NetChess & DP Chess II

2 posts, 2 voices

Well I found a thread on here which also referenced a thread on stardot re David Pilling’s Chess and managed to track down a 32bit version of Chess II v2.09 from 2002. It works but I do seem to have to use the menu option “Force Move” after each of my moves to make the computer do anything – it doesn’t seem to make moves otherwise. I am not a champion chess player but Chess II seems to play a strong game.
Does anyone know how to make the computer opponent play its moves (or faster if it will eventually make a move) with out having to use the Force Move option. Also does anyone know how to increase the board size – was fine on the Risc PC but with the modern monitor on the Pi it is a bit on the small side.

Whilst playing the computer is great and all (especially with a decent engine that puts up a good game) but playing on line is even better.
Have played games previously at lichess.org using firefox on a PC. Tried lichess on Netsurf and Origyn Web Browser (OWB – latest version from Michael – saw your post today Michael about an even newer and better version you are testing – yes please) without success. Have not tried lichess.org on IRIS yet but expect that it may work (will see).

Having a client application to play on line chess would be ideal…
And it seems somehow better to be playing a game of chess against a person online rather than blasting some pixels on Doom (yes discovered WAD files recently and that they work fine on the RISC OS version)

I found reference to NetChess on line previously but have always come up empty handed. I recently found a shareware demo download of Netchess. It is shareware and supposedly works for 30 days prior to needing to register and pay. Except that there does not seem to be anywhere to buy it from – not on the original website (non-existent). Perhaps it could be ‘hacked’ (maybe even 32 bit-ed) and a version loaded on !PlingStore (which would also enable a payment option). I just managed to play a quick game (and got beaten) on Freechess.org using the demo version. It worked well. I had to run it using Aemulor as it is not 32bit. It did hang at the conclusion of the game but was able to escape using alt-break. Was running it on RO 5.31 on a RPi4b 4Gb (actually via VNC from the PC using ROD wifi and network stack).
So any help with finding a full copy of this program would be great and happy to pay a nominal amount if needed. It was written by Colin Granville – version is 1.01 Shareware Demo (6 May 2001) – has the same board layout as Chess II (believe Colin wrote both of them).

Suppose contacting David or Colin could work – are they still active around here?

not sure how to post images here but have a screengrab if it helps

1 day ago