Request to someone with sone (basic ?) compilation skills

[EugeneCarey]

Run these old GNU Chess programs, along with John Stanback's and a few other classics, along with a few reference programs, and see what kind of performance those old things can do.

Hello !

I've played some games with Gnu 3.1 and here are the results, mixed in my Dinosaur League, although the Gnu 3.1 ones were played with another computer.

Gnu 3.1 did crash around 10 times out of 128 games, so its results could be even better, but I found it's strenght quite stunning for a 1991 free engine. (Jim I can send you the games if you want, but honestly I should test with my chess dedicated computer first ... the fault could be there ...)

There were so many versions of GNU Chess 3.1 that it's hard to figure out which was 'best'.

I heard that the final version (3.21+ I think...) was supposed to be stronger than GNU Chess 4.0 was when it was released.

I assume that the later patches to GC4 improved things, though.

4m+2s, 32 set positions ...

Code: Select all

Rank Name                    Elo    +    - games score oppo. draws
  22 Crafty 16.19           2492   13   13  2240   62%  2400   24%
  63 CrazyBishop 0045       2367   14   14  2048   53%  2341   22%
  73 Phalanx 21             2341   17   17  1344   51%  2333   16%
  98 ZChess 1.2             2257   14   13  2112   45%  2297   21%
 103 GnuChess 4.077         2240   13   13  2304   48%  2254   20%
 118 InmiChess 3.01         2174   18   18  1216   49%  2182   18%
 125 Lambchop 6.90          2143   16   16  1600   42%  2210   15%
 132 ExChess 2.51           2096   14   14  1984   44%  2147   21%
 140 GnuChess 3.1           2035   54   55   128   42%  2100   15%
 145 LaDameBlanche 2.0c     1991   21   21   960   33%  2128   16%
 147 Faile 1.4.4            1958   31   31   384   35%  2067   23%



Best wishes.
YS

Thanks for the results.

Not too bad results and the number of games are tolerable.

[Guenther Simon]

I don't believe version 3.1 had Winboard support. That was first introduced in about 1993. The sources for 3.1 are for a Windows GUI program (and it looks like maybe it is Windows 3.1 or that vintage - doesn't compile on a modern system).
.

Hi

Guenther Simon's history pages say 1991 for the first release of GnuChess and in the readme of the source I've downloaded (link in the first post of this thread) one can read :

This is an update of gnuchess version 3.1.

It fixes all known bugs with pawn promotion, undo, and win/draw determination.

It adds the capability of reading xboard position files (xget).

It adds specification of save and load files on the command line (gnuchessr).

Save file format is now human readable.

'white' and 'black' no longer start play but only set the players. If the
computer is to move first use the 'go' command.


New commands are xget and hashlevel.

xget reads an xboard position file.

hashlevel allows you to specify parameters for using the hashfile.

So I believed it could already be winboard.

YS

I just told John Stanback about this thread. Hopefully he will read it and answer if he is not too busy.

Olivier

I guess the reason is that my anthology(chronology in the past)
started its life as a WB/Xboard engines list, before UCI + Polyglot
appeared and I began to list 'both'.
Probably I dropped the 'Xboard' aspect then because of lazyness
and because practically everything which was xboard also ran
in WB too.
I changed the name now to 'Winboard(Xboard)/UCI anthology'
There will be a new update this weekend.

Regards,
Guenther

[jhs]

Hi Olivier,

Thanks for pointing out this thread to me. I contributed my SCP (Stanback Chess Program) which became version 2 of GnuChess. The version that Jim is modifying was my final version. It has no code at all from version 1 which was written by Stuart Cracraft. I did not contribute anything after that. Another programmer added a new move generator and made various other changes for Version 3. I don't know what changes were made after that...

As I recall, various people contributed patches to SCP to get it to work with xboard, so Gnuchess2 was xboard compatible. It's nice that Jim has made some mods to get it to work with Winboard.


John

[EugeneCarey]

John;

Hi Olivier,

Thanks for pointing out this thread to me. I contributed my SCP (Stanback Chess Program) which became version 2 of GnuChess. The version that Jim is modifying was my final version. It has no code at all from version 1 which was written by Stuart Cracraft. I did not contribute

Thanks for the info. I had a feeling that since it looked so similar to your SCP that it couldn't be GNU Chess v1. Looks like nobody has a copy of GNU Chess v1 anymore.


And in case I forget.... Thanks for posting that program.

That was the first reasonable chess program in source that I had. I spent a long time playing with that program, modifying it, etc.

anything after that. Another programmer added a new move generator and made various other changes for Version 3. I don't know what changes were made after that...

As I recall, various people contributed patches to SCP to get it to work with xboard, so Gnuchess2 was xboard compatible. It's nice that Jim has made some mods to get it to work with Winboard.


John

[Alex Guerrero]

Updated. GnuChess 2.01 by author John Stanback !

http://homepages.tesco.net/henry.ablett/jims.html


SCP/GnuChess 2.01 (wb)

Changes:
-------
I've created a new interface file called "interface.c" which includes Jim's modifications
and has the stuff for the windows or curses graphics version removed. I also made some
additional changes to the interface and engine to add Game in X minutes with time
increment and I made a few modifications to get the hash table to work correctly. I had
disabled it by default since it wasn't quite working 20 years ago when I quit working on
SCP/GnuChess and started working on Zarkov.

John Stanback [10-19-08]

[Yannik Snoeckx]

Hi !

Eugene, John, thanks for all the accurate informations.

We have, if I have followed correctly (S for Stanback, C for Cracraft) :
- GnuChess 1.0 (1987??), C) not found
- GnuChess 2.0 (1989 S/C) based on Chess by S
- GnuChess 3.1 (1991, based on Gnu 2 modified by others)
- GnuChess 4 (based on Gnu 3 modified by others)
- GnuChess 5 (C and Sian)

And from John Stanback's perspective
- Chess (1988)
- Zarkov (through many years, commercial, wb version private)
- GnuChess 2.01 (2008)

And of course, thanks to John for the programs.

Best wishes.
YS