Exeter Chess Club: Trawled from the 'Net

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Article: 49064 of rec.games.chess
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Newsgroups: rec.games.chess
Subject: Re: Data Base Query
Message-ID: 
From: sje@mv.mv.com (Steven J. Edwards)
Date: Tue, 2 May 1995 16:50:51 GMT
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bookup@coil.com (Bookup) writes:

>In article <199504301800.AA258604837@relay1.geis.com>,
>  wrote:
>>I have some questions about the various chess databases [NICBase,
>> ChessBase, Chess Assistant & BookUp].  I would appreciate any
>> answers.

>>2.   Do they permit "analysis"?  That is, when playing through a
>> game, do they permit me to stop, and start making moves on my own,
>> and then return to the position where I varied and pick up again?

>BOOKUP allows you to switch to the strongest software available
>for analysis.  This includes Chess Genius 3, HIARCS 2 and 3,
>Zarkov, MChessPro 4, WChess and soon Chessmaster 5000.

Yes, and it's EPD that makes this happen.  There are reports that
ChessBase can connect to Fritz3, but it is not a free, non-proprietary
interface.

The suggestion is that advertising copy, such as that which appears in
_Chess Life_ and other periodicals, should clearly state information
about standards conformance to help the consumer make an intelligent
choice.  Some advertisers already do this, but not all.

So, an ad for a chessplaying program might state:

"WoodMangler 2001 supports EPD import and export for compatibility
with EPD capable position database programs.  WoodMangler also
supports PGN import and export for compatibility with PGN capable game
database programs."

Similar copy would be provided for various database and publishing
programs.

>Genius, Zarkov and HIARCS can each annotate your data, too -- not
>just your games but your entire opening repertoire or group of 
>analysis if you like.

True again, but rarely seen in ad copy.

Maybe we could design seals saying "EPD Aware" and "PGN Compatible"
and have them appear in ad copy and stamped on retail packages.  It
would help purchasers and would be more polite than sticking labels
saying "Proprietary Formats Only, Kiss Off" on products with no
standard support.

-- Steven (sje@mv.mv.com)

From bagwill@sst.ncsl.nist.gov (Bob Bagwill)
Subject: Re: SGML considered harmful?
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 1994 20:38:23 GMT

   
   
   John Franks (john@hopf.math.nwu.edu) wrote:
   
     
     
     Fortunately the evolution of HTML seems to be away from the SGML
     philosophy.
     
   
   
   Since SGML is obviously on its way out, I suggest the following markup
   format for those of us who CARE about the appearance of our documents
   :-)

\hrule
\vskip 1in
\centerline{I {\bf CARE} about the appearance of my documents}
\vskip 6pt
\centerline{\sl by King Canute}
\vskip .5cm
Once upon a time, in the land of MakeBelieve\dots
\vskip 1in
\hrule
\vfill\eject
\end

   
   
   Personally, I find that this notation lacks precision, and bitmap
   operators, plus I love reverse Polish notation, so I often create
   documents like this:

1 0 bop 0 42 1950 2 v 525 370 a Fc(I)14 b Fb(CARE)h Fc(ab)q(out)f(the)g
(app)q(earance)h(of)e(m)o(y)g(do)q(cumen)o(ts)798 445 y
Fa(b)o(y)g(Ch)o(uc)o(k)h(U.)g(F)m(arley)83 554 y Fc(Once)h(up)q(on)f
(a)g(time,)e(in)h(the)i(land)e(of)g(Mak)o(eBeliev)o(e...)p 0 864 V 965
2770 a(1)p eop

   
   
   Of course, sometimes that notation doesn't put the pixels exactly
   where I want them, so I usually create documents like this:

image
ffffffffffffffffff000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000fffffffff
ffffffffff
fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffef8ef1e6657ce39923c633f
30c3398cc313f31e124f0ce2409c8467ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
ffffffffff
showpage
    Bob Bagwill
    
   
     _________________________________________________________________
   
   
   
   If you don't see why that's both funny and instructive, then you
   probably shouldn't be in this field at all...[Ed]

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