Using Winboard as a chess clock for two human players

[blindadrenaline]

Hi all, my name is Che Martin, happy to be a member here.
I am a blind chess player that uses Winboard. I am wondering if there is a way to have winboard set up for two human players so I can time a game. Often, two blind players will talk on Skype or other voice software and let each other know their moves, while keeping track of the position on a physical braille board. At the same time, a third party will track moves and run a clock for both sides.
The ability for blind players to enter moves quickly with the keyboard, and for Winboard to announce any illegal moves would be great for timekeeping, but I can't figure out a way to do this.
The blind community has a really nice piece of software called EriClock for timing standard games, but with Winboard, 960 games could also be timed, in addition, Winboard has other features that are superior when using a screenreader and timing games.
So bottom line: is there a way to have a clock running, and enter moves for both sides to keep track of a game between two human players?
Much thanks for any advice.

[H.G.Muller]

As it happens I have been working this past month on preparing a new accessible version of WinBoard, based on the latest 4.9. (The previous accesible version was based on WinBoard 4.5.2.) The feature you want was also one of the requests from the blind player I am cooperating with.

I now made it such that using the 'Say Clock Time' menu item (accelerator keystroke Alt + T), which speaks the current clock values, would also automatically set the clocks running when used in Edit Game mode. Where moves can be played for both sides, but the clocks would normally not run. So the procedure would be to start WinBoard in Game Viewer mode, use the Time Control Options dialog to set the required time control, and start a new game through New Game in the File menu (Ctrl-N). This would automatically leave WinBoard in Edit Game mode if no engine is loaded. When you are ready to start the game you can then press Alt+T to start the clocks.

An experimental version that does this can be downloaded from http://hgm.nubati.net/new49x.zip . This zip file just contains a single winboard.exe file, which you could use to replace the winboard.exe in the old install of WinBoard-4.5 for JAWS.

The development is not completely finalized: it also appears desirable that the clocks can be paused and restarted. I am still working on that.

[blindadrenaline]

Hey, that is fantastic!
Thanks so much for putting in the work to make this even better for the blind.
Looking forward to checking it out.
Che

[blindadrenaline]

I've been testing this experimental version, and it works very well. Being able to time 960 games along with checking for legal moves will be a cool thing, as right now we're using an Excel spread sheet with a macro running for the clocks
I tried writing you off forum, but not sure if I did it correctly.
One suggestion was to simply allow the pause function to freeze and unfreeze the clocks, but I'm sure you've considered that.
Anyway, if you need any blind testers, feel free to reach out.
Stay well.
Che