XBoard
 GNU Chess 5.0.7 on WinBoard 4.2.7 |
|
| Developer(s) | Tim Mann |
|---|---|
| Stable release | 4.5.3 / October 1, 2011 |
| Operating system | X11, Windows |
| Type | Computer chess |
| License | GPL |
| Website | XBoard |
XBoard (on GNU/Linux) and WinBoard (on Microsoft Windows) are free graphical user interface clients.[1] Originally developed by Tim Mann, these programs are compatible with various chess engines[2] that support the Chess Engine Communication Protocol such as GNU Chess. It also supports Internet Chess Servers,[3] e-mail chess,[4] and the playing of saved games.[5]
Recently WinBoard / XBoard has been enhanced a great deal, and the Chess Engine Communication Protocol was extended to meet the needs of modern engines (which have features such as hash tables, multi-processing and end-game tables, which could not be controlled through the old protocol).
XBoard has always been supportive of Chess variants, such as Suicide Chess or Crazyhouse, acting as a client for Internet Chess Servers that offered such variants. This support has now been extended to all of the World's major Chess variants: xiangqi (Chinese Chess), shogi (Japanese Chess), makruk (Thai Chess) and many Western variants on boards of deviating sizes (e.g. Capablanca Chess). It offers a Westernized representation for these games, but the almost limitless configurability of WinBoard does allow a high-quality traditional oriental representation of these games.[6]
Another computer chess protocol is the Universal Chess Interface (UCI).
Contents |
[edit] Timeseal
The Timeseal program was an add-on for XBoard/WinBoard (though it supported other interfaces as well). It was designed to solve the problem of network latency introduced in short (blitz/lightning) games. Timeseal would record the actual amount of time the player spent making the move and send that to the chess server. Without it, network latency time would be added, giving a significant advantage to users on faster connections.
Timeseal introduced a security hole with XBoard/WinBoard. It kept track of how much time the player spent on a move, and it was running on the player's machine. Thus it could send back an incorrect value. Not surprisingly, this was eventually exploited. A variant of Timeseal appeared that applied a 0.5 multiplier to a player's move. So if a player took four seconds to move, Timeseal would report that they only took two seconds.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Shamah, David (January 17, 2003). "The pinings of a pawn". Jerusalem Post. p. 22. http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_product=AWNB&p_theme=aggregated5&p_action=doc&p_docid=110B02F5883BD190&p_docnum=3&p_queryname=1. Retrieved November 11, 2011.
- ^ Hagen, William von (13 May 2010). Ubuntu Linux Bible: Featuring Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. John Wiley and Sons. pp. 15–16. ISBN 978-0-470-88180-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=rsSlrQLB8-gC&pg=SA15-PA93. Retrieved 11 November 2011.
- ^ Negus, Chris (9 May 2003). Red Hat Linux 9 bible. Wiley Pub.. p. 242. ISBN 978-0-7645-3938-1. http://books.google.com/books?id=NliYH-zrQXQC. Retrieved 11 November 2011.
- ^ Mui, Linda; Quercia, Valérie (1994). X user tools. O'Reilly & Associates. p. 186. ISBN 978-1-56592-019-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=Dw8SAQAAMAAJ. Retrieved 11 November 2011.
- ^ Johnson, Chris F. A. (2005). Shell scripting recipes: a problem-solution approach. Apress. p. 294. ISBN 978-1-59059-471-1. http://books.google.com/books?id=PDqsRgXg1WIC&pg=PA294. Retrieved 11 November 2011.
- ^ "XBoard". gnu.org. https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/. Retrieved November 11, 2011.
