Tikov chess(engine) version 0.6.2 - 3/4/2001


Contents

1. Terminal Play
2. User interfaces
3. BUGS / features
4. Acknowledgements

5. COPYRIGHT


Terminal play
=============
(don't do it it's painfull use an interface - see section 2)

Moving:

then simply type in moves in coordinate format:
 e2e4 a7a8q a7a8n (to promote to a knight) e1g1 (castling)

the computer opponent will automatically reply;

force;

to stop the computer from making moves type "force" this will allow you to make
any number of moves for either side to set up a position.

go;

to leave force mode and get the computer to play type "go"
this is used to make the computer play first and can also be used to get the
one engine to play itself.

remove;

takes back the last two moves (your opponents then yours)

undo;

takes back just one move

quit;

is the only way to exit (I also have a key bound to 'killall -9 tikov_chess' !)

Interfaces
==========
the engine works with both the old (version 1) and new (version 2) xboard
protocols, so works with its own gui or
 winBoard / Xboard/ amyboard(not tested yet)
or robifics.
It will easily be made to work with any other similar interface that uses an
aproximation to the protocol.


3.Bugs or features
================

There is no move checking by the engine so you can move whatever you like
wherever you like. It is good for testing and most interfaces have their own
legality checking.

Pawn en-passent captures are not recognised yet so don't do them or the
interface will get out of sync with the engine. (Castling and promotion work
fine)

The endgame is lousy . EGTBs (End Game Table
Bases) will not be implemented until after the first release.

Beyond the above I know of no problems, we haven't seg-faulted or dumped core
for a few versions now (famous last words).
Any other bugs found in the latest version should be
reported to martintt@bits.bris.ac.uk - check on the web site that I don't
already know about them.

4.Acknowledgements.
===================

Thanks are due to the following for their information.

Carl Ebeling, All the Right Moves - a VLSI Architecture for Chess.
                MIT Press 1986
                -This dissertation describes the principles behind HITECH
                and contained useful quantitative information on move ordering,
                the effects of hashing and simple evaluation procedures.

James Swafford  http://members.nbci.com/jswaff/chessprg/
                - His site gave us much information needed for the rotated
                bitboards etc

David? Eppstein http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/180a/w99.html
                -  His lecture notes explained different search aproaches
                ,quiessence extensions etc .....

5.Copyright
===========

This engine is the work of Martin Holder and Fredrik Wass and is released under
what I believe are similar conditions to Bob Hyatt's Crafty.
Copy it, modify it, feed it to the cat, but don't use it for comercial gain,
and always acknoledge it as our work.
If you use it online acknowledge it's ancestry and please don't use the name
'Tikov' as thats ours. (variants are Ok as the're adverts for us but 'tikov' is
ours)
 In addition if you do use it and like it please mail me as I need feedback
to impress my supervisor, and any suggestions may be usefull.

martintt