Chess Engine Communication Protocol

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I am exploring extending Chess for Android with some rudimentary support for the Chess Engine Communication Protocol (often simply called the XBoard or WinBoard protocol), which will enable importing not just UCI but also XBoard/WinBoard engines.

A very first prototype is functioning. I made an Android binary of the engine FairyMax (written by H.G. Muller, who was also very helpful providing more background), and imported this in Chess for Android. Some screenshots are shown below.


I still have to deal with a lot of details, but it will be fun to support both protocols, and even run tournaments between UCI and XBoard/WinBoard engines.

Comments

vrthra said…
Hey,
Thanks a lot for this effort. I came across your site while trying to play shatranj on my tablet. I downloaded the fairymax48q and the associated fmax.ini from your site, but it seems that on importing the engine, it cannot find the fmax.ini. Any idea where I should place the file?

regards,
rahul
March 27, 2012 at 12:14 PM
Aart Bik said…
Make sure that you do a one-time "install engine from SD" for both the fairymax48q engine and the fmax.ini file itself (so that both are copied to internal memory of your device).

After that you "import engine" on fairymax48q (you will see fmax.ini listed as well, but obviously you cannot import it; it is just important it resides at the same place as the engine).

Hope this helps.
March 27, 2012 at 12:18 PM
Anonymous said…
Hi,
Following up on vrthra's question - these instructions worked fine for me, and I can play a normal game against fairymax now, but is it possible to actually play shatranj, or any of the chess variants supported by fairymax, with Chess for Android? That's actually what I was looking for. If you could do that, man it would be awesome.
Congrats and thanks for a great program, either way.
-Tolga
August 14, 2012 at 12:22 PM
Aart Bik said…
Hi Tolga,
Sorry, but Chess for Android is just for conventional chess, no other variants.
Aart
August 14, 2012 at 2:10 PM
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