From: Tim Casey <tcasey <at> MV <dot> US <dot> ADOBE <dot> COM>
Date: 13 dec 1995
Subject: Re: IGS/ISS thread

> From: Stephen J Lamb <SJL <at> DEV <dot> ALS <dot> CO <dot> UK>

> Anyway, since you're one of the people responsible for IGS, I was
> wondering if the server will initially just be a carbon copy of IGS
> or will there be extra Shogi-specific features...

I am not sure what shogi specific features there are.  However, I
intend this to be a shogi server.  In other words how IGS deals
with shogi is how ISS should deal with Go (if at all).  There is
no real reason to have Go as part of an existing server....  I
could be proven wrong later, but this is my intent.

The only problem I have so far is about ratings.  I am not sure what
the rating should be for shogi.  Even if they should be the same basic
set up but with different names.

I expect there to be 'problems' for about six months.  As it turns out
IGS is fairly stable.  So I will be able to spend time working on ISS.
After six months, I would expect the same stability from ISS as I get
from IGS.  There are over 45 million moves played on IGS a year.  Usually
over 700 games a day.  (Fewer games with there are other activities.)
The user population is still growing from 1000 the first year, 2000 the
next year and 5000 this last year.

Although I am not sure what to expect from Shogi users, I believe
the machine being used is no where near capacity (in terms of CPU).

Here are bugs which may or may not be fixed:

        White should move first after handicaping.

        Extraneous characters after captured pieces in hand.

        Did not accept the move Kx7h, for a given position.

        Others which seemed to get fixed from the email records.

There have been a couple others I remember getting, but cannot seem
to find :(.

tim