@@@@@@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@@@@@

@@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@@@@@@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@

@@@@@@ @@ @@ @@@@@ @@ @@ @@@@@@

@@ @@ @@@ @@ @@@@ @@ @@ @@@@ @@ @@@ @@ @@ @@ @@

@ @@@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@@@@@@ @@ @@ @@ @@

@@@@@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@@@@ @@ @@ @@ @@

@@@@ @@ @ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @ @@@@

README.TXT for Windows 95/NT version of Chenard a chess program by Don Cross <dcross@intersrv.com> NOTE: If you have web access, chec in on the following URL every now and then to see if there are newer versions of Chenard. You can tell which version you have by loo ing in Chenard's menu Help|About. http://www.intersrv.com/~dcross/chenard.html -----------------------------------------------------------------------------What is Chenard? ================ Chenard is a chess program that I have been wor ing on since April 1993. Chenard comes in different versions. This version (also nown as WinChenard) runs under Windows 95 and Windows NT. WinChenard will NOT run under Windows 3.1 because it requires true 32-bit multithreading. If you use MS-DOS/Windows 3.1, you can use either the VGA or CGA versions of Chenard for MS-DOS; just download them from the web site above. The Chenard program is freely distributable. You may give copies to anyone anywhere in the world, so long as you distribute both WINCHEN.EXE and README.TXT (this file) unmodified and in their entirety. The C++ source code for Chenard is available online at the web address at the beginning of this document. The source code is copyrighted, but I (Don Cross) allow anyone to use it freely for non-commercial uses, and especially for non-profit educational uses. If you wish to distribute versions of the Chenard program or its source code which have been modified in any way, you must obtain express written permission from me, Don Cross. Please contact me by email at: dcross@intersrv.com -----------------------------------------------------------------------------Instructions for installing Chenard =================================== I recommend that you create a directory for Chenard, then unzip the file WINCHEN.ZIP into it. You will then have the following files: WINCHEN.EXE README.TXT The Chenard executable itself This file

Note: These files are enough for Chenard to play chess, but you can also optionally download the file CHENWAV.ZIP from the Chenard web page to give Chenard the ability to spea the move notation through your sound card (see the View|Spea option later in this document). Put CHENWAV.ZIP in the same directory that you installed Chenard in,

then unzip it to obtain the necessary *.WAV files. After installing the Chenard files, in Windows 95 you can create an icon to run the program. For example, to ma e a shortcut on your des top, clic the right mouse button once while holding the mouse over a blan space on the des top. Then choose "New", then "Shortcut". Use the Browse button to locate the subdirectory where you just put all of the Chenard distribution files, and in it select the file WINCHEN.EXE with the mouse. Continue with the process by clic ing the Next button, giving the shortcut the name "Chenard". Once you are done, you should be able to double clic on the shortcut icon and run Chenard. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------How to run Chenard ================== When you first run Chenard, a dialog box appears which as s who should play White and who should play Blac . By default, Chenard randomly assigns one color to you (Human) and one to itself (Computer), with equal li elihood. However, you can play Chenard against itself if you li e -- just set both White and Blac to "Computer" and watch the self-abuse begin! It's fun to set one side to thin for a much larger amount of time than the other, virtually guaranteeing its overwhelming victory. The final possibility is to set both White and Blac to "Human" and just use the program as a passive chess board which enforces legal moves. (In this case, the View|Rotate Board command may be useful). You can adjust Chenard's playing strength by modifying the amount of time it spends thin ing about each move. The "thin time" appears to the right of each radio button labeled "Computer" in the opening dialog box. You should enter a time expressed in seconds. I recommend starting out somewhere around 5 to 10 seconds. If this seems too easy for you to beat, then increase the time to your li ing. Starting in version 1.030, the thin time may be a fractional number of seconds, with the minimum allowed value being 0.1 seconds. Menu commands available in Chenard ================================== File|New - throw this game away and start a new one File|Open - load a game from a file File|Save - save the current state of the game to a file File|Save As - save to another filename File|Exit - quits out of the Chenard program Edit|Clear Board - removes all pieces from the board except the ings Edit|Edit Mode Toggles edit mode. When on, clic ing on a square with mouse button will bring up a dialog box which lets you contents of the square to anything you li e. When you the specified color ing is moved (not replicated!) to Clic ing on a square with the right mouse button while repeats this last edit action to the specified square. edit mode off to resume normal play. the left change the choose " ing", the given square. in edit mode You must turn

Edit|Copy Game Listing This command copies a text listing of the moves which have been

played so far into the Windows clipboard. Then, you will be able to paste the game listing into Notepad, your favorite word processor, etc. Then you could print the game listing or save it as a text file. Edit|Undo Move Cancels the last whole move (pair of turns) in the game, so that you can try a different move. You can repeat this action as many times as you want to bac up toward the beginning of the game. Edit|Redo Move Cancels one Undo action every time it is performed, moving forward in the game by a whole move (pair of turns). View|Freshen Try this command if it loo s li e Chenard has not rendered the whole display correctly. Theoretically, you should never have to do this. View|Rotate By default, when one player is human and the other is the computer, Chenard shows the human side toward the bottom of the screen and the computer's side toward the top of the screen. At any time, you can toggle the orientation of the view by selecting this menu command, or pressing Ctrl+R. This is especially useful if you are playing Chenard against another computer program, because you can then see the board from the same point of view in both programs. View|Spea moves through sound card (disabled by default) NOTE: The WAV files necessary for this command are now distributed separately from Chenard, simply because they are rather large. If you want to use View|Spea , you will need to visit the Chenard web page, download the file called "chenwav.zip" and unzip it into the same directory where you installed Chenard. This option requires a sound card in your computer which can handle 8-bit monaural PCM WAV files sampled at 11.025 Hz. Most any sound card these days should be able handle this. When this option is enabled, the computer will spea (using recordings of the author's voice) move notation through the sound card after each move is played. View|Board Size Has three different choices allowed: Small(default), Medium, and Large. Small will always ma e the graphics loo crispest and nicest, but Medium and Large are provided in case you want to ma e the board display more legible from a distance. View|Piece Style Allows you to choose from one of three different styles for the graphics of the chess pieces on the board: Original Tilburg S a by by by Don Cross Eric Schiller & William Cone Egon Madsen

If you are interested in the topic of computer chess fonts, visit Alastair Scott's web page at: http://www.users.dircon.co.u /~amscott/home.htm Alastair was the one who contacted me and supplied me with the Tilburg and S a chess fonts, and Chenard has loo ed much better ever since!

Game|Force Move Use this command whenever it is Chenard's turn to move and you are losing your patience. This command will force the computer to immediately ma e whatever move it currently thin s is best. Game|Edit Thin Times Allows you to edit the maximum amount of time that the computer player(s) spend thin ing about each move they ma e. Note that editing the thin time of a computer player while it is thin ing about a move will have no effect on the current move, but will ic in immediately after that. See also: Game|Force Move. Game|Tactical Benchmar This command is probably not of much interest to most users. It runs a series of pre-programmed tests to determine how efficient my chess engine is on the current computer. You can compare your computer's efficiency to that of the author's 100 MHz Pentium machine. This test can ta e a long time (6 minutes on my machine), and once started, the only way you can stop it is to close the whole Chenard program. Help|About Tells you the version of Chenard, my email address, and Chenard's address on the World Wide Web. Please feel free to send me any questions or comments relating to Chenard. Even though it is a free program, I do try to support it as much as possible because I want people to enjoy using it. Again, here's how to contact me: email: web: dcross@intersrv.com http://www.intersrv.com/~dcross/chenard.html

Help|Copy Chenard web page address Copies the following text into your Windows clipboard: http://www.intersrv.com/~dcross/chenard.html After using this command, you can go into your favorite Windows-based web browser (e.g. Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer), paste the URL into the "location" field, press Enter, and you will be ta en immediately to the Chenard web page. I just added this command because I now lots of people who use computers but hate to type! Why did I write Chenard? ======================== The short answer to this question is: for fun! Chenard is actually the second chess program I have written. The first one (called Chester) was a success in that it could play a reasonable game of chess, but I new that the code was never going to run on anything but MS-DOS due to a lot of machine dependencies (including hand-optimized assembly code). I decided that I wanted to pursue chess programming as a long-term hobby, and that meant that I should design a chess engine to be portable to different operating systems from the ground up. This way, no matter what direction the computer industry too in the years to come, I would have an easy way to eep Chenard "alive". So I had a real ball designing, implementing, and refining Chenard into the program it is today. But then I ran into a problem: I had wor ed so hard creating this thing, but very few people I new seemed interested in

actually *using* it. Kind of a letdown... But then the World Wide Web happened! I realized that instead of bugging my friends to play my program, I could just cast a larger net; surely *someone* out there in the world would get some use out of it. Chenard was one of the first things I put on my web site. Now (February 1997) the Chenard page is getting an average of 40 hits a day, and I get lots of positive feedbac from around the world.

I hope you enjoy using Chenard! Sincerely, - Don Cross <dcross@intersrv.com> http://www.intersrv.com/~dcross/ ----------------------------- end of readme.txt ------------------------------

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~