Winboard Forum

Hello Winboard world,
For my graduation project I have been charged with a kind of Winboard interface consisting in a 16-keys heyboard (1,2,..7,8, a,b,..g,h) to enter moves to the PC through the serial port in long algebraic format, and a 8 digits display to show the outputs or moves generated by the engines...

The background goal is to play using a wooden board, but instead of watching the PC monitor, using as input/output devices the 16-keys and the display. (Supposedly, it will produce "eyes relief" )

I am mainly a hardware student and programming tasks are a bit hard for me . I have been browsing through files of "xboard-4.2.7.tar.gz" from Winboard, but I got loss.

Any help on related links to this problem or on how to start with Winboard source code would be welcome.

Anticipated thanks

Hi,
I guess you find most of the information you're looking for on this site:
http://www.tim-mann.org/xboard/engine-intf.html

best regards
Roman

Pegin wrote:Any help on related links to this problem or on how to start with Winboard source code would be welcome.

I don't want to sound trite, but you'd start with WinMain() in the file winboard.c

Your question is awfully broad. If you can make it more specific, I imagine Alessandro Scotti can help you.

Good luck with your project.
Dan H.

Roman Hartmann wrote:Hi,
I guess you find most of the information you're looking for on this site:
http://www.tim-mann.org/xboard/engine-intf.html

best regards
Roman

Hi Roman

Tha't just the protocall. It sounds like what he is looking for is a guide or roadmap for the source code. I don't know of such a thing.

Best
Dan H.

Dan Honeycutt wrote:

Roman Hartmann wrote:Hi,
I guess you find most of the information you're looking for on this site:
http://www.tim-mann.org/xboard/engine-intf.html

best regards
Roman

Hi Roman

Tha't just the protocall. It sounds like what he is looking for is a guide or roadmap for the source code. I don't know of such a thing.

Best
Dan H.

An outlining of your program might be a helpful beginning.

Pradu wrote:An outlining your program might be a helpful beginning.

Is that message to me or the original poster?

Best
Dan H.

Dan Honeycutt wrote:

Roman Hartmann wrote:Hi,
I guess you find most of the information you're looking for on this site:
http://www.tim-mann.org/xboard/engine-intf.html

best regards
Roman

Hi Roman

Tha't just the protocall. It sounds like what he is looking for is a guide or roadmap for the source code. I don't know of such a thing.

Best
Dan H.

Hi Dan,
you might be right about that, of course. I understood that he wants to connect some hardware (keyboard/display) with an engine that uses the winboard protocol. But maybe I got it wrong ...

best regards
Roman

Dan Honeycutt wrote:

Pradu wrote:An outlining of your program might be a helpful beginning.

Is that message to me or the original poster?

Best
Dan H.

To original poster.

Pegin wrote:Hello Winboard world,
For my graduation project I have been charged with a kind of Winboard interface consisting in a 16-keys heyboard (1,2,..7,8, a,b,..g,h) to enter moves to the PC through the serial port in long algebraic format, and a 8 digits display to show the outputs or moves generated by the engines...

The background goal is to play using a wooden board, but instead of watching the PC monitor, using as input/output devices the 16-keys and the display. (Supposedly, it will produce "eyes relief" )

I am mainly a hardware student and programming tasks are a bit hard for me . I have been browsing through files of "xboard-4.2.7.tar.gz" from Winboard, but I got loss.

Any help on related links to this problem or on how to start with Winboard source code would be welcome.

Anticipated thanks

If you have question about x-/winboard may you find here the right answers: http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/

You can allso ask me as X-/Winboard developer via e-mail

Best,
Daniel

The solution to this is fairly straightforward. All winboard engines communicate via standard input and standard out. First, you need to redirect the standard output and standard input of the chess engine to the serial port. With linux this may be as simple as running the engine with the command:

enginename <> /dev/ttyS1

or something along those lines. I'm not sure what the windows equivalant is. Use a scope to see if it's physically coming out of the wire. That's the easy part.

Next you'll need to wire up a microprocessor ( a pic or something ) to listen on the other side. Find one with a built in UART, otherwise you'll have to do the RS232 protocol in code, which is a pain. Your micro will also need enouh pins for your keys and displays, obviously. Then you need to program your micro to handle all the winboard commands that may come from the engine. i.e. if you see the string e2e4 come in on the wire, you need to light up the proper leds. And you need to form outgoing commands also when the user types in moves on the keys.

It's a good project, good luck with it!

- Dan Pineo

A hardware interface to Winboard has already been accomplished several times.
http://www.ht-lab.com/freecores/nios_ch ... chess.html
http://www.tech.plym.ac.uk/spmc/misc/fpga_chess.html
http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ee545/f99/ntaasb/web/design.htm
http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ee545/f99/c/web/docs/proj.pdf

Related:
http://dmt.fh-joanneum.at/kd3/objects/a ... s_game.pdf

There are lots of others besides these.