Polyglot for Android

-
There was an interesting discussion on the TalkChess forum whether a chess GUI running on the Dalvik Virtual Machine could merely support a single protocol, and use an adapter, like Polyglot, to support other protocols. Even though Chess for Android already supports both UCI and XBoard/WinBoard, I was intrigued by the question, and decided to give it a try. First, I compiled the polyglot sources for ARM-based Android devices (I had to make a few source changes to make that work). Then I edited a polyglot.ini file pointing to my own UCI engine bikjump1.8 compiled for ARM:

[Polyglot]
EngineCommand=bikjump1.8
EngineName=BikJumpAsXBoard
EngineDir=/data/local/tmp/
[Engine]

And gave it a try directly from the command line:

$ ./polyglot_for_android
PolyGlot 1.4.67b by Fabien Letouzey.
new
st 1
post
go
1 -1 0 1 h4
1 +0 0 3 h3
1 +2 0 6 g3
1 +12 0 20 Nh3
1 +17 0 22 Nf3
2 +0 0 46 Nf3 Nf6
3 +17 0 148 Nf3 Nf6 Nc3
4 +0 1 772 Nf3 Nf6 Nc3 Nc6
5 +2 2 1691 Nf3 Nf6 Nc3 Nc6 g3
6 +0 5 3120 Nf3 Nf6 Nc3 Nc6 g3 g6
7 +5 8 6163 Nf3 Nf6 Nc3 Nc6 g3 g6 Bg2
8 +0 14 13282 Nf3 Nf6 Nc3 Nc6 g3 g6 Bg2 Bg7
9 +5 49 57243 Nf3 Nc6 Nc3 Nh6 Nd5 Nf5 b3 g6 Bb2
9 +5 49 81920 Nf3 Nc6 Nc3 Nh6 Nd5 Nf5 b3 g6 Bb2
move g1f3

So far, so good! I then tried the same approach in Chess for Android. After installing the polyglot_for_android binary, polyglot.ini file and of course bikjump1.8, I could start polyglot_for_android as XBoard engine, but under water talking to the UCI engine bikjump1.8. So, in principle, one could simply implement one protocol in the GUI, and rely on the adapter to support the other protocol.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Checkers Move Generation

-
I was able to make a small improvement in the checkers move generator (written in Java for the Android SDK). The following table shows run times of several perft depths before and after optimization when run on the emulator (which should mimic actual run times on the phone quite well). DEPTH #LEAF NODES ORIGINAL OPTIMIZED TIME TIME ==================================== 7 179740 2.9s 1.9s 8 845931 14.2s 9.7s 9 3963680 66.3s 45.6s 10 18391564 294.6s 208.7s P.S. Runtimes for a C++ checkers move generator on a 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo are given at my checkers page .
Read more

Connecting Chess for Android to a Remote Server

-
Image
I have received several questions on how to connect Chess for Android running on an Android device (e.g. a phone) as client to a remote chess server (e.g. a powerful desktop), so I decided to write a small document with detailed instructions. What you will need: The server software from Bernhard Wallner's chess utilities , suited for your server's operating system (if, say, your desktop runs Windows, you will need to download the Windows version). You do not need to download the client software in this case. The network enabled version of Chess for Android . On the server, start the engine server software, and construct a new row for every engine you want to run remotely. Assign a name, port number, and select the full path to each engine binary (an executable that runs on the server). You can also supply command line options for starting the engine. Check the active checkboxes and click start when done. This yields something similar to the screenshots below. Here, I have s
Read more

Connecting with the DGT Board

-
Image
After all the fun I had connecting Chess for Android with the Millennium  over Bluetooth, I was curious if I could provide similar support for the DGT electronic chess boards. Some of these have Bluetooth capabilities, most use USB connections, and some older models, like the one I have, still use the RS-232 connector. To my pleasant surprise, by combining the original serial cable of DGT with a USB-to-serial cable and a female-USB-to-USB-C cable, I was able to get an actually working connection between my DGT board and my tablet or phone. Next was implementing support in Chess for Android. Luckily, DGT kindly shared the protocol documentation with me, and after a fun weekend of hacking, Chess for Android now proudly supports DGT electronic chess boards as well.
Read more