From: Hugh Denoncourt <hd <at> HOPPER <dot> UNH <dot> EDU>
Date: 6 dec 1995
Subject: Re: IGS/ISS thread

> I have been listening to the discussions on the subject of the IGS/ISS and
> have been very excited about it. I would like to suggest that the list being
Yes, it will be nice when things are in full thrust.  Just the other day
I almost actually played a game of Shogi that wasn't E-mail, but alas, net
lag captured my opponent.
> combiled by julio soares be joined with the ladder list being kept by
> Matthias Mutz. The idea being that then when one challenges someone on the
> ladder, it will be easy to see if the game could be played on the ISS. Since
> my time on the ladder, my largest dissipointment has been the time length
> inherent in the email games. It would be nice to have the opportunity to
> finish them more rapidly. True, one could just send email and set up a game
> without need of the ladder, but the structure involved I think would be
> beneficial.
Hmmm.... Thats an interesting idea, although it may prove to be confusing.
I too am on the ladder but have no games going currently.  I'm not sure
what the result of such a fusion would be.  I mean, in chess, I play both
E-mail games and interactive games.  I like the E-mail games precisely
because they are E-mail games and are so slow.  Some on the Shogi ladder
might feel the same way although I have to say that I would rather play
a game of realtime Shogi than an e-mail game because I have so few realtime
opponents to play.  I'm sure many of you have felt the same way.
Anyway, after my first encounter with the Shogi server and possibly
playing on it I can see that right now its major flaw is not that it is
on the Go server BUT that it is in ASCII.  Basically, I now feel that
before an independant Shogi server should be put up, a client that works
with the Go server should be created for various platforms.  Right now,
I believe someone was saying xshogi is the only thing that could be used
in such a fashion.  This is unfortunate because I think a client for PC's
could be made with little effort by patching one of the Go clients.  I
briefly looked at the source to a Go client and the major routines that
would need to be modified would be the parsing routine(the Go client
parses the ASCII board from the GO server and puts it in color graphics)
and the graphics routines.  The graphics for a Shogi client would
obviously have to be much different than that of a Go client.  I don't
think it would be entirely easy but I think writing a SHogi client would
be easier than writing a separate server with separate client software.
There are plenty of good Go clients that could be modified to be a very
nice interface for playing Shogi on the Go server.  The existence of such
a client would probably benefit not only the current Shogi players on the
net but possibly attract some newcomers to the game.
Mere thoughts :)
Hugh