From: Tie Zeng <zeng <at> APPLE <dot> COM>
Date: 23 sep 1993
Subject: Re: comments of new mac shogi program

Thanks to everyone replying to my questions. I will reply
individually to each message later.

I am trying to answer all the messages here so to save me sometime and
it may be interesting to other people.


>1) I am not completely sure about what you mean by this question. I reckon
>that with "Chinese characters only" you mean the diagrams common in
>Japanese Shogi publications and with "icons" you mean an outline around the
>Kanji character (either 2-D or 3-D), similar to pieces on a normal Shogi
>board. If that is what you mean, I think both would be acceptable, but the
>icon approach is most commenly used in Japanese Shogi programs and is
>therefore the standard for computer Shogi.

That is exactly what I mean. I am using icon (2-D) in the board. What I am
doing now it print the board to a file in PICT format. The board should be
very similar to
Crane's Shogi. I will say a little more in another message.

>However, you also want to have the possibility to transport diagrams to a
>word processor (of course one of the great features of the Mac). This means
>that the program can (and will) be used to make diagrams for Shogi
>publications. Diagrams in tekst must preferably be in a format compatable
>to that of professional Japanese publications. Looking at it in this way, I
>think it would be easiest to have Kanji only, both for playing and for
>copying diagrams to a word processor.

At least on Mac platform, you can copy a PICT file into almost any word
processor
documents like MS Word, MacWriter Pro, etc. You can also import it to a Graphics
processing software, edit it, and save it into other formats that can be used
universally.
I don't know how professional publications publish things. But as long as
they accept
Graphics files, it should be ok as you can always transfor the PICT file
into other format
easily.
I will get this part done pretty soon. I will send a release out so that you can
take a look at it youself.

>
>2) I assume that by English notation you mean the standard notation as used
>in "Shogi for beginners" and "Better moves for better Shogi". I think that
>is the best choice, since I know a lot of players who cannot read Japanese
>notation, some of them even as strong as 3-dan. I like the idea of voice
>commands, but even without it, I would recommend English notation.
Looks like most people prefer English notation. That is good news to me.
voice commands would be supported in the first release. If I can find the time,
it will be done sometime next year. I may get it to pronounce the move in
this release.
But it is in very low priority.
>

>I like the diagrams which just show the Chinese characters - I think
>seeing piece outlines as well might be a bit distracting. It is quite
>obvious which way each piece is facing, and if the diagram is small, the
>piece outline could make it all look rather cluttered.
It is not a problem right now as each square is 32*32 icon and the diagram
is very clear.
It may be a problem if the diagram was reduced in size to fit publications.
I would like to hear feedbacks after I send out a release.

 >I have one request, as you my may know we are holding the a European shogi
>workshop next week here at EMBL and an important part of this will be
>Computer shogi going through how they work and are being developed.
>So it would be interesting to have your prog running on a Mac.
>I certainly would be willing to send you a report of how the
>prog does and any probs it might have. If you would like imfo about the
>workshop
>let me know.

If I work hard on it, there may be a chance I can get most major features
done by next week.
But I won't have the engin by that time. So it won't be any help as people
over there are probably more interested in the playing strength.
The best thing you can do with it is : play Shogi with other people over
an AppleTalk network, record a game and save it. You can play it back later.
You can generate an openbook youself. But as there is no engin right now,
so it is not
much useful. You can also print the board, and save it into a file.
If this is still useful to the workshop, I will try to see if I can get
these features
done by next week.

>I would very much like to get a copy of the program, we have many Macs
>here and a big group of shogi players with a wide range of playing
>strengths.

I will send it out when it reaches a reasonable stage. I am planning to
distribute
it as shareware. But I will offer it free to everyone on this mail list.

I will send out another message about the program's feature as this message
is pretty long already.

Thanks for all the messages.

Tie Zeng