Computer Moderated Micro Chess
It will come as a surprise to many that before the age of chess computers and the microcomputer program, the game of chess was originally played by two human beings.
An intelligent chess playing program would take up an entire book on it's own, so it was decided to develop a program which would be of genuine use to anyone who enjoyed playing chess or would like to learn more about it. Chess clubs could also find the program helpful.
The program can be used simply as a replacement for a chess board and pieces. The two players enter their moves in usual standard chess notation. However, extra features have been included to produce worthwhile advantages over the traditional board and pieces.
Only moves which are the correct colour, are from occupied squares and move to a square which can be reached by that piece, will be accepted. Pieces which are 'taken' in the process are removed from the board.
It is up to the humans to watch out for rule violations as in normal chess.
A useful feature is that the initial board may be set up for chess problems or chess variants and games of up to 100 moves can be stored and analysed step by step. Play can continue from any stage of a saved game or the present game can be re-started and then played from any subsequent move.
Summary of commands and options
1. Set up board. Enter 'Y' when asked. Then sequentially from the top left, place each piece using a single letter. Move on using 'Space'.
White pieces: P=pawn, R=rook, N=knight, K=king, Q=queen, B=bishop
Black pieces: the same but with 'Shift' held.
White always plays up the board.
2. Remove piece. 'R' then enter the position. Play continues with the next player.
3. Save game. 'S'.
4. Load game. 'L', then press 'Play'. This loads the first file found.
5. Step through game. 'Shift' '3' initiates step mode. 'Space' steps through each move. 'Shift' '3' then ends mode.
6. Quit. 'Q' resets for new game. |
