HISTORY OF INTERCHESS v5.6 Changes from 2.2 to 2.3 Non-Ansi users had a rough time trying to read the screen. We hope that our code is now improved enough so that any of your non-ansi users can now take advantage of this fine chess capability. Changes from 2.3 to 3.1 The wrongfull rotation of the screen when you were asked to save has been eliminated. The Oponents name on the screen telling you that your move was done by him (in the save screen) has be eliminated. The Mail message has been changed a little. Now works with RoboSN the way it should. You are not limited to sending waiting game messages to only the E-Mail base. Changes from 3.1 to 3.2 Two bytes in different places cause the opening screen to not get printed. Changed the mail message so that it more strongly requests that you erase the message after you have read it. And tells user that this is the only notice that he or she will get. Changes made between 3.2 and 3.3 Now you can choose to use your handle when saving a new chess game. Changes made between 3.3 and 3.4 Changed the way it askes the question about using handles to being defaulted to (N) if you hit return at the question. Changes made between 3.4 and 3.5 Added to the .cfg a toggle for whether or not you are using Paragon or Starnet with handles. Changes made between 3.5 and 3.6 Rewrote major portions of reading and game loading code to eliminate all of the Compiler warnings and reduce the ENFORCER HITS TO ZERO. Increased the delay for a VALID! move phrase so that you can read it. Coming for Christmas (work schedule permitting) ... increased speed through the use of a chess.users file that will be like the reg. users.dat/ver but will naturally be a lot shorter. The user will be asked if they would like to join the chess club..... Maybe even make it so that it will say.. Would you like to join the chess club. We will see what it looks like. Changes made between 3.6 and 3.7 Rewrote the way HANDLES are looked for. This should speedup the time it takes for Interchess to realize you have a game running with your Handle rather than your Real Name. Also fixed the Mailseed so that if you are using a Handle it also uses your Handle. This speed increase shows to be dramatic here on our A3000. If it is sufficient on all the other machines in use we may not need to do the Chess Club idea. Let us know what you think. Changes made between 3.7 and 3.8 Fixed a bug that showed the 'aka !' even when the BBS was not using Handles. Now no longer shows this if you aren't using Handles. Changes made between 3.8 and 3.9 Interchess now requires that NULL: be mounted when using robo or roboSN. This device should be included in Workbench 2.0, and is available in the public domain for 1.3 or earlier. With any luck this will solve the rare bug that causes a hard crash on Amiga Micro. Changes made between 3.9 and 4.0 Found the BUG that was changing the turns color after a King was moved. Added a couple of time Delays here and there to alleviate user stress. Changes made between 4.0 and 4.1 Many Sysops were telling us that some of their users, ones with longer than 14 characters in their names, could not use Interchess. So, now if your name or handle is longer than 14 characters it will be saved in the game at its full length but in the title for the directory it will be truncated to 14 characters. That's it for this time. Hoping for a sysop game editor soon. Due to this change you must run the game converting program, ICHESScnvrt, on all of your older games. Sorry, but this had to happen to increase the size of the file. While we were at it, we added room for game and move timers for timed games... a hint of things to come. Changes made between 4.1 and 4.2 4.1 was never released, because the convert program wasn't ready, and the filename problem wasn't completely ironed out. But here it is! The conversion program automatically searches the given directory for old interchess games and converts them to the new format. If you put ICHESScnvrt in your interchess directory, you can just run it. If you decide to put it elsewhere, type ICHESScnvrt , where is the path to your interchess games. Changes made between 4.2 and 4.3 Killed a bug that allowed the horse to be taken by its own advancing pawn. Changes made between 4.3 and 4.4 Someone found another rule that was missing. When a pawn reaches the other side of the board, it is now changed into a Queen. Made the program available for multirun; feel free to run your door as a multirun door. Added the '/' option at the Opponent prompt. Hitting '/' tries the same username just played against. This way two people can play between lines without the need of trying to remember how to spell each other's names or having to quit out and re-enter just to get the name again. Also repaired the version string. Changes made between 4.4 and 4.5 Conceding the game (! as first key press) never quite worked right... It does now. Changes made between 4.5 and 4.6 Will allow you to just hit return to load the first found game you are in or you may type in any other game to play it first. Starting new games is still the same. You may have two games going with one person now if handles are allowed and you use handles on one game and real names on the other. Changes made between 4.6 and 4.7 You can now use the Robot-Msg feature of StarNet's instead of using RoboWriter. Changes between 4.7 and 4.8 Fixed a bug that was in 4.7. Thanks go to Dave LaPointe for finding it. Changes between 4.8 and 5.0 4.9 was a disaster .... Almost threw the thing in the garbage trying to convert get the Stardoor.library going. Did not release this except to testers. 5.0 Bill Bowling aided us tremendously in implementing the usage of the StarDoor.Library. And after many hours of fine tuning we feel that the Chess games is in the best shape it has ever been in and is now ready for the work necessary to implement tournament playing modules. Watch for them... Changes between 5.0 and 5.1 Changed the code for Long name truncation and saving. Changes between 5.1 and 5.2 A user found that you could trick the game into letting you capture your own queen. Why you would do this isn't known but, in case you hit this combination of keys by accident, the game will not allow the move and save. Changes between 5.2 and 5.3 Removed all references to Paragon since with the Stardoors.library now in use this door is StarNet only. Put back in all the (if nocarrier) lines that were accidently omited during the StarDoors.library switch-over. Changes between 5.3 and 5.4 Made the screens compatible with Jr-Comm when set for 8-color, 8 color is needed for max-transfer speeds with existing serial.devices, and have now compiled it with SAS C 6.2. Changes between 5.4 and 5.5 Finally used infoblock correctly so that the game would see waiting games. It has been pure luck that it worked all this time. Fixed now though. Sorry about 5.4, didn't test it enough. Changes between 5.5 and 5.6 Added a Sysop Function to the game. Added reminder message mailing. Cleaned up the code a little more and corrected the INVALID word messing up the position of the start point for your alphanumeric move inputs. Found and fixed the spirious looping error that was causing the Concede Function to occationally malfunction. This is the last free beta release of InterChess. Future improvements (not bug fixes), will be available to Registered users only and will be including a game editor function and eventually a timed game between nodes. Registration is only $20 bucks and works out to about .0001 cent per hour of work on this door game. There will be a key file. MHK