Certabo, Millennium and Novag (Citrine, UCB) drivers
 

I have updated my drivers for the Certabo, Millennium Chesslink and Novag UCB boards and I have also added a Novag Citrine driver. These allow those boards to be used in Arena, LucasChess and Shredder. They are available on my web page and are already included in LucasChess from release 1.16.

https://goneill.co.nz/chess.php

The changes are:

** Certabo **

Misplaced pieces
During the New Game, New Position or Registration process the screen will now highlight which pieces are not in the correct position.

LucasChess take backs
From LucasChessR version 1.16 you no longer have to press the Takeback button after each pair of taken back moves. Now LucasChess will automatically update itself after you take back both the computer's last move and your own.

Improved display of take backs
When the LEDs are set to show only when the computer moves, or not at all, the display of the LEDs during take backs has been improved.

Log read errors
While I was attaching chips to my new pieces it was useful to see if the weights were affecting the board scanning. So I added this option to write any read errors to the program log file.


** Millennium Chess Link **

LucasChess take backs
From LucasChessR version 1.16 you no longer have to press the Takeback button after each pair of taken back moves. Now LucasChess will automatically update itself after you take back both the computer's last move and your own.

LED display choice
You can now choose to turn off the LEDs when it is your turn to move so that only computer moves are highlighted, or to turn off the LEDs completely. The latter is useful if you are playing a human vs human game and don't want to be distracted by LEDs.


** Novag Citrine **

I have now written a version of the UCB driver that controls the Novag Citrine board. This is included in LucasChess from release 1.16 or you can download it from my web page for Arena or Shredder. There is no need to use it in Arena if you only play games against engines as Arena has built in support for the Citrine, but if you use Arena to play online I'm told my driver is better. There seems to be a bug in Arena where the LEDs aren't displayed properly during online play, which isn't a problem with my driver.


** Novag UCB **

LucasChess take backs
From LucasChessR version 1.16 you no longer have to press the Takeback button after each pair of taken back moves. Now LucasChess will automatically update itself after you take back both the computer's last move and your own.

AW: Certabo, Millennium and Novag (Citrine, UCB) drivers
 

I should also add, for anybody that isn't already aware of this, that Franz Huber's CB-EMU package runs MessChess ROMs using Arena. So you can copy any of my drivers into the Arena directory there (...\CB-Emu\MessChess\Arena) as DGTEBDLL.dll and then use your Certabo, Millennium or Novag UCB board to play against the old machines!

AW: Certabo, Millennium and Novag (Citrine, UCB) drivers
 

Mal eine Frage zu Lucas-Chess und den Boards. Nach längerer Pause habe ich mir mal wieder die GUI angeschaut und das Millennium-Board eingebunden. Die Anfangskonfiguration war ein bisschen tricky, aber nach mehren Neustarts von GUI und ChessLink hat es dann funktioniert und klappt soweit problemlos beim Spiel gegen Engines.

Was mich an der GUI von Lucas-Chess schon früher besonders interessiert hat, war die Erstellung / Training von Taktikkursen und das Spiel gegen eigene Eröffnungsbücher.

Erfreulicherweise funktioniert auch das grundsätzlich mit dem Brett, ist aber nicht besonders komfortabel. Sofern man den richtigen Zug ausführt ist alles ok. Macht man jedoch einen Fehler, wird kein Antwortzug auf dem Brett ausgespielt, was grundsätzlich natürlich so auch in Ordnung ist.

Was mir aber nun weniger gefällt:
In der GUI wird nun der richtige Zug angezeigt, den ich dort zunächst bestätigen muss. Darauf hin wird in GUI der nächste Buchzug angezeigt (also nicht auf dem Brett!) i. V. m. dem Öffnen eines Dialogs, wo man explizit bestätigen soll, dass man nun die Stellung auf dem Brett angleichen soll. Das funktioniert soweit auch, nur gefällt mir diese Art der Umsetzung so nicht.

Kann sowas nicht über z. B. über einer Fehlerton signalisiert werden und man nimmt den falschen Zug auf dem Brett zurück und führt einen Alternativzug aus? Ist das ein "Problem" der GUI oder kann man das über ein Update des Treibers optimieren? Läuft das bei Certabo genauso ab?

Ich habe den Autor von Lucas-Chess mal angeschrieben, aber Lars und
Graham, die die Treiber geschrieben haben und die hier ja mitlesen/posten , können vielleicht eher was dazu sagen?!

AW: Certabo, Millennium and Novag (Citrine, UCB) drivers
 

Hallo,

ich vermute, du benutzt den Treiber vom Graham. Also kann ich nicht soviel dazu sagen. Wahrscheinlich könnte der Treiber auch ein Signalton spielen, ich weiß aber nicht, welche Informationen an das Brett gehen. D.h. hat das Programm von Graham die notwendige Informationen zu erkennen, dass es an der Zeit wäre, ein Signalton zu spielen.

Gruß
Lars

AW: Certabo, Millennium and Novag (Citrine, UCB) drivers
 

Hello,

I must admit that I haven't really looked at the training courses in LucasChess so haven't tried out my driver at all with those. At the moment it really is designed for the playing of games against engines but I will give it a try and see if I can improve how the program works in the other areas of the GUI. It might take me a little time though....

Regards,
Graham

AW: Certabo, Millennium and Novag (Citrine, UCB) drivers
 

I've just released version 1.4 of the Certabo driver which adds support for the Certabo Bluetooth module. The download is on my web page and it will be included in the next version of LucasChess (R 1.18 I think).

No changes to the Millennium or Novag drivers for this.

I'm still thinking about how to improve the support for the LucasChess training options. It will require changes to both my driver and also Lucas's software and I don't want to ask him to make changes until I know what I want!

Graham

AW: Certabo, Millennium and Novag (Citrine, UCB) drivers
 

Hi Graham,



that's really great. Thank you again. I wrote the same in the Certabo forum, but ask you parallel here:

Unfortunately I can get no connection to BT. BT works fine with the original Certabo Software from Pietro and also with the new version of BearChess from Lars.

When I try it in Shredder with your new driver, I get no connection to BT. If I open the control panel I can choose "Bluetooth" as connection type, but then nothing happens. I can continue using cable but no chance for BT.



The log-file says "connection error, BT connection failed"



Any idea ?



Thanks

Tobias

AW: Certabo, Millennium and Novag (Citrine, UCB) drivers
 

Hi Tobias,

I've released version 1.41 on my web page which changes how the BT connection works. It also outputs a little more information to the log file which might be useful if you still have problems.

Can you try the new version and let me know if it helps?

Thanks,
Graham

AW: Certabo, Millennium and Novag (Citrine, UCB) drivers
 

Hi Graham,

that's great. I tested the new version and it worked instantly. I changed the BT-connection several times between Pietros Certabo, Lars BearChess and your driver in Shredder. No problems. Hope I find time to play a longer time, but I am confident, it will be stable.

Thanks a lot.