Hi everyone!

I have just released new versions of my drivers for Millennium, Certabo, DGT and Novag (UCB/Citrine) boards for use in Arena (and so also CB-EMU which has Arena), Shredder and LucasChess:

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

The main changes are:

Millennium
With lots of help from user Bauernopfer I think I now have the Bluetooth connection working! Select the COM port displayed for the BT connection and it should work exactly the same as the USB version. Thanks also to Lars for leading the way!

Millennium/Certabo/DGT
Because these boards have piece recognition I have now updated them so that you can set up piece positions using the board. In the GUI "Setup Position" screen just remove both kings from the board and my driver will go into set up mode. You can then put the pieces where you want them before replacing both kings. The last king to be replaced identifies which side moves next. In Arena you can also do this during a game provided you don't change which side moves next.
(Lucas needs to release version 1.29 for this to work there.)

Auto connection
If you use 'Auto' as the connection type this should now work faster (except Certabo which can already determine which port to use).

There are also quite a lot of internal code changes where I have tidied things up a bit, but nothing that should change how the drivers work (I hope!).

Graham

Thank you for your effort and Informations! As long as I can see, the latest Lucas Version is 1.28a.

All the best

Hi Graham,

thx for this good new.

I have one question about your dgt replacement. Did you support the field LEDs from the Revelation II in your DLL?

Dirk

Hi Graham,

Is it also possible to connect Scid or Scid vs. PC to the Millennium boards? So far they only have an interface to Novag.

Hi,

Yes, Lucas is still working on the final stages of 1.29, but I have tested my driver on a pre-release version. I think 1.29 will be out in the next week or two.

For the Rev II, it's supposed to support the LEDs but I don't have a board so cannot test it. If you have one and find the LEDs don't work contact me via my web page and I'll see if it can be fixed.

Graham

For LucasChess you can keep the name as MCL_DLL.dll as the Config screen in Lucas lets you choose the board type. The DGTEBDLL.dll is an older version of Rabbit that he includes for DGT support. (If you want to use the newer Rabbit in Lucaschess just rename that file).

I can try contacting Hiarcs to tell them what I did, maybe it will help them. But ChessBase I'm afraid are beyond help! They don't seem interested in removing the block on drivers that aren't the original DGT Rabbit.

Does this continue working after you reboot your PC or do you have to run BearChess first every time?

I have added a feature request to SCID for this (but got no votes...) and I have also been in touch with 'StevenAus' at SCIDvsPC. Both will need quite a lot of work though as they don't currently support DGT Rabbit.

Not such a bad idea! I'm trying to work out what it is that happens when you perform your BT connection that isn't performed by my driver. I'll be in touch....!

Habe jetzt die neuen Treiber mit Arena probiert. Die vorherigen Treiber mit USB-Verbindung haben tadellos geklappt. Die neuen Treiber funktionieren mit meinem King-Performance und dem ChessLink mit Arena leider nicht mehr, weder Bluetooth noch USB.

Mein Laptop unter Win10 64bit zeigt bei den Bluetooth-Einstellungen auch nur mit MillenniumChess gekoppelt, nicht verbunden.

Hat jemand einen Tipp? Was mache ich nicht richtig? Liegt es am KingPerformance? Geht es nur mit dem MilleniumExklusiveBrett?

Danke und Grüße
Mike

Mein W10 64bit Prof. findet bei der Suche nach Bluetooth-Geräten den Chesslink zweimal. Einmal als Audio-Device, einmal als PC, beides mit Namen "MILLENIUM CHESS". Denke das "Audio-Device" richtet den COM-Port für BT ein, das PC-Gerät einen BLE-Treiber (Bluetooth Low Energy). Kann aber gut sein, dass ich mich da irre. Jedenfalls habe ich beide hinzugefügt und gekoppelt.

Taucht denn im Gerätemanager bei USB-Verbindung zum Chesslink ein zusätzlicher COM-Port auf? In Grahams Treiber mal auf Auto umgestellt?

In Grahams Treiber bitte das Logging aktivieren und aus dem Logfile MCL_DLL.LOG die letzten Loggings suchen und ggf. hier posten.

Viele Grüße
Thomas

Hallo Mike,

ich kann Dich beruhigen. Der Performance funktioniert ebenfalls. Entkopple mal die Bretter im Bluetooth-Menü von Windows. Dann starte BearChess von Lars und mach die Bluetooth-Suche von dort aus. Dann wird das Pairing-Fenster automatisch aufmachen und du verbindest. Dann muss Du noch verbinden im BearChess-Menü. Das sollte dann in der Folge auch bei den anderen Plattformen funktionieren. Aber da muss Du evtl. die DGT-Treiber durch die DGT-Treiber durch die Millennium-Treiber gem. Grahams Anleitung austauschen und diese noch umbenennen. Oder Du verwendet gleich das DLL-Hilfsprogramm, falls Du auch Bretter anderer Hersteller verwendest.

Bei alledem nicht vergessen: Der Performance muss stets im ChessLink-Pairing-Modus sein (über Menü einstellbar)!

Hi Graham,

THX, I will contact you next day's.

Dirk