messages received from
\r
1452 the chess engine. (With WinBoard, the messages go into a file called
\r
1453 WinBoard.debug; with XBoard, they go to the xterm that you started
\r
1456 <p>If you are using GNU Chess and you see this problem as soon as it
\r
1457 starts up, most likely GNU Chess is exiting with an error message. If
\r
1458 you see the message "NO LANGFILE", it means that you did not install
\r
1459 GNU Chess correctly, and it is unable to find the file gnuchess.lang.
\r
1460 Make sure that you defined LIBDIR in the gnuchess Makefile, and that
\r
1461 gnuchess.lang is in that directory. If gnuchess.lang is not there,
\r
1462 you probably didn't type "make install" in the gnuchess src directory;
\r
1463 you must do this to install gnuchess.lang (and the gnuchess book). If
\r
1464 you defined LIBDIR to something that is not an absolute pathname (that
\r
1465 is, to something that does not start with a "/"), GNU Chess will work
\r
1466 only if you run it from the GNU Chess "src" directory where you built
\r
1469 <hr /><h3><a name="tag-C.20">[C.20]
\r
1470 XBoard tells me "Warning: Cannot allocate colormap entry", or
\r
1471 "too few colors available; trying monochrome mode", or
\r
1472 "XPM pieces cannot be used in monochrome mode".
\r
1475 <p>You are running your X server with 8-bit color depth, and you are running
\r
1476 some program that has used up all 256 of your colors. Netscape tends
\r
1477 to do this, or maybe you have a background image that uses up all of
\r
1480 <p>If you have a modern machine, you probably have enough display
\r
1481 memory to run your X server with 16-, 24-, or 32-bit color depth. If
\r
1482 you're using "startx" to start the X server, try giving the command as
\r
1483 "<tt>startx -- -bpp 24</tt>" (or 16, or 32). On newer X servers you
\r
1484 may have to use -depth instead of -bpp. Further details on
\r
1485 configuring your X server are beyond the scope of this FAQ.</p>
\r
1487 <p>If you must run in 8-bit mode, try the following:
\r
1488 Avoid background images that use up all your colors. If you
\r
1489 run Netscape, try starting it up with the <tt>-install</tt> command-line
\r
1490 option; this gives Netscape its own private colormap that X will
\r
1491 switch to when Netscape has the keyboard focus. </p>
\r
1493 <p>If all else fails, another possibility is to run xboard in
\r
1494 monochrome (black and white) mode by giving it the <tt>-mono</tt>
\r
1495 command-line option. XBoard will try this by itself in some cases.
\r
1496 Monochrome mode works only with bitmap pieces, not pixmap pieces, so
\r
1497 trying to use it may give you the error "XPM pieces cannot be used in
\r
1498 monochrome mode". To get around this, either use the -bitmapDirectory
\r
1499 command line option to point XBoard to the directory containing the
\r
1500 bitmap pieces included with the XBoard source code, or rebuild XBoard
\r
1501 with pixmap support disabled, using "./configure --disable-xpm ; make
\r
1502 clean ; make".</p>
\r
1504 <hr /><h3><a name="tag-C.21">[C.21]
\r
1505 When I log in to freechess.org, the Enter key doesn't work, and I
\r
1506 have to use Ctrl+J instead. But when I use WinBoard, Ctrl+J doesn't
\r
1507 work either, so I'm stuck.
\r
1510 <p>This is a pretty rare problem. It should only arise if you have to
\r
1511 reach freechess.org by telnetting (or connecting with WinBoard
\r
1512 /icsport=23) from a Windows PC to a Unix box, and then telnetting from
\r
1513 there to freechess.org. The Enter key should always work when
\r
1514 connecting directly from your PC to freechess.org.</p>
\r
1516 <p>The best way to get around the problem is to run timeseal on the
\r
1517 intermediate Unix box instead of telnet. Get the appropriate version
\r
1518 of timeseal for your box from ftp.freechess.org and follow the
\r
1519 directions in the help files on FICS.</p>
\r
1521 <p>If you can't run timeseal for some reason, there are some things
\r
1522 you can do to make telnet stay in line mode instead of going to
\r
1523 character mode. Then the Enter key will work. First, try "telnet
\r
1524 freechess.org 5000" instead of "telnet freechess.org."
\r
1525 If that still doesn't work, then when the Enter key stops working,
\r
1526 type the following. Here <tt><</tt> and <tt>></tt> surround the
\r
1527 names of keys.</p>
\r
1530 <Ctrl+S><Ctrl+]>mode line<Enter>
\r
1533 <hr /><h3><a name="tag-C.22">[C.22]
\r
1534 XBoard says, "Failed to start first chess program gnuchessx
\r
1535 on localhost: gnuchessx: No such file or directory."
\r
1538 <p>XBoard is looking for GNU Chess 4.0. If you didn't want to use
\r
1539 XBoard with GNU Chess, please see topic <a href="#tag-C.6">[C.6]</a>.
\r
1540 If you did want to use GNU Chess 4.0, be sure you have it installed and
\r
1541 that it is on your $PATH. If you wanted to use GNU Chess 5 instead,
\r
1542 see topic <a href="#tag-D.6">[D.6]</a>.</p>
\r
1545 <h2><a name="tag-D">[D] Crafty and other topics</a></h2>
\r
1547 <h3><a name="tag-D.1">[D.1] What is XChess?</a></h3>
\r
1549 <p>XChess is an older chessboard program that is no longer supported. XChess was
\r
1550 written for X version 10, and you may or may not be able to build and run it
\r
1551 on an X11 system.</p>
\r
1553 <p>XChess has only one significant feature that is not present in XBoard: Two
\r
1554 humans can play chess using XChess on different machines, without using the
\r
1555 Internet Chess Server as an intermediary. This feature is of interest only if
\r
1556 you don't have network connectivity to the Internet Chess Server.</p>
\r
1558 <p>Note: There actually have been several different programs called "XChess" in
\r
1559 circulation at various times. The above describes one that was associated
\r
1560 with GNU Chess.</p>
\r
1563 <h3><a name="tag-D.2">[D.2] What is Winsock Chess?</a></h3>
\r
1565 <p>Winsock Chess is a program that lets two people play chess across a
\r
1566 network. It runs only under Microsoft Windows. Some of the code in
\r
1567 Winsock Chess is derived from GNU Chess, but it is not maintained by
\r
1568 the GNU Chess team. You can get a copy from the Internet Chess
\r
1569 Library; see topic <a href="#tag-A.2">[A.2]</a>. For more information,
\r
1570 contact its author, Donald Munro,
\r
1571 ccahdm<a name="nospam04">@</a>beluga.upe.ac.za.</p>
\r
1574 <h3><a name="tag-D.3">[D.3] What is Crafty?</a></h3>
\r
1576 <p>Crafty is a freely-available chess program written by Bob Hyatt.
\r
1577 Bob is the main author of the well-known chess program Cray
\r
1578 Blitz. Crafty is a very strong program, its code is available, commented
\r
1579 and fairly readable, and its author is actively working on improvements.</p>
\r
1581 <p>You can download Crafty from <a
\r
1582 href="ftp://ftp.cis.uab.edu/pub/hyatt/"
\r
1583 >ftp://ftp.cis.uab.edu/pub/hyatt/</a>. Start by getting the <a
\r
1584 href="ftp://ftp.cis.uab.edu/pub/hyatt/read.me" >read.me</a> file and
\r
1585 reading it. Among other things, this file contains instructions on
\r
1586 how to install Crafty as a command-line application on your machine.</p>
\r
1588 <p>There is a Crafty mailing list.
\r
1589 To subscribe, send email to
\r
1590 majordomo<a name="nospam05">@</a>cis.uab.edu, with
\r
1591 "subscribe crafty-list" in the body.</p>
\r
1594 <h3><a name="tag-D.4">[D.4] How do I use Crafty with XBoard?</a></h3>
\r
1596 <p>First, you need to get Crafty and install it as a command-line
\r
1597 application on your machine. See topic <a href="#tag-D.3">[D.3]</a>.</p>
\r
1599 <p>To use Crafty with XBoard, give the -fcp
\r
1600 parameter like this:</p>
\r
1603 xboard -fcp "./crafty" -fd <I>crafty_directory</I>
\r
1606 <p>Here <I>crafty_directory</I> is the directory where you installed Crafty.
\r
1607 You can add more xboard options at the end of the command line.</p>
\r
1609 <p>Crafty 15.14 or later is required to work properly with XBoard
\r
1610 4.0.0 or later. We generally recommend using the latest versions of
\r
1611 both XBoard and Crafty.</p>
\r
1614 <h3><a name="tag-D.5">[D.5] How do I use Crafty with WinBoard?</a></h3>
\r
1616 <p>First, you need to get Crafty and install it as a command-line
\r
1617 application on your machine. See topic <a href="#tag-D.3">[D.3]</a>.
\r
1618 It is best to use the latest version of Crafty with the latest version
\r
1619 of WinBoard to make sure all features are compatible and function
\r
1620 correctly. You can install Crafty in any directory you like.</p>
\r
1622 <p>You also need to get WinBoard and install it in the normal way
\r
1623 using its built-in installer. You can do that either before or after
\r
1624 you install Crafty.</p>
\r
1626 <p>After both Crafty and WinBoard are installed separately, follow the
\r
1627 directions in the WinBoard Help file (included with WinBoard) for
\r
1628 connecting new chess engines to WinBoard.</p>
\r
1630 <p>If you want to have Crafty act as an automated computer player on a
\r
1631 chess server, see topic <a href="#tag-B.16">[B.16]</a>. Before you try
\r
1632 to get that working, be sure you can play against Crafty locally,
\r
1633 first without WinBoard, then with it. Also be sure you can use
\r
1634 WinBoard to play on the chess server yourself, without having Crafty
\r
1635 connected to it. You have to crawl before you can walk!</p>
\r
1638 <h3><a name="tag-D.6">[D.6] How do I use GNU Chess 5 with XBoard?</a></h3>
\r
1640 <p>By default, XBoard still tries to use GNU Chess 4 by running the
\r
1641 command "gnuchessx". That's why if you don't have GNU Chess 4, you
\r
1642 get the error message "Failed to start first chess program gnuchessx
\r
1643 on localhost: gnuchessx: No such file or directory."</p>
\r
1645 <p>If you have GNU Chess 5, the command should be "gnuchess xboard"
\r
1646 instead. To make XBoard use this command, give the -fcp parameter
\r
1650 xboard -fd <I>gnuchess_directory</I> -fcp "./gnuchess xboard"
\r
1653 <p>Here <I>gnuchess_directory</I> is the directory where you installed
\r
1654 GNU Chess 5 and its book. You can add more xboard options at the
\r
1655 end of the command line.</p>
\r
1658 ** End of XBoard/WinBoard FAQ **
\r
projects / xboard.git / blob