This message board seemed like the most appropriate place on the Internet to share an effort that I’ve been working on for many months… a new standalone chess computer, built on a Raspberry Pi using a touchscreen as an interface. It speaks the UCI protocol meaning many of your favorite engines are available for it.
I really wanted a computer chess device to exist that utilized modern engines, was standalone (so that I didn’t need to use a computer or a phone, and so wasn’t tempted at all to check email, etc while playing), and was easy (required?) to play on a physical board but not necessarily an e-board. I wanted this so I set about to built it. There may be another project that meets the same objectives but I wasn’t aware of one at the time I started.
This project is distributed as free open source so if you want to give it a try you’d be most welcome and encouraged. Keep in mind though that it currently scratches my particular itch, so a feature or a nuance of the GUI might not be what you were expecting (gladly accepting suggestions and pull requests though).
If you’re curious and/or interested, more information can be found at https://caddellchess.github.io/ including photos and links to download/install.
Thanks for reading, I hope I've contributed meaningfully
A new computer chess GUI
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Re: A new computer chess GUI
Looks great!
Roughly how much does it cost to put together?
Roughly how much does it cost to put together?
gbanksnz at gmail.com
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Re: A new computer chess GUI
Thanks Graham, I appreciate it.Graham Banks wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 10:55 pm Looks great!
Roughly how much does it cost to put together?
Lessee...
in USD,
- a RPi3B+ is $30 at Adafruit and microcenter
- the display is ~$38 at Amazon (I only checked there right now)
- you'll need an sd card and power supply, <$10 at microcenter
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Re: A new computer chess GUI
Cheap enough for such a nice tool.caddell wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 11:10 pmThanks Graham, I appreciate it.Graham Banks wrote: ↑Tue Mar 02, 2021 10:55 pm Looks great!
Roughly how much does it cost to put together?
Lessee...
in USD,
- a RPi3B+ is $30 at Adafruit and microcenter
- the display is ~$38 at Amazon (I only checked there right now)
so less than $80 not including any case (I need to focus on a case for the end-user)
- you'll need an sd card and power supply, <$10 at microcenter
gbanksnz at gmail.com
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Re: A new computer chess GUI
On the basis of extensive research using the methodology called "quick web search" , it might be possible to run it on your PC.
Simulator - link.
VM - link.
Another possibility: it might be possible to run an instance of the OS ("Raspberry Pi OS") on a cloud server - not sure.
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Your brain doesn't work the way you want, so train it!
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Re: A new computer chess GUI
There's one big thing that your device can do that the CT800 cannot (because it has no operating system), and that is loading custom UCI engines - among them, funnily, the CT800 engine. A binary for Pi is part of the download, or it can be compiled from source on the Pi, and it runs already on the DGT Pi under Picochess.
Rasmus Althoff
https://www.ct800.net
https://www.ct800.net
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Re: A new computer chess GUI
Ras, you're absolutely right! It runs the CT800 engine with ease
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Re: A new computer chess GUI
Fantastic! I was thinking about such a project myself once.