11. Other programs you can use with XBoard

Here are some other programs you can use with XBoard

11.1 GNU Chess		The GNU Chess engine.
11.2 Crafty		The Crafty chess engine.
11.3 zic2xpm		The program used to import chess sets from ZIICS.

11.1 GNU Chess

The GNU Chess engine is available from:

ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnuchess/

You can use XBoard to play a game against GNU Chess, or to interface GNU Chess to an ICS.

11.2 Crafty

Crafty is a chess engine written by Bob Hyatt. You can use XBoard to play a game against Crafty, hook Crafty up to an ICS, or use Crafty to interactively analyze games and positions for you.

Crafty is a strong, rapidly evolving chess program. This rapid pace of development is good, because it means Crafty is always getting better. This can sometimes cause problems with backwards compatibility, but usually the latest version of Crafty will work well with the latest version of XBoard. Crafty can be obtained from its author's FTP site: ftp://ftp.cis.uab.edu/hyatt/.

To use Crafty with XBoard, give the -fcp and -fd options as follows, where <crafty's directory> is the directory in which you installed Crafty and placed its book and other support files.

11.3 zic2xpm

The "zic2xpm" program is used to import chess sets from the ZIICS(*) program into XBoard. "zic2xpm" is part of the XBoard distribution. ZIICS is available from:

ftp://ftp.freechess.org/pub/chess/DOS/ziics131.exe

To import ZIICS pieces, do this:

1. Unzip ziics131.exe into a directory:

unzip -L ziics131.exe -d ~/ziics

2. Use zic2xpm to convert a set of pieces to XBoard format.

For example, let's say you want to use the FRITZ4 set. These files are named "fritz4.*" in the ZIICS distribution.

mkdir ~/fritz4 cd ~/fritz4 zic2xpm ~/ziics/fritz4.*

3. Give XBoard the "-pixmap" option when starting up, e.g.:

xboard -pixmap ~/fritz4

Alternatively, you can add this line to your .Xdefaults file:

xboard*pixmapDirectory: ~/fritz4

(*) ZIICS is a separate copyrighted work of Andy McFarland. The "ZIICS pieces" are copyrighted works of their respective creators. Files produced by "zic2xpm" are for PERSONAL USE ONLY and may NOT be redistributed without explicit permission from the original creator(s) of the pieces.