Aart's Blog

Jim Ablett very kindly posted an Android Chess Engine Bundle with various UCI and XBoard engines that can be imported in Chess for Android . UCI: daydreamer-175-ja  greko-82-ja    redqueen-098-ja  stockfish-211-ja diablo-051b-ja     jazz-501-ja    rotor-04-ja      sungorus-14-ja doublecheck-21-ja  komodo-13-ja   simplex-098-ja garbochess-3-ja    pepito-159-ja  sissa-20-ja XBOARD: uzz-os-11-27-08          kmtchess-121-ja   scidlet-361-b2-ja chess-one-201-ja         knightcap-36-ja   sjeng-112-ja crafty-234-ja            mizar-030-ja      sloppy-023-ja exchess-054-beta-ja      mskcp-145-ja      surprise-43-beta13-ja gfc-08-rev5-ja...

Group C has just finished a complete thirty seconds-per-move tournament in Chess for Android , played from both sides of all positions in the Nunn opening suite under the conditions described earlier. Congratulations to Gary Linscott for GarboChess' promotion to Group B. All games can be downloaded from the tournament page .                            1        2         3         4        5                     1 GarboChess3                 *     10.5-9.5   9.5-10.5 15.0-5.0 16.0-4.0  51.0/80 2 Daydreamer 1.75 JA        9.5-10.5    *     12.0-8.0  14.5-5.5 13.0-7.0  49.0/80 3 GNU Chess 5.07.153.3b-32 10.5-9.5  8.0-12.0     *     11.0-9.0 16.0-4.0 ...

After many more cycles on my Nexus One, Group D has just finished a complete thirty seconds-per-move tournament in Chess for Android , played from both sides of all positions in the Nunn opening suite under the conditions described earlier. Quite a shuffle-up in the results this time compared to the qualification tournament. Congratulations to Aaron Becker for Daydreamer's promotion to Group C. All games can be downloaded from the tournament page .                       1        2         3         4        5 1 Daydreamer 1.75 JA     *     12.0-8.0  11.0-9.0  14.5-5.5 16.0-4.0  53.5/80 2 sloppy              8.0-12.0     *     14.0-6.0  10.5-9.5 16.0-4.0  48.5/80 3 RedQueen 0.9.8 JA   9.0-11.0  6.0-14.0     *     11....

The Micro-KIM arrived today! I did some initial experimentation with my 6502 cross-assembler and was happy that the paper tape format l recently added could be uploaded to the device without any problems. What better first program to write than "HELLO WORLD" (except only HELLO fits on the display)? It was fun figuring out how to control the display using low level 6502 programming.

I have extended my cross-assembler with a built-in disassembler that can directly read from paper tape format (and a few other formats). For example, the following test assembly program       .org $0200       ldx #100 loop  dex       bne loop       brk is, under option -P, assembled into paper tape format (text representation): ;060200A264CAD0FD0003A5 ;0000010001 Option -dP activates the disassembler on paper tape format represented as text, which disassembles the format above back to: $0200 a2 64  ldx #$64 $0202 ca     dex $0203 d0 fd  bne $0202 $0205 00     brk

After burning cycles on my Nexus One for many days, Group E has just finished a complete thirty seconds-per-move tournament,  played from both sides of all positions in the Nunn opening suite under the conditions described earlier. Congratulations to Ben-Hur Carlos Vieira Langoni Jr for RedQueen's promotion to Group D. All games can be downloaded from the tournament page .                     1         2         3         4         5                     1 RedQueen 0.9.8 JA     *     10.0-10.0 14.5-5.5  17.0-3.0  19.5-0.5  61.0/80 2 greko8.2          10.0-10.0     *     14.5-5.5  16.0-4.0  18.5-1.5  59.0/80 3 Sungorus 1.4 JA    5.5-14.5  5.5-14.5     *     13.0-7.0 ...

As a present, my wife ordered the Micro-KIM from Briel Computers for me, which is a modern replica of the KIM-1 microcomputer. Even though I learned machine code on the 6510 of the Commodore 64, I remember seeing the KIM-1 in an electronics store much earlier, and I was intrigued right away. I can't wait for it to arrive to do some vintage programming. In anticipation of the Micro-KIM's arrival, I extended my 65xx cross-assembler (available for Windows, Linux and MacOS) with the paper tape format , either in the original binary format (option -p) or in a text representation (option -P) so that its output can feed directly into the Kim's terminal interface. I simply generated the format based on old documentation and it is still untested. If someone is interested in trying it out, I would appreciate early feedback. Otherwise, I will report back when I get my Micro-KIM. For example, using the assembler on this little test assembly program: .org  $0100 .byte $FF $E...

Group F has just finished a complete thirty seconds-per-move tournament, played from both sides of all positions in the Nunn opening suite under the conditions described earlier. Congratulations to Evert Glebbeek for Jazz 's promotion to Group E! All games can be downloaded from the tournament page .                 1        2         3         4         5  1 Jazz v5.01 JA    *     15.5-4.5  18.0-2.0  18.5-1.5  19.5-0.5 71.5/80 2 ZCT-0.3.2500  4.5-15.5     *     13.5-6.5  17.0-3.0  16.0-4.0 51.0/80 3 BikJump v2.1  2.0-18.0  6.5-13.5     *     12.5-7.5  12.0-8.0 33.0/80 4 tscp181       1.5-18.5  3.0-17.0  7.5-12.5     *     12.5-7.5 24.5/80 5 umax48w       0.5-19.5  4.0-16.0...

Charles Bond wrote a nifty 6502 simulator, called Soft6502 , which I find useful for testing small programs written for the 65xx microprocessor family. The simulator supports the full 6502 instruction set and two 8-bit ports for input and output.   Programs can be entered one byte at the time through the keyboard or, more conveniently, loaded from file. The simulator uses the H6X file format , which is a simple, but surprisingly versatile way of representing 6502 code (essentially an ASCII representation of addresses followed by bytes). I have extended my 65xx cross-assembler (available for Windows, Linux, and MacOS) to support this H6X file format, so that its output can be directly fed into Soft6502.

I just released version 3.0.2 of Chess for Android, available at the Android market and as direct download . This release enhances XBoard/WinBoard support (infinite analysis, resign feature, older idioms used by various engines).