Chess

[stepho]

 

Except I forgot to dot the "i"

Edited August 12, 2020 by stepho

[+bhall408]

On 8/11/2020 at 7:40 AM, Andrew Davie said:

This one works best for me.

 

Unfortunately, any of the versions where BIT and CHESS are not visually different, are too easy to quickly read in an, erm, unintended way.

[+Nathan Strum]

1 hour ago, bhall408 said:

Unfortunately, any of the versions where BIT and CHESS are not visually different, are too easy to quickly read in an, erm, unintended way.

Oh, it's intended.

 

But subtlety is funnier.

[+Andrew Davie]

I'm still working on this, on and off.

I really love the mesmerising "thinkbars", as shown in the middle of the video here. The colours, the patterns. I do understand some find it hard to watch, but for me... it's beautiful.  Anyway, moving on - the attached version is 4PQ4 and has had the sort removed. I'm revamping that area of the code, strangely it doesn't seem to make a lot of difference at this stage. It should, so there's an issue there.

 

I've adjusted the aggressiveness by rewarding mobility a bit higher, relative to piece value. It seems to lead quite nicely to attacking moves, good positional play and general attackiveness. I'm quite enjoying playing games against it at the moment - even if it is a bit slow.  Remember, just toggle "T" the turbo-mode when you're playing, and you can have quick(er) games.  Although it's not adept at endgames, it is regularly able to find mates at this stage, if you give it half a chance. I'm quite enjoying playing it.
 

Now I've been doing a bit of thinking, and the more I look at PlusCart, the more I like it. I've had a bit of a break and designed/printed a cartridge for it. Maybe I'll do a chess-themed cartridge, with the chessboard as different colours on the cartridge itself. 

 

chess20200819_4PQ4.bin

[AW127]

Andrew, one short question. What exactly has been changed in the steering of the game in the month June, that in later versions of BitChess it's no longer possible, to steer in STELLA versions like for example V6.0.1, which i had always used since it came out?

 

In STELLA V6.2.1 version, the steering works again, in the current version of the Chess game. But i miss a possibility now in the emulator, to make the PAL picture as big as the NTSC picture for all games, because now the screensize can not be set separatly for both colour encoding systems anymore, like it always was in older versions of the emulator. In older STELLA versions i made the PAL picture a little bit bigger, so that it was similar to the NTSC picture and i really liked that.

 

Therefore i wanted to stay with 6.0.1 for now, but then i can not steer in the newest versions of BitChess. And having different versions of STELLA on the PC at the same time, is also a problem, because then they all use the same configuration-file in folder "Admin/AppData/Roaming/Stella". Not an ideal situation now for me. *lol* ?

Edited August 18, 2020 by AW127

[+Andrew Davie]

5 hours ago, AW127 said:

Andrew, one short question. What exactly has been changed in the steering of the game in the month June, that in later versions of BitChess it's no longer possible, to steer in STELLA versions like for example V6.0.1, which i had always used since it came out?

I don't understand what you mean by "steer" and "steering" here. Do you mean the joystick doesn't work?

 

[Keatah]

In this context I think he wants to why recent changes to BitChess don't work with older versions of Stella. He is referring to future plans/programming roadmaps. I think layman's description about bankswitching and the 3E and 3E+ changes would serve as a good answer here.

 

My version:

"Andrew, one short question. What exactly did you change in BitChess that breaks its compatibility with older versions of Stella such as v6.0.1?"

"I was using versions of BitChess you made in June, and they worked fine with my version of Stella. But the new and latest versions of BitChess need a newer version of Stella. Why?"

 

Other Stuff:

He wants to know about the screenshot scaling 1:1. I understand that there's going to be a fix for that in the next release. I haven't been following that so I can't say much more.

 

He also says he can't figure out how to use more than one version of Stella because they share profile folders in Windows. So I suggest reading about the -baseinappdir command in versions 6.1.0 and later. And basedir.txt file in versions 6.0.2 and earlier.

Edited August 19, 2020 by Keatah

[Keatah]

 

@AW127

8 hours ago, AW127 said:

In STELLA V6.2.1 version, the steering works again, in the current version of the Chess game. But i miss a possibility now in the emulator, to make the PAL picture as big as the NTSC picture for all games, because now the screensize can not be set separatly for both colour encoding systems anymore, like it always was in older versions of the emulator. In older STELLA versions i made the PAL picture a little bit bigger, so that it was similar to the NTSC picture and i really liked that.

I think this will be fixed/implemented in the next release of Stella. I suggest you check page 5 of this thread.

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/307760-stella-62-released/page/5/#comments

 

8 hours ago, AW127 said:

Therefore i wanted to stay with 6.0.1 for now, but then i can not steer in the newest versions of BitChess. And having different versions of STELLA on the PC at the same time, is also a problem, because then they all use the same configuration-file in folder "Admin/AppData/Roaming/Stella". Not an ideal situation now for me. *lol* ?

Old and new versions of Stella support multiple versions/installations. You need to check the instructions/docs that come with Stella and read about -baseinappdir and basedir.txt. Also read about where files and folders are saved. Everything can be saved in the original installation folder and not have problems with "Admin/AppData/Roaming/Stella". Each version of Stella can have it's own folder or set of folders. I'm running 3 versions currently.

 

-Baseinapp command option applies to Stella 6.1.0 and later.

Basedir.txt file applies to 6.0.2 and earlier.

 

This is all described in the documentation that comes with Stella. You can keyword-search for those two terms and hopefully that helps!

 

I suggest discussing in the Stella thread I pointed out earlier. Or make another thread. These two issues aren't BitChess related.

[+Andrew Davie]

26 minutes ago, Keatah said:

In this context I think he wants to why recent changes to BitChess don't work with older versions of Stella. And steering means changes to BitChess and Stella and future plans/programming roadmaps. He is also using "steer/steering" instead of "use" usage of them.

 

Thanks for that. One possibility is the bank-switching scheme 3E+ was not fully/correctly implemented in earlier versions of Stella.

The game relies on recent changes to the scheme related to the startup bank, and which banks are switched at boot. That might be the issue.

 

[Keatah]

I like the logo with the scanlines. It's clean, it has 8-lines. Also separating the words Bit & Chess with a highlight as depicted in post 1050 could be nice if the right color combo is found. I'm too lazy to do more than this.

 

[AW127]

16 hours ago, Andrew Davie said:

I don't understand what you mean by "steer" and "steering" here. Do you mean the joystick doesn't work?

 

Yes, with steering i mean, that the joystick don't work anymore in "BitChess" with my STELLA V6.0.1. It worked until the BitChess versions that came out in June, in later versions of the game, i need a newer STELLA version that the control works again. Just wanted to know, what could cause this, because in all other games, the joystick also works in STELLA V6.0.1 without a problem.

 

12 hours ago, Andrew Davie said:

One possibility is the bank-switching scheme 3E+ was not fully/correctly implemented in earlier versions of Stella. The game relies on recent changes to the scheme related to the startup bank, and which banks are switched at boot. That might be the issue.

 

Okay then this is the problem. I will see what i do, change the STELLA version or stay with an older version of BitChess? Good would be, if STELLA would use a stella.ini file directly inside the emulator folder, when it founds one there, after starting the emulator, instead of using the file under Admin/AppData/Stella all the time. Then the user could have different STELLA versions with different settings on his PC in an easy way, by only moving the stella.ini from the Admin/AppData/Stella folder to the folder of the respective emulator version itself.

 

12 hours ago, Keatah said:

 

@AW127

I think this will be fixed/implemented in the next release of Stella. I suggest you check page 5 of this thread.

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/307760-stella-62-released/page/5/#comments

I am not sure, if the things which are mentioned there on this page then means, that the function to set different aspect-ratios for PAL and NTSC, will come back again in STELLA in the future?

 

It would be nice, because i always used 95% NTSC-aspect and 99% PAL-aspect and then both pictures looked perfect for me. PAL picture then is little bit higher than it would be on a real PAL Atari-2600 console, but i liked this alot, because then it has similar size to the NTSC screen. Therefore i miss that feature, because now only one screen-ratio can be set.

 

12 hours ago, Keatah said:

Old and new versions of Stella support multiple versions/installations. You need to check the instructions/docs that come with Stella and read about -baseinappdir and basedir.txt. Also read about where files and folders are saved. Everything can be saved in the original installation folder and not have problems with "Admin/AppData/Roaming/Stella". Each version of Stella can have it's own folder or set of folders. I'm running 3 versions currently.

 

-Baseinapp command option applies to Stella 6.1.0 and later.

Basedir.txt file applies to 6.0.2 and earlier.

 

This is all described in the documentation that comes with Stella. You can keyword-search for those two terms and hopefully that helps!

 

I suggest discussing in the Stella thread I pointed out earlier. Or make another thread. These two issues aren't BitChess related.

I will read about this in the STELLA instructions. Simply putting the stella.ini file in the respective folder of the different STELLA versions by hand, like this works in some other emulators ("Altirra" for example), don't work here with STELLA. But i will read the manual now, after the things you mentioned here, and see how it can be done. Then i put both versions on my PC, V6.0.1 and V6.2.1.

 

Edited August 19, 2020 by AW127

[AW127]

14 hours ago, Keatah said:

In this context I think he wants to know why...

 

My version:

"Andrew, one short question. What exactly did you change in BitChess that breaks its compatibility with older versions of Stella such as v6.0.1?"

"I was using versions of BitChess you made in June, and they worked fine with my version of Stella. But the new and latest versions of BitChess need a newer version of Stella. Why?"

 

Other Stuff:

He wants to know about the screenshot scaling 1:1. I understand that there's going to be a fix for that in the next release. I haven't been following that so I can't say much more.

 

He also say ...

 

Okay. *lol* English is not my native language, but i don't think, this was such bad, that it could not be understood at all. Seems a bit exaggerated to me. 

[Keatah]

Yup!

[+Andrew Davie]

50 minutes ago, AW127 said:

 

Okay. *lol* English is not my native language, but i don't think, this was such bad, that it could not be understood at all. Seems a bit exaggerated to me. 

The issues you are having are related to the stella emulator, and its use, not to the BitChess program.

Although you wouldn't have seen it buried in the 40+ pages of comments in this thread, I did explicity state that the program required a new version of stella to correctly run. These are the costs of running "close to the edge" with development for new bankswitching schemes and the like.

In my view, you should always try to have the latest release version of stella running on your system.

 

As to your language, it is excellent. But the one word "steer" and "steering" made no sense at all to me.

That's why I asked if you were referring to the joystick. You should see my German.

 

[Keatah]

I'm sure my BASIC and ASSEMBLER would be horror to all!

[AW127]

2 hours ago, Andrew Davie said:

But the one word "steer" and "steering" made no sense at all to me.

Strange. Google translate gave me the word "steering", when i inserted the german word "Lenkung" there.

[+splendidnut]

On 8/18/2020 at 5:04 PM, AW127 said:

Andrew, one short question. What exactly has been changed with the direction in the steering of the game in the month June, that in later versions of BitChess it's no longer possible, to steer in run in older STELLA versions like for example V6.0.1, which i had always used since it came out?

Is that more inline with what you wanted to say?  I wasn't quite sure what you were trying to say with "to steer in STELLA", so I took a guess.

[AW127]

 

18 minutes ago, splendidnut said:

Is that more inline with what you wanted to say?  I wasn't quite sure what you were trying to say with "to steer in STELLA", so I took a guess.

On all translating-sides "steering" is the english word for the german "Lenkung/Steuerung", therefore i don't believe, that this can not be understood.

 

21 minutes ago, splendidnut said:

What exactly has been changed with the direction in the steering of the game in the month June, that in later versions of BitChess it's no longer possible, to steer in run in older STELLA versions like for example V6.0.1, which i had always used since it came out?

Saying it this way is not correct, because the game also RUNS in older STELLA versions, only the steering then don't work and the player can not move the figures with the controller.

 

 

 

Anyway, case is solved, because it's possible, to have two different Stella versions with different settings on the PC at the same time.

[+Andrew Davie]

10 minutes ago, AW127 said:

 

On all translating-sides "steering" is the english word for the german "Lenkung/Steuerung", therefore i don't believe, that this can not be understood.

It is not correct, and no native English-speaker would use that word that way. This is one situation where the translators are not grabbing the nuances of what you are trying to say, and they are incorrect.

 

10 minutes ago, AW127 said:

 

Saying it this way is not correct, because the game also RUNS in older STELLA versions, only the steering then don't work and the player can not move the figures with the controller.

This one is more subtle. What @splendidnut suggested is actually the correct way to say it. Yes, your point that it also "runs" in older Stella is true - but the usage of "runs" here is taken to mean "runs correctly". I would also write it exactly the way @splendidnut suggested. Again, your usage of the word "steering" here is wrong.

 

But, let's move on from the grammar, shall we? We now understand each other.

 

[+splendidnut]

[deleted]

[+Andrew Davie]

In any case, I don't see how the modifications to the bankswitching scheme (3E+) would affect the joystick operation. The game would either work or it wouldn't work. The joystick not working appears to me to be a totally different issue.

 

[CrazyChris]

BIT-CHESS?

[+Al_Nafuur]

On 8/20/2020 at 4:12 AM, CrazyChris said:

BIT-CHESS?

BitChess

[zbyti]

Hi @Andrew Davie :]

 

I just finished reading this whole thread - great job!

 

I also played my first blitz (Stella Ctrl+T) game with chess3E+20200729  Program crashed in front of the mate ? 

 

 

best regards

1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 Bc5 4. d4 Bb4+
5. Nc3 Qe7 6. Bd3 Qf6 7. O-O Bxc3 8. bxc3 d6
9. e5 dxe5 10. Nxe5 g5 11. Bc4 Be6 12. d5 Bf5
13. Re1 Qb6+ 14. Kh1 Kf8 15. Ba3+ c5 16. dxc6+ Kg7
17. cxb7 Qxb7 18. Bd5 Qa6 19. Bb4 f6 20. Bxa8 fxe5
21. Rxe5 Qf6 22. Re8 Na6 23. Bf8+ Qxf8 24. Rxf8 Kxf8
25. Qd6+ Kg7 26. Qxa6 Nf6 27. Qxa7+ Kh6 28. Qf7 Rxa8
29. Qxf6+ Bg6 30. h4 gxh4 31. Qxh4+ Kg7 32. Qxf4 Bxc2
33. Qd4+ Kg6 34. Rd1 Rf8 35. Qg4+ Kf6 36. Rf1+ Ke7
37. Qe2+ Kd6 38. Rxf8 Bg6 39. Rf6+ Kc7 40. Qe7+ Kc8

Edited August 29, 2020 by zbyti
final position

[+Andrew Davie]

1 hour ago, zbyti said:

I just finished reading this whole thread - great job!

 

 

Thanks for that feedback. The video is particularly useful - I'd like to  know how to generate those.

The red background indicates the program did not crash, but detected a loss and is now in a "loss" state.

At this point, you need to power-cycle/reset to play another game.