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Mike Pither · May 1, 2001, 11:29 AM

Can anyone tell me how to castle in the std OSX chess game without switching on and using speech. There doesn't seem tobe any help in the prog and I can't figure out the key combination to do it.

thanks

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davesimondotcom · May 1, 2001, 12:19 PM

Originally posted by Mike Pither:
Can anyone tell me how to castle in the std OSX chess game without switching on and using speech. There doesn't seem tobe any help in the prog and I can't figure out the key combination to do it.

thanks

I had trouble getting it to castle too. If you find out, please let me know! It's frustrating to not be able to castle and lose because of it.

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Dave Simon
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Windows are easily broken.

May 1, 2001, 12:21 PM

I've found the same issue. It seems that I could castle kingside by moving the king over 2 spaces. The program rules that queenside castling is illegal even when it isn't. The first time I encountered this I was most surprised and had to um... change my strategy a bit...

mindwaves · May 1, 2001, 12:56 PM

Yeah, even though this is in the wrong forum, castling queenside is not illegal but Chess.app always tells me so. Also, I have made some other legal moves but could not do them because Chess.app said that it was illegal.

Mike Pither · May 2, 2001, 02:08 PM

the think that is strange is that I can castle in both directions using "speech commands" (with an American accent !) By the way mindwaves which would be the correct forum, I couldn't decide as it is a 3rd party software that is std with OSX

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kman42 · May 3, 2001, 10:21 AM

mindwaves--what other 'illegal moves' were you trying to make? Just curious.

kman

mindwaves · May 3, 2001, 10:23 AM

I dont know actually. I havent played it in quite a while, but I do have some problems every once in a while.

mjpaci · May 3, 2001, 11:04 AM

The only 'non-standard' moves in chess that I can think of are castleing (King side, Queen Side) and that French termed one-en passant--where the pawn can move diagonally behind another piece and capture it.

--Mike

[This message has been edited by mjpaci (edited 05-03-2001).]

otter · May 3, 2001, 11:19 PM

Simply moving King two squares to the left (Qside) or two squares to the right (Kside) and letting go is all you have to do to castle.

-- Art

otter · May 3, 2001, 11:25 PM

Oh, I take that back -- it only seems to work in 2D view. In three 3D view castling Qside doesn't work.

For what its worth, 2D view is much better for playing serious chess.

- Art

Mike Pither · May 4, 2001, 03:17 PM

Yes in fact it says it's an illegal move, still at least I now know how to get by without using speakable items.

thanks guys

fats · May 5, 2001, 04:30 AM

I gather that some people have actually beaten the OS X chess? I thought it was impossible. I was all planning to humiliate Kasparov again with my iMac.

dogzilla · May 5, 2001, 12:42 PM

This doesn't relate directly to chess moves, but I read this somewhere else and haven't seen a good answer: isn't the chess here GNU chess? If so, doesn't the source code have to be available on the disc somewhere? I'm not too knowledgable about the GNU license, but I thought this was one of its basic tenets.

mindwaves · May 5, 2001, 01:06 PM

Well, I havent beaten the Chess game yet. Maybe because I have only played it like 5 times total since the release because I got aggravated over it. However, I am fairly good in chess and used to play chess every lunch and have beaten a fair amount of people in the java based chess by Pogo. However, I havent played chess in quite a while.

10sfan · May 5, 2001, 03:04 PM

It really is hard. Although I'm not a very skilled player, I would estimate that it has beaten me over 100 consecutive times even on the easiest setting. Ugh!

mindwaves:
The castling thing is a known bug, but I have never heard of problems with other moves. Sometimes when it doesn't let you perform a legal move, it is because you are in check and you don't realize it.

Synotic · May 5, 2001, 04:01 PM

Originally posted by 10sfan:
It really is hard. Although I'm not a very skilled player, I would estimate that it has beaten me over 100 consecutive times even on the easiest setting. Ugh!

mindwaves:
The castling thing is a known bug, but I have never heard of problems with other moves. Sometimes when it doesn't let you perform a legal move, it is because you are in check and you don't realize it.

The difficulty is rather annoying for me. I'm also not a great player, but on the easy settings on other games I can win. Can anyone report a win?

Mike Pither · May 5, 2001, 06:01 PM

Not yet but now I understand the bug I am going to gib=ve it a good go next week. In my third match I got close to a win and haven't played more than half a dozen times in the last 10-15 years. Perhaps I just got lucky?

mindwaves · May 9, 2001, 12:38 AM

Ok, you chess people. I am in the middle of a game and the other side has just castled and the thing is that it has castled queen-side.

might require the quicktime pluggin...

michaelb · May 10, 2001, 07:26 AM

Originally posted by dogzilla:
This doesn't relate directly to chess moves, but I read this somewhere else and haven't seen a good answer: isn't the chess here GNU chess? If so, doesn't the source code have to be available on the disc somewhere? I'm not too knowledgable about the GNU license, but I thought this was one of its basic tenets.

Yes, I think you're right.

In fact we may already have it on the developer CD. If memory serves, I saw a complete Chess ProjectBuilder project as part of a DP3/DP4 install. It may still be around. Check the example code directory.

(Of course, I'm far too lazy to look to check my facts: I have one eye on the 'X-Files' on a TV - Scully: Where's Mulder? Skinner: It's Mulder. - (we're half a season behind in Australia so don't tell me happens you bastards!) and the other eye on OmniWeb in X tapping random thoughts about X in this forum trying to fill it up while all the Americans are asleep.)

michaelb · May 10, 2001, 07:47 AM

Okay, I've checked now. The source code is installed in:

/Developer/Examples/GLUTExamples/Chess/

I'm too tired to get into it but, it looks like the ProjectBuilder project will compile it:

/Developer/Examples/GLUTExamples/GLUTExamples.pbproj

LordJavac · May 10, 2001, 03:20 PM

As far as the source being required on the CD, that is not true. Open source just means that the source has to be available, not distributed actively. In most cases it is distributed actively, but that is because it requires compilation on the target machine anyway.

As to the Chess commands, and any other Speakable Items commands, you can always show the "Commands" window which contains a listing of the currently available speakable commands. I found this to be really helpful when the computer was making the completely wrong moves (Though it still has problems with some of the letters).

Thirdly, as a programmer, I am interested in adding such speech command capabilities to my programs. Hw do I do this in Cocoa?

mjpaci · May 10, 2001, 03:57 PM

Are you sure that you're allowed to castle in this case? Remember you cannot castle if...

1) You're in check
2) You'll put yourself in check
3) You'll pass through check
4) The king has moved
5) The Rook on the side you're castling to has moved

--Mike

tie · May 10, 2001, 04:03 PM

Originally posted by LordJavac:
As far as the source being required on the CD, that is not true.

Actually, it is. Check the license.

Thirdly, as a programmer, I am interested in adding such speech command capabilities to my programs. Hw do I do this in Cocoa?

There is an example of doing this in Carbon included with the Dev tools. It looks quite complicated. I haven't been able to find any examples or documentation on doing this in Cocoa.

mindwaves · May 10, 2001, 04:31 PM

Did any of you look at my screenshot? It shows the computer castling queenside and I cannot. I also have been playing chess for many years so I know the rules of chess.
http://homepage.mac.com/simwaves/.Pictures/chess.tiff

[This message has been edited by mindwaves (edited 05-10-2001).]

spiky_dog · May 10, 2001, 04:40 PM

mindwave, you might want to put up a picture where the queen is not in the way of the king (thus preventing a queenside castle even if the program allowed it in 3d view)...

mindwaves · May 10, 2001, 04:46 PM

I know that I cannot castle queenside so there is no point of trying that and besides I wanted to castle king-side anyways. The point is that the computer can do it and it considers it a legal move but when I do it (in other games), it is illegal.