On this page:
Chess Web Sites |
Chess FTP Sites |
Chess Discussion Groups |
Linking to PGN files
My Web pages are here to provide original content, not a long list
of links to other sites. I have neither the time nor the interest to
maintain a large collection of links, or to trade links with other pages.
But here are a few starting points you may find useful.
Pages primarily about XBoard and WinBoard
Computer chess pages
- Shane Hudson has a Web page where you can get his
free chess database,
called Scid. Scid runs on both Unix (including Linux) and Windows.
- Arena is a free
graphical user interface that works with WinBoard-compatible chess engines.
It's for Windows only.
- A free chess database called Jose is now available.
It has a database (using MySQL), 2-D and 3-D board views, and can plug
in XBoard-compatible engines. It runs on both Windows and Linux.
- Many commercial chess programs for Windows can now use
WinBoard-compatible chess engines too, including Chessmaster 8000 and 9000.
With the exception of the Chessmaster folks, the commercial chess
software vendors generally never attempt to communicate with me, so I
don't have much idea what they're doing and can't provide information
here. If you'd like to learn more, Aaron Tay keeps a listing of
WinBoard engines that work in commercial GUIs.
- DJ Delorie runs a Web site that lets you play a game against
GNU Chess using your Web browser as the graphical interface.
- Keith Fuller has a Web page from which you can get the latest
version of pgnRead, his
PGN viewer for Windows.
- The Computer Chess Programming page is a great starting point if
you're interested in learning how to write your own chess engine.
- Another good place to look is the International Computer Games
Association home page. (Formerly the International Computer
Chess Association.)
General chess pages
FTP sites are rather old hat these days, but there are still
a few with chess files that you can download.
Here are some good places to talk about computer chess.
- Volker Pittlik runs a Web message board called the
WinBoard Forum.
This is the main place to talk about WinBoard, xboard, and chess
engines that work with them.
- There is a mailing list for authors of chess engines that
work with XBoard and WinBoard, hosted at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chess-engines.
Others can join, but you probably won't find the list interesting
unless you write software that speaks the chess engine communication
protocol used by XBoard and WinBoard.
You can join by sending mail to chess-engines-subscribe@groups.yahoo.com, or go to the Web site.
You can also read the list on the Web site if you prefer not to
receive it by mail. The list is partially moderated, to block spam
and offtopic posts.
- The Usenet newsgroup rec.games.chess.computer is devoted to computer chess.
Historically, it was also the site of a lot of ugly, off-topic flame
wars. This led to the founding of the Computer
Chess Club message board.
- The Computer Chess
Club is a Web message board for discussion of computer chess.
It's moderated in an attempt to prevent flame wars. Membership is free.
It's much more active than the Usenet computer chess group.
- There is a Crafty mailing list. To subscribe, send email to majordomo@cis.uab.edu, with
"subscribe crafty-list" in the body. The list is moderated to filter
out spam and flames.
- The WinBoard Info forum run by Ed Seid seems to be dormant.
Note: this information is here for historical reasons.
The idea of linking to PGN files as a special MIME type and using
a PGN viewer as a helper application never really took off.
Your Web browser can use XBoard or WinBoard as its helper application for
viewing PGN files at Web sites.
Follow the instructions
in the XBoard FAQ, and then
use the following links to test whether you have it working.
If you want to put links like this on your own Web site, here are a couple
of ways to do it.
- Add pgn to the list of file extensions that
your Web server automatically maps to MIME types, mapping it to
application/x-chess-pgn. Details of how to do this vary depending on
exactly which Web server you are running; see your server's documentation.
- Alternatively, you can write a CGI script that supplies the MIME type.
This method lets you leave the server configuration unchanged.
In addition, you can serve the same file as either text or PGN by
linking to it either directly or through the CGI script. Feel free to
copy and adapt the perl script I wrote for
this purpose.
Return to top |
My home page |
My work