From: frans roquas PI NET> Date: 1 may 1996 Subject: Re: PC Shogi software KIWAME * Kiwame-2 9000 Yen (about $100). Strength 2-dan, the strongest PC-based program by far. At the 1995 Verkouille Memorial Tournament in Belgium it beat 4-kyu, 2-kyu, 1-kyu, 2-dan and 3-dan players and lost only to a 4-dan. I have played against Kiwame-2 in August 1995 and was favourably impressed. It does not need a Japanese OS version if you have a cheat sheet with key codes for the various commands. The manual is in Japanese only. Contact Frans Roquas pi net> for more information. * GNU Shogi Freeware. Alpha or beta version, I think. Please contact Matthias Mutz fmi uni-passau de> for detailed info. * Shogi Master Strength 6-kyu. The price is $49.95, plus $5.50 shipping in the U.S. (as of May 1995). Ishi Press International, phone +1-408-271-0415, fax +1-408-271-0416, e-mail ishius ishius com. It seems to have a bug where giving checkmate is concerned. * Morita Shogi DOS/V Costs about $140. Requires Japanese DOS version. It does run on standard DOS, but the menus are unintellegible. Manual in Japanese. Random House Inc., phone +81-492-88-1147, fax +81-492-81-5612. Morita and Kiwame (Kiwame-1 ?) secured a shared first place at the 5th Computer Shogi Championship held in December 1994. Hiroki Kawada (kawada merl hitachi co jp) provided most of the information on Morita Shogi. * AI Shogi Strength about 2 or 3-kyu (unconfirmed). May suffer the same drawback as Morita Shogi (i.e., it officially requires DOS/V). Something Good Inc., phone +81-3-3232-0801, fax +81-3-3232-0963. Hiroki Kawada (kawada merl hitachi co jp) provided most of the information on AI Shogi. Concerning Kiwame as far as I know you need DosV to play it, I'm interested in the cheat sheet, does it consist of combinations of alt or control with another key. If it says so somewhere in the japanese manual I can't read it. I just know enough japanese to determine the sides, strength and little things. If key-combinations are possible it would make Kiwame more accesible for the west, so maybe it is possible to buy the program in Japan or order it. and Pieter can produce the cheat sheet on Shogi-L. Or maybe other possibility the programmer supplies the cheat sheet in western language. Still maybe other possibility, I also play Riichi-mahjong, Japanese mahjong and a friend bought at my request such a program. I thought I had to play under Dos V to be able to understand what I was doing. But it wasn't necessary because all the japanese was in a picture, so the western dos just showed a picture in which I could use the mouse and behind the picture lay all the programming. Maybe this is also possible for Kiwame 2? Or maybe for Kiwame 3? Just some loose thoughts of mine Bye Bye Frans Roquas ------------------------------------- Name: frans roquas E-mail: roquas Date: 04/06/96 Time: 10:04:45 This message was sent by Chameleon -------------------------------------