COLOSSUS CHESS 2.0 A chess playing program, for the CBM 64 micro. (c) 1984 CDS Micro Systems by Martin Bryant SECTION SUBJECT 1 INTRODUCTION a General b Running the program 2 DISPLAY a General b The board c Messages & questions d The move record i The player names ii The clocks iii The moves e Technical information i Lookahead ii Positions examined iii Best line iv Current move 3 PLAYING A GAME a New game b Your move c Colossus move d Game over 4 KEYBOARD ENTRIES a Cursor movement b Numeric data c Commands 5 PROGRAM INFORMATION a Statistics b Openings book c Results SECTION 1 - INTRODUCTION 1.a - General Colossus is the best computer chess program available on any home computer. It is written using the very latest techniques by a computer chess programmer of seven years experience. It has been tested against a wide range of other chess programs and proven stronger than any of the opposition. It has the widest range of true features available, including some, never before implemented on any home computer chess program. Colossus also has a perfect understanding of all the rules of chess, including underpromotions, the fifty move rule and all draws by repetition. 1.b - Running the program Put the cassette into the recorder and rewind it to the start. Press the SHIFT and RUN/STOP keys simultaneously and press PLAY on the recorder. The cassette will run until it finds the BASIC startup program called 'COLOSSUS CHESS'. It will then display 'FOUND COLOSSUS CHESS'. Press the COMMODORE key to allow the computer to load in the program, which takes approximately 8.5 minutes. The program once loaded will run automatically. DISKETTE VERSION 1.b - Running the program Put the diskette into the drive. Type in 'Load 'Colossus*',8' and press RETURN. This will find the basic loader program, RUN This and after a short time the program will be ready for play. Tape - Type 'T' This allows you to save / load move-records and positions to / from the diskette. The program asks load or save?. Type ' L' if you wish to load a previously saved records, or 's' if you wish to save the current record. If any error occurs during loading then the current move-record will be lost. The (stop) key can be used to abort a save / load early. SECTION 2 - DISPLAY 2.a - General The display uses two screens to provide clear information as to the state of the game, the programs current thoughts and the past move record. The main screen shows a graphics chess board and various messages and questions as required. The second screen shows the past move record, including the player names and chess clocks and also information on the programs thought processes including lookahead, positions examined and best-line with evaluation. The display can be toggled between the two screens by pressing the (SPACE) bar. 2.b - The board The main screen has a graphics board printout showing the current position. Letters and numbers around the board indicate the algebraic notation used for each square. 2.c - Messages and questions Various messages and questions are displayed below the board as necessary. These are explained in more detail in later sections. 2.d - The move record The secondary screen shows the last seven moves made by each side in two columns including move numbers. Above the moves are displayed the colours, player names and elapsed-time chess clocks for each side. 2.d.i - The player names Above each column is displayed the names of the white and black players. The programs name is displayed as 'Colossus' while its opponents name is displayed as 'Opponent'. 2.d.ii - The clocks Below the player names are displayed the elapsed-time clocks for white and black. The clocks are in the format 'hh:mm:ss' (hh = hours, mm = minutes, ss = seconds). The clocks show the total time used by each side in the game so far. 2.d.iii - The moves The moves are displayed in algebraic notation with the from- square followed by the to-square. The seperator between the from- and to- squares indicates whether the move is a capture or not ('x' signifies a capture, '-' signifies a non-capture). Castling moves are indicated with the from- and to- squares of the moving kind. En-passent captures have no special indication. Promotions are indicated after the move by a '/', followed by a letter to indicate the promoted piece ('N' = knight, 'B' = bishop, 'R' = rook, 'Q' = queen). Checks are indicated by a '+' being printed after the move. 2.e - Technical information The bottom of the secondary screen is used to display detailed information of the programs thought processes. This information can provide a great insight into how a good chess program works, but only takes a fraction of one percent of the programs thinking time to display it. 2.e.i - Lookahead When the program thinks about its move, it displays the lookahead depth of its search. The depth is printed in 'ply' or 'half- moves'. The program will search most move sequences to at least this depth, with some being searched much deeper. 2.e.ii - Positions examined The number of positions examined in the tree of move sequences is displayed. This number is updated at every position and in fact takes very little time because of the single-byte/ character type of display. The program examines on average about 520 positions per second. 2.e.iii - Best line The program displays the best line it has found so far in its search. This can provide you with a 'hint' move and an analysis of the game in the next few moves. (Usually the line will contain a 'null' move. This simply means a passive, non-capturing move). Also displayed is the evaluation of the best-line, as two numbers. The first is the material evaluation (in terms of number of pawns up or down), the second the positional evaluation. A positive number means the program is better, a negative number means the opponent is better. 2.e.iv - Current move To the right of the board is displayed the move the program is currently considering. This can be seen to change as the search progresses. SECTION 3 - PLAYING A GAME 3.a - New game When a new game is started, the pieces are setup in their initial positions, the clocks are reset to '00:00:00', the move display is cleared, the white clock is started, and you are given the option of moving first. Pressing 'G' will make the program take the white pieces and move first (for further details see the 'Go' command described later). 3.b - Your move Whenever it is your turn to move, the program asks 'Your move?' at the bottom of the main screen. You enter moves by the following cursor positioning method (see the later section 'Cursor movement' for further details). 1) Move the cursor to the square of the piece you wish to move, and press the (RETURN) key. This causes the from-square to be displayed. If you accidentally enter the wrong from-square it can be cancelled by pressing the (DELETE) key. (The cursor is shown as an inverse line drawn through the current square). 2) Move the cursor to the square you wish to move to and again press (RETURN). This causes the 'to-square' to be displayed. If the move is illegal, the message 'Illegal' is displayed and the move entry cleared. You must then return to step-1 above and try again. 3) If the move is a pawn promotion the program then asks 'Promotion piece?'. You must then specify the piece you want to promote to by typing one of the following: 'N'-knight, 'B'- bishop, 'R'-rook, or 'Q'-queen. If you press any other key, the program assumes you promote to a queen. Note: If you wish to enter a castling move you should move the king two squares either way. The legal move is now indicated on the board, by flashing the cursor on the from-square, then moving the piece and flashing the cursor on the to-square. 3.c - Colossus move When the program computes its move it displays the message 'Let me think...' below the board, and displays the current move under consideration to the right of the board. The technical information on the secondary screen is updated as the search progresses. When the program has finished its search, it prints the selected move in the move-record and indicates it on the board (in the same way as your moves are indicated) Pressing the COMMODORE key, whilst the program is thinking about its move, will cause it to abort its search, display the message 'Escape' and make the best move it has found so far. If the program has found that its move leads to checkmate, it announces the move with the message 'Mate in N' where N is the number of moves till the mate. 3.d - Game over When a game is completed, the clocks are stopped and the program displays a message, to the right of the board, to indicate the final state of the game. The messages are:- 'Drawn' the game has been drawn by 3-fold repetition of position or the 50-move rule. 'Checkmate' the side which moved last delivered checkmate. 'Stalemate' the side to move is in stalemate. The program then asks 'What now? and waits for you to enter one of the program commands. Type '(CTRL)N' to start a new game (for further details see the 'New-game' command described later). SECTION 4 KEYBOARD ENTRIES 4.a - Cursor movement The cursor is indicated by an inverse line, drawn through the middle of the current square. It can be moved in two ways. 1) The four cursor controls, provide single square movement in any direction. If the cursor is m...
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