From: Pieter Stouten EMBL BITNET> Date: 20 aug 1990 Subject: Re: Macintosh Shogi Program... On Wed, 8 Aug 1990 23:20:33 CET, Brandon Freels AARDVARK UCS UOKNOR EDU> asked the following about the Macintosh Shogi playing program "Shogi 0.21": >What I am interested in is others opinions about this program. One question I >have is DOES THE PROGRAM EVER DROP PIECES? There were many times in a game I >was playing last night where the computer could have avoided a touchy situation >by dropping a piece, and he could DEFINATELY have avoided the checkmate by >doing this. My impression is that the problem is very weak, but absolute beginners can have fun playing against it. It does never drop pieces (!) and its opening is invariably primitive Nakabisha (primitive Central Rook: R5h or R5b on the first move). I went to the limit with the program: I captured all his pieces, but left him with some pieces in hand. Then I put his King in a stalemate position (although stalemate does not exist in Shogi and whyever should it ?) and even then it just moved the King to be captured on the next move instead of making a drop. I'll forward a copy of this mail to the author. He might be able to do something about it. Some more news about the program. The author Kengo Tsuruzono has made an English version (especially for us, SHOGI-L subscribers !) and is currently working on an English ReadMe file. After I have received the lot, I'll upload it to the SHOGI-L archive. Pieter Stouten embl bitnet>