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Archive-Name: games/chess/part4
See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge Chess FAQ rec.games.chess.misc FAQ Part 4/4 How to get the FAQ: This document is posted twice monthly to the Usenet newgroups rec.games.chess, rec.answers, and news.answers. Other ways to obtain the faq are * WWW (world wide web) by using the url http://www.drpribut.com/sports/chess.html * ANONYMOUS FTP to rtfm.mit.edu (18.181.0.24) and get the files ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/games/chess/part1 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/games/chess/part2 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/games/chess/part3 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/games/chess/part4 * EMAIL(for those without ftp access) send email to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu leave the subject empty and send usenet/news.answers/games/chess/part1 in the body of the mail message. Parts 2, 3 and 4 can be obtained in the same way as part 1. TABLE OF CONTENTS Miscellaneous [22] Utility Software [23] Using Graphic Chess Symbols in Printed Text [24] Trivia [25] Common Acronyms [26] Rules [27] Variants [28] Disclaimer and Copyright Notice Subject: [22] Utility Software Eric Churchill's Chess Recorder, a (PC) Windows program that records chess moves, suitable for keeping track of postal games, will be uploaded to GEnie and submitted to comp.binaries.ibm.pc. (It even keeps a log of when the moves were entered, which could be used to keep track of postal time limits.) You can enter annotations and other comments and they appear in a separate window when the corresponding move is displayed. The program will print out the moves of the game (with annotations). $15 shareware fee. Graphics are quite good--looks OK even on monochrome systems. The colors of the pieces on color systems are 'interesting.' It can now flip colors to put Black on bottom. Swis-Sys, a $70 Swiss System pairing program, is available from Thad Suits (the author), 2125 1st Ave North, Great Falls, MT, 59401. 406-453-6160. Chaos, another pairing program (Swiss pairing as well as Round Robin), GNU General Public License, runs on the Commodore-Amiga, available from Aminet mirrors "ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/game/" wuarchiv.wustl.edu . For other software utilities see [18]. Subject: [23] Using Graphic Chess Symbols in Printed Text (and Web) There are a few ways of composing chess texts in international figurine notation (or including diagrams in printed text): 23.1 Use a word processor or page-layout program and a chess font. For instance, for the Apple Macintosh there are at least 3 different sets of fonts usable with standard word processors like Microsoft Word, MacWrite, Nisus or WriteNow; or with page-layout programs like Illustrator or PageMaker. Most of these fonts are proprietary (you must purchase them). The fonts usually can be used for both the figurines and the diagrams. A freely available/usable PostScript font, including a variety of figurines, diagrams and _Informant_ symbols, has been posted to "news:comp.fonts"comp.fonts and "news:rec.games.chess"rec.games.chess by Andy Walker ("mailto:anw@maths.nott.ac.uk"anw@maths.nott.ac.uk ). 23.2 Use a chess-specific writing application. ChessWriter (Apple Macintosh) offers an interface including a chessboard and a text window. Moves made on the chessboard are automatically transformed into characters in the text window. ChessWriter is proprietary. CC-Publisher (MS Windows) is another commercial chess-specific writing application. You must have MS Windows, a word processing package (Word, WordPerfect, AmiPro), and a chess database system (for generating diagrams--although this could be done by hand--like ChessBase or Zarkov). It comes in two versions. The basic version supports HP LJ-compatible laserjet printers ($49.95). The deluxe version supports any PostScript printer, and comes with PostScript Type I or TrueType fonts ($139.95). You get integrated utilities to move you from game-entry or diagram-creation to conversion and import into your word processor, with special Tips and Tricks for MS Word, Lotus AmiPro, and WordPerfect users. Extremely easy installation, and your fonts become available to all Windows applications. There's a comprehensive user manual on the installation disk, and you get free technical support! Chess Chow Publications, P.O. Box 3348, Church St. Station, New York, NY 10008. 212-432-6546. e-mail mginsbur@rnd.stern.nyu.edu 23.3 Use the LaTeX chess macros and fonts package by Piet Tutelaers (see [18]). TeX is an advanced public-domain system for text formatting available on mainframes, workstations and personal computers. LaTeX is a set of text-formatting macros for TeX. METAFONT is a font generator program for TeX. For general information on all of these, and pointers to reference manuals, see the FAQ list posting in comp.text.tex.) Once you have the chess package, you'll need to 3a) be able to use METAFONT to generate chess fonts starting from the programs contained in the package; 3b) be able to install the LaTeX macros in your TeX system; and 3c) learn the macro language to format chess texts. Activity 3a can become tiresome if you do not have any help from a TeX wizard. Using LaTeX to write chess text is not very simple, but the results are worth the effort. 23.4 FEN2DIAG and PGN2FIG http://www.chessvariants.com/d.font/fonts.html Freeware by Alastair Scott. Macros for Word 6 or higher. Requires an installed chess font. Version 3.32 is a set of Word macros which allow the user to input a position in Forsyth-Edwards Notation (FEN), or paste a position in from any chess application which uses FEN, then generate a chess board diagram using a TrueType or Adobe Type 1 font (assuming that Adobe Type Manager is installed) which contains chess symbols. If the font contains border characters FEN2DIAG allows the diagram to be generated with or without borders; a powerful feature is a custom macro which works with the Alpine Electronics chess fonts (Linares, Hastings, Zurich) to generate diagrams using any of their six border styles. FEN2DIAG is that it can be customised, via a .INI file, to work with any chess fonts including ones which it doesn't "know" about. The macros currently work with Word for Windows 6.0, 95 or 97. Full installation instructions are provided. The free Cheq TrueType font is supplied with the ZIP file; the macros support 22 freeware and commercial chess fonts in all. http://www.chessvariants.com/d.font/fonts.html Web Page Information Available on Chess Publishing: Much information may be found at: http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/dtpeng.htm 23.5 Pgn Converter for MS Office Freeware by Michael Berganovsky. MS Office 97/2000. ftp://www.enpassant.dk/pub/chess/ ~683K Open/insert pgn files into an MS Office application such as Word. The moves are converted to figurine notation, and if the game begins with a diagram - specified in the header with a FEN tag (e.g. [FEN "r1b2rk1/pp1p1pp1/1b1p2B1/n1qQ2p1/8/5N2/P3RPPP/4R1K1 w - - 0 1"]), one will be inserted. 23.6 Online Viewing 23.6.1 Palview http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/palview/index.htm Freeware which allows you to take a chess game stored in PGN format and convert it into an html/javascript page for viewing on a website. Using Paldiag you can make html pages (no javascript) with static diagrams. This page is an index to other pages where you can view examples, see different piece sets and boards, read detailed help and - of course - download. The Palview Developers Forum is something like a news group where you can read comments, questions, answers, developments, news etc. Version 2 is current as of this writing. 23.6.2 PGN2HTML Unix or Windows. http://www.csar.cfs.ac.uk/staff/pickles/pgn2html.html Converts chess games in pgn to HTML pages with Java Script for web viewing. Command line utility. Windows users will need to install the C-library, BC40RTL.DLL, to run the program. Subject: [24] Trivia How long is the longest possible chess game? The basic idea is a player may claim a draw if fifty moves elapse without a capture or a pawn advance. Ignoring the special cases where more than 50 moves are allowed by the rules, the answer is after Black's 5948th move, White is able to claim a draw. The simple calculation is (<Pawn_moves + <Captures>- <Duplicates>+ <Drawing_interval_grace_period) * <Drawing_interval, or (16*6 + 30 - 8 + 1) * 50 = 5950; we're able to trim two moves from this total by observing that sequences of Captures/Pawn_moves must have (at least) 4 alternations between the two players. Subject: [25] Common Acronyms * AI Artificial Intelligence ("Anything we can't do with a computer") * BCE _Basic Chess Endings_ (see your local chess book source) * BCF British Chess Federation * BCO _Batsford Chess Openings_ (see [14]) * DT Deep Thought (see [19]) * DT II Deep Thought; latest version * ECO _Encylopedia of Chess Openings_ (see your local chess book source) * ELO Arpad Elo's rating system (see [8]) * FAQ Frequently Asked Question (see news group news.answers) * FIDE Federation Internationale des Echecs (see [1]) * FM FIDE Master (see [1]) * F-S II Fischer-Spassky match held Sept-Nov '92 (Fischer won 10-5) * GM Grandmaster (see [1]) * ICS Internet Chess Server (see [18]) * IGM see GM * IM International Master (see [1]) * IWM International Woman Master (see [1]) * KIA King's Indian Attack (see opening books) * KID King's Indian Defense (see opening books) * MCO _Modern Chess Openings_ (see [14]) * N Novelty (see TN) * NM National Master (or just "Master"; see [8]) * OTB Over-the-board (as opposed to correspondence/postal chess) * QGA Queen's Gambit Accepted (see opening books) * QGD Queen's Gambit Declined (see opening books) * SM Senior Master (see [8]) * TD Tournament Director * TN Theoretical Novelty A new idea in an opening line (usually used when a GM first tries it) * USCF United States Chess Federation (see [2]) * WGM International Woman Grandmaster (see [1]) Subject: [26] Rules coming soon Subject: [27] Variants Over the centuries, many variations of chess have appeared and more have been invented recently by gaming enthusiasts. Charles E. Tuttle Co., Inc. (28 South Main Street, Rutland, VT 05701) has published a general book on the subject: _Chess Variations: Ancient, Regional, and Modern_ by John Gollon. Two of the most popular alternatives to our version of chess are known as Chinese Chess (or shiang-chi or xiangqi) and Shogi (or Japanese Chess). Ishi Press International (76 Bonaventura Drive, San Jose, CA 95134) sells good books on both of these games. (_Chinese Chess for Beginners_ by Sam Sloan and _Shogi for Beginners_ by John Fairbairn. Another book on Chinese Chess is "Chinese Chess" by H.T. Lau published by Tuttle Press. A relatively recent variation of chess is called Ultima and is described in detail in the book _Abbott's New Card Games_ by Robert Abbott. For more information on Chinese Chess visit the Newsgroup rec.games.chinese_chess. A comprehensive book is David Pritchard's "The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants", published in 1994 by the author (contact him at Games & Puzzles Publications, P.O. Box 20, Godalming, Surrey, GU8 4YP, United Kingdom). 383 pages, includes 1450 variants, including regional, modern, and commercial variants, with very detailed coverage of the important regional games (shogi and xiang qi) and the most widely played modern variants (kriegspiel, progressive, giveaway, etc.). 21.99 U.K. pounds (around $36 by credit card) plus postage). For postal players, there are two highly active organizations which play variants : NOST (Knights of the Square Table) in the U.S. (founded 1963) -- contact Phil Cohen <ucalegon@aol.com for more information; and AISE (Associazione Italiana Scacchi Eterodossi) in Italy -- contact Alessandro Castelli, via Potenza 11, I-62010 Villa Potenza (MC), Italy, for information. A magazine called World Game Review, in 1991 published a 99-page special issue devoted to chess variants. This included an index of 677 variants, with full rules for about 450 of those, plus addresses, bibliography, glossary, list of inventors, etc. It covers regional variants lightly (though lots of references are given), but is very strong on modern variants. It was widely praised in chess variant circles, and it is still available from the publisher, $10 postpaid from Michael Keller <Wgreview@aol.com, World Game Review, 1747 Little Creek Drive, Baltimore, MD 21207-5230. A Web site containing information on chess variants has been established by HansHans Bodlaender, of the Department of Computer Science, Utrecht University. "http://www.cs.ruu.nl/~hansb/d.chessvar/index.html"Chess Variants Subject: [28] Disclaimer and Copyright Notice Copyright (c), 1995-2003 Stephen M. Pribut. Permission to copy all or part of this work is granted for individual use, and for copies within a scholastic or academic setting. Copies may not be made or distributed for resale. The no warranty, and copyright notice must be retained verbatim and be displayed conspicuously. You need written authorization before you can include this FAQ in a book and/or a CDROM archive, and/or make a translation, and/or publish/mirror on a website (scholastic and academic use excepted). If anyone needs other permissions that aren't covered by the above, please contact the author. No Warranty: This work is provided on an "as is" basis. The copyright holder makes no warranty whatsoever, either express or implied, regarding the work, including warranties with respect to merchantability or fitness for any purpose. User Contributions:Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic: |
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