chess

[Dominik Wujastyk]

Status: RO

\begin{quotation}
 > a collegue asks me to put his question before this audience:
 > is there a computer program playing chess according to (ancient) Indian
 > rules: queen only moving one step diagonally, bishops not much brighter etc.?
\end{quotation}
One of the canonical computer chess programs -- and probably the most
widely installed -- is GNU Chess, created and distributed by the
Free Software Foundation and its founder Richard Stallman.  The C source
code for the program can be fetched using ftp from the site
prep.ai.mit.edu, where all GNU software has its home.  There are may
other sites too.  When you connect to prep.ai.mit.edu, first
fetch and read the file /u2/emacs/GETTING.GNU.SOFTWARE.
 
The source code is written primarily for Unix, but can be ported with
more or less effort to other operating systems.
 
I am almost certain that it does not play Indian chess, but equally, the
source code is freely available, and also the GNU project people are
extremely friendly and willing to consider interesting developments to
their work.  There is a usenet discussion group for GNU chess called,
extraordinarily, gnu.chess.  If you don't have access to Usenet news,
Harry, I can post your query there.  Come to think of it, I'll do
that anyway.
 
Best wishes,
 
Dominik