Shane's Chess Information Database
 |
This article relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject, rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications. Please add citations from reliable sources. (January 2008) |
| Developer(s) | Shane Hudson |
|---|---|
| Stable release | 4.3 / February 2011 |
| Operating system | Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD and probably other UNIX-like variants |
| Type | Chess database |
| License | GPL |
| Website | scid.sourceforge.net |
Shane's Chess Information Database (Scid) is a popular free UNIX, Windows, Linux, and Mac application for viewing and maintaining huge databases of chess games. It is written in TCL/TK and C++.
Scid has undergone several stages of development. Firstly by Shane Hudson, and then Pascal Georges. Active development is mostly with the fork - Scid vs. PC.
There are multiple projects related to Scid, all using the si4 database format. ChessDB was the first Scid fork, but had little longevity or technical novelty. Scid vs. PC has been in development for three years to 2012, and has a vastly overhauled interface - albeit without Scid's docked window mode. It's major new feature is a Computer Tournament mode. Otherwise it has only minor technical improvements, and maintains 100% database compatibility.
Two wholly rewritten projects: ChessX (written in C and libQT), and the new, ambitious Scidb (also written in TCL/C), are under active development.
[edit] Overview
Scid supports portable game notation and its own database format. It can interface with Winboard engines (such as Crafty and GNU chess), and UCI engines (such as Fruit, Rybka, Stockfish and Shredder) to perform position analysis or play computer-human games. Scid can be used as a graphical interface to connect to and play games on the Free Internet Chess Server, FICS. It can use up to five piece endgame tablebases, includes a move tree with statistics, and display photographs and information of players in the database.
Scid can classify games using the standard ECO code, as well as its own extensions to the ECO system. One can search for specific endings, such as pawn vs. rook or rook vs. queen. Scid's search allows filtering by player, color, year, result, and ECO code.
Scid has a maintenance window where, for example, one can delete twin games. (It is frequent to have the same game in a database twice if the games are downloaded from multiple sources.) Scid can plot graphs of ratings vs. time.
[edit] References
- Review by Chess Zone
- Zipf law in the popularity distribution of chess openings
- Zarkon Fischer's Free Chess Programs
- Mark Lowery's Exciting World of Chess : Chess Programs
