Chess System Tal 2.50 DOS

[Damir]

Where can I find this older version from Chess System Tal from 1999.

[Jjaw]

Cstal 2.50 is no longer avaliable anywhere. You can download Cstal 2.0 Dos from many abandonware sites. The only difference in 2.50 and 2.0 is that 2.50 has a choice any one of 5 primitive .dll engines with different parameters. It also has a large opening book.

[mclane]

But it's not dos, isn't it ?
The version 1 was dos. Version 2 and later were Windows.

[Jjaw]

Yes , Correct and it runs great on windows 7 ,10 & 11.

[Damir]

Yes the version I am looking is 2.50 from 1999.
I am looking for full version, which is roughly more than 500 MB, with a very large opening book.

[mclane]

Wasn't the 2.5 version the development version Chris put online for programmers ?
The idea was to allow other programmers to put their own engines into the gui. At this stage Chris did a rewrite of cstal 2.03 engine into 64bit bitboard . The "primitive engines" were different stages of this rewrite from the scratch. You can identify this by looking at the size in MB . The primitive engines have increased sizes.
It was planned that the gui could run with more then 1 engine, kind of multibrain. And a decider engine that chooses between several engines depending on evaluation.
The evaluation sliders of the normal engine (2.03) at this stage of the gui were broken in the process. 2.5 was IMO only for programmers who are interested in bringing THEIR engines into CSTal GUI.
I think there was no big opening book coming with this version because it was an internet download, not a CD version.
Concerning playing strength the old 2.03
engine was broken. When I remember it right I had a discussion with Harald Faber who did some test games and was disappointed. He used the results to laugh about it, not understanding that this version was never released for playing strength reason but for developers.

[chrisw]

Cstal 2.50 is no longer avaliable anywhere. You can download Cstal 2.0 Dos from many abandonware sites. The only difference in 2.50 and 2.0 is that 2.50 has a choice any one of 5 primitive .dll engines with different parameters. It also has a large opening book.

Abandonware is a fancy term for stealing. We live in capitalism. Everything, copyrights included, is owned by someone or something. Just because something is old, or maybe the owner has forgotten about it, doesn't mean you can lawfully download it or copy it without the owners permission. Theft is theft, however you want to wrap it.

[Jjaw]