Amigo V6.5 Documenatation

This is version 6.5 of AmiGo --- a Go board and player for the Amiga.
The Amiga interface and board manager were written by Todd R. Johnson.
The player is written by Nikolaus Häfner and is based on Todd R. Johnson's
C port of a Pascal player written by Stoney Ballard. The interface allows
you to play human vs. human, human vs. Amiga, or Amiga vs. Amiga.

New Features (since Todd Johnson's Amigo V1.0):

 1. Stronger player!
 2. Ability to score a game.
 3. Autosaving and the ability to load a saved game.
 4. Timer.
 5. Moves are shown optionally by a blinking stone.
 6. It's not possible anymore to create illegal positions before
    starting a game.
 7. More information in the group info.
 8. Some small bugs are removed.
 9. Eight instead of seven levels.
10. More move reasons.
11. Fixed a bug with the font topaz 8 that wasn't used always.

New in Version 6.5:

-I just removed a big bug with the calculation of the size of positions
 (thanx to Christoph Gutjahr)
-I use another Icon now (created by myself)
-Alternative Icon by Christoph Gutjahr (thanx again)

Problems:

1. It's slow now. You should have at least a 68030, if you want to
   use the higher levels.
2. It crashes sometimes. Maybe the reason is
   a) not enough stack,
   b) problems with the timer or
   c) I don't know what.

Possible future features:

1. Ability to undo moves.
2. Variable board sizes.
3. A Stronger player.

Note:

Since version 5.5 Amigo is mailware, what just means that you have to
send me a mail, if you like the program. If you send me a mail, I'll
try to inform you about new versions of Amigo!
My email is: nik_haefner@gmx.de

Short Manual:

   AmiGo requires a stack of at least 21000 bytes to run.  On
startup the program checks the stack and exits if the stack is too
small.  21000 bytes should be sufficient, but if the program crashes,
try upping the stack even further. (Since I changed the playing
routines it is possible that it need a much bigger stack. I use now
a stack of 100000 bytes, but I suppose sometimes it's not enough,
because sometimes there appears a software failure.)

   Once AmiGo starts you will see an empty Go board and the
initial credits.  At this point, you can set the handicap (or any
other board configuration) by clicking on the intersections.  Use the
menus to set options and to begin play.  Stones are played by clicking
on the desired point.  Certain menu options can be selected during
play; however, if the Amiga is making a move, the menu selection will
not be processed until after the move is made.

The menu selections have the following functions:

Game
   Play
   Start the game.

   Save
   Not implemented. (it's useless now, because there is a autosaving)

   SaveAs
   Not Implemented. (it's useless too)

   Load
   You can load a game, if there is a saved one in RAM: with the
   name 'protokoll'. Every new game automatically will be saved as
   "ram:protokoll". If a game crashes, you can start amigo again
   and load it from ram:. If you want to save more than one game,
   you have to make backups of the protokoll-files.

   Count Points
   This is a scoring command. You can use it when a game is finished.
   All captured stones will be removed from board. Then the score will
   be calculated. In some very rare cases (if a group will be
   mistakenly judged as dead) it still makes mistakes. It also takes
   a bit time, because it has to decide wich groups are alive and wich
   are dead.

   Restart
   During play this will clear the board and allow a new game to
   be started.

   Quit
   Exit AmiGo

Option
   Set Play Level
   Set the play level (from 1 to 8) of the computer Go player.
   Level 8 is the highest (best and slowest) level.

   Human vs. Human

   Amiga vs. Amiga

   Human vs. Amiga

   Amiga plays black

   Amiga plays white
   
   Black to play
   Black gets to move first. (The default)

   White to play
   White gets to move first.  This must be used for a handicap game.


Move
   Pass

   Take Back Move
   Not implemented

Info
   Show Lookahead
   When selected displays the pieces that are being played during
   lookahead searches. You shouldn't use this anymore because now
   there are delays and it's usefull only for debugging. If you
   nevertheless select this, you may have to wait more than an half
   hour per move.

   Move Reason
   When selected the first of the reasons for the computer's last move is
   given immediately following each move. The computer now is able to have
   more than one reason for a move.

   Group Info
   When selected clicking on a stone will print out information about
   the group that the stone is a part of.  This information comes from
   the board manager, not the player.

   Timer
   When selected there will be a timer while playing.

   Show Moves
   When selected moves are shown by a blinking stone.