Old issue, resolved: CB Winboard adapter (1998/99)

[mongrel]

The following post by Christian Liebert (of Chessbase?) including an article by Mathias Feist, of ChessBase, GmbH, documents exactly where and
when they published the specifications of their at that time new Winboard engine adapter, which made it possible to play Winboard engines under their interface, an exciting development at that time.
It clearly describes the facts which some of us later complained about, such as the hashtable clearing and the "new" command before every move. But its existence proves that they did not do these things in secret. Further, they solicited comments from chess programmers at that time. (And perhaps it could have been changed.)
For your convenience, I've extracted the relevant section:

Quote:
Please note that the Fritz interface has a different logic compared to Winboard.
Before any computation is started the engine will receive a "new", "edit" (if
it's a position), "force" (if there are moves), and all moves of the game. Then
the engine will receive "level n t p" (n=moves left for next time control,
t=time left for next time control, p=additional time per move). Then "hard",
"easy" to switch off pondering ("new" may trigger it again, I want to be sure).
The analysis is started with "go", or "analyze". "?" is used to stop a search if
necessary.
End quote.
Quote:
This is a draft of the interface, comments of chess programmers are very
welcome.

Mathias Feist
ChessBase GmbH, 17.12.98
End quote.

It was unfortunate for some of you, the programmers, that this post was unnoticed or forgotten. It was unfortunate for me, a consumer, as well. I think the adapter was designed (at first) simply to enable analysis by guest engines. (Because otherwise, I couldn't imagine why anyone intending that fair games be played would write the program this way, although I'm not an expert.)

Thus, in my mind, they are cleared of this long-forgotten imagined wrongdoing, and I wanted to say so.

Nevertheless, I am pleased to see that the choices in chess GUIs and database programs have expanded greatly since then, should my slumbering incredulity be aroused.

I gave you the relevant section, but here is a the link to the entire post:
http://www.stmintz.com/ccc/index.php?id=53818

[GS]

The following post by Christian Liebert (of Chessbase?) including an article by Mathias Feist, of ChessBase, GmbH, documents exactly where and
when they published the specifications of their at that time new Winboard engine adapter, which made it possible to play Winboard engines under their interface, an exciting development at that time.
It clearly describes the facts which some of us later complained about, such as the hashtable clearing and the "new" command before every move. But its existence proves that they did not do these things in secret. Further, they solicited comments from chess programmers at that time. (And perhaps it could have been changed.)
For your convenience, I've extracted the relevant section:

Quote:
Please note that the Fritz interface has a different logic compared to Winboard.
Before any computation is started the engine will receive a "new", "edit" (if
it's a position), "force" (if there are moves), and all moves of the game. Then
the engine will receive "level n t p" (n=moves left for next time control,
t=time left for next time control, p=additional time per move). Then "hard",
"easy" to switch off pondering ("new" may trigger it again, I want to be sure).
The analysis is started with "go", or "analyze". "?" is used to stop a search if
necessary.
End quote.
Quote:
This is a draft of the interface, comments of chess programmers are very
welcome.

Mathias Feist
ChessBase GmbH, 17.12.98
End quote.

It was unfortunate for some of you, the programmers, that this post was unnoticed or forgotten. It was unfortunate for me, a consumer, as well. I think the adapter was designed (at first) simply to enable analysis by guest engines. (Because otherwise, I couldn't imagine why anyone intending that fair games be played would write the program this way, although I'm not an expert.)

Thus, in my mind, they are cleared of this long-forgotten imagined wrongdoing, and I wanted to say so.

Nevertheless, I am pleased to see that the choices in chess GUIs and database programs have expanded greatly since then, should my slumbering incredulity be aroused.

I gave you the relevant section, but here is a the link to the entire post:
http://www.stmintz.com/ccc/index.php?id=53818

You seem to forget the following 10.000 mails and posts
from users until end of 2001?

User/programmer to CB support:

Please fix the crappy adapter such we can play fair tournaments
with WB programs under a CB GUI....

Well it did not happen until the end of 2001. Then they completely
cancelled WB support, either because they weren't able to provide
a better adapter, or because they weren't interested in too strong
WB programs...(still they managed to release several versions)

Whatever, Odd Gunnar Malin did what CB never could do and wrote
a reasonable WB2UCI adapter(after CB finally decided at least
to allow the UCI prot in their GUIs)

Guenther

[mongrel]

You seem to forget the following 10.000 mails and posts
from users until end of 2001?

In only eight years? No, I did not forget.
My post ONLY documents that they did not do it in secret, a fact of which I was not aware at that time. But why they did it would still be a mystery.

Whatever, Odd Gunnar Malin did what CB never could do and wrote
a reasonable WB2UCI adapter(after CB finally decided at least
to allow the UCI prot in their GUIs)

While I am not an expert, my guess was that this was possible.

Very thorough documentation of this issue, by experts and people of well-established credibility, can be found in the following lively and interesting thread, if anyone is interested:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.game ... lnk=gst&q=