Jump to content
IGNORED

Colossus Chess 4.1


devwebcl

Recommended Posts

22 hours ago, drac030 said:

Noone. That is the decision of the assembler ($xx-constant, where constant>$xx) without the coder knowing. Sadly, same with STA $FFFE,Y which is much harder to avoid.

 

As far I understand `STA $FFFE,X` was unintentionally but if he thinks he was on ZP why he use Y register? `STA $FFFE,Y` must be intentionally codded then `STA $FFFE,X` can be too. Right?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As said, there is no LDA/STA zp,Y addressing mode, so abs,Y is used instead when X is not available for a reason. Assemblers usually automatically (and silently) promote LDA $80,Y into LDA $0080,Y, so with some bad luck you can live half your life not even fully realizing that LDA zp,Y does not exist.

 

The wrap-around could of course be intentional if the author is a pervert. But most people are not, thus I think it is more probable that the negative base address comes from the accident I sketched out above, i.e. addressing some zp table with index register increased by some constant, this constant being subtracted from the base address: LDA zptable-$80,X. Then moving "zptable" below $80 shifts out the base address below 0, which most assemblers silently accept.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, drac030 said:

But what is the point?

 

PS. "must have written" and "must have known", if I am not mistaken.

Yes my English is bad. Next time I use Google Translator :] Sorry. I'm better at reading then writing.

 

Point is it looked so bizarre to me that I thought it was board data. I was trying to understand why someone code this way.

Edited by zbyti
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I did not analyze the Colossus Chess code, so I cannot say why this or that instruction was used in that particular place of that particular program. But the most common cases have already been provided: 1) X is already in use, 2) you forget that zp,Y is in fact abs,Y.

Edited by drac030
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Hi all,

Since I always hated the 3D in Colossus Chess 4.1, I 'hacked' it so it is now forced into 2D on startup. I always changed the default of the the Line Depth into 5 instead of 2 (that is only interesting for the alternate screen view (not for the strength of the game)

And last but not least I changed the default colors to blue and a darkgrey border. Looks much better. 

If you are interested, let me know. 

Last but not least:
This chess program is really fabulous. In the Playing mode "5" (infinite thinking) you can really get a very decent level in playing from Colossus Chess. You simply do not have to be in a hurry. In not too much time it seeks already 6 PLY and the longer it thinks, the deeper. Quite impressive. 

 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi all,

 

This is Colossus Chess 4.1 with my own 'hack' 

 

  • Blue playfield, grey border
  • 2D chess set by default
  • Line depth = 5 by default (visible in the alternate screen)

 

Colossus Chess 4.1 needs to be on a ED formatted disk (so beware, do not try the save function on your HD partition!!) 

The 4.1 hack is able to save a chess position on disk. It uses sector $400 and up for that. Use Shift + D for that function. 

 

I have tested it, it works. But again BEWARE ... it simply saves DOS independently and directly to these sectors. You won't see anything in the directory, but the data is there!

This Load/Save was not done by me. 

 

COLCH41.ATR

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...