From: Eric Cheymol <shogi <at> FREE <dot> FR>
Date: 26 apr 2003
Subject: Shogi Database Program for Mac OS X

To all shogi player,

I am currently writing a shogi program.
The idea is to design a chessbase like app for shogi, to help players
using Apple machines to improve.

The program can already help you to :
- Enter new games and save them in the pgn format
- Load and replay games
- Play on the internet with a friend
- All rules are already implemented and fully tested, illegal moves are
not possible

Florian Guzek is the graphic designer of the pieces. He designed pieces
especially for this program.

The next steps are to (no order given) :
- print games (with diagrams and comments)
- load and save gave in the kifu format (.kif)
- load games with comments directly from Reijer's "The Week in Shukan
Shogi" bulletin
- set a new position from an empty board and play variations with
comments (can be used for tsume shogi too)
- build the interface in French, English and Japanese (it only exists
in English now), other languages will be possible if enough players ask
for them
- provide an interface to enter a particular position and to look in
the whole database for games containing this position (for example a
particular castle, a pawns shape, a pieces shape ...)

This list is not definitive, others ideas are welcome.

If we could get enough pro games (thousands ?), it could help us to
improve and to compare recent games to past ones.

The library games files can be used as study books, for example tsume
shogi books, handicap studies, joseki and so on.
It will be possible to enter all Patrick Davin's Tsume Shogi Challenge
problems (http://www.shogi.net/nexus/ladder/previous.html) in a single
library file.

Imagine travelling with all your shogi books ! All in your laptop :-))
With many search possibilities !

This app will only be available for Mac OS X. I wanted to write a
program for Macintosh with fast search capabilities. Some database
programs already exist for the windows platform. I have no idea if one
exists for Mac OS X, perhaps somebody knows one ?

I need a couple of weeks in order to make a first beta version
available to you. Even if it has been extensively tested, some bugs can
still exist ;-(

I would like to know if some players are interested in this kind of
program or not.

All the best,

Eric