CEBoard can be driven by Arena to play several games between CEBoard's engine and Arena's engine through a serial communication. This can be either a real serial link (many Pocket PC can have a serial craddle or cable) or a serial link established over a bluetooth connection.
This page explains :
Note : you have to disable in ActiveSync the serial link you are going to use for Arena.
Enable bluetooth radio on the PC, right click on the bluetooth icon and choose "Advanced configuration": the fourth tab displays the bluetooth services exposed by the PC.
Check the "Bluetooth Serial Port" is started and note the associated COM port.
Enable bluetooth radion on the Pocket PC, click on the bluetooth icon and choose "Bluetooth Manager".
Click on "New"
Choose 'Explore a bluetooth device"
Select the PC
Select the "Bluetooth serial port" service and (probably optional) check "Secured and encrypted connection" and click next
Click "Finish"
Now that the short cut has been created
click and hold on it and select "Connect"
Enter a passkey, you will have to enter it also on the PC.
Now something happens on the PC itself, the bluetooth icon gets activated and displays a message : "the bluetooth device Pocket_PC is attempting to connect to this computer, bla bla bla"
Click on the icon, this dialog box appears :
Enter the same passcode than on the Pocket PC.
Now another message is displayed by the bluetooth icon : "click here to autorise access bla bla bla"
so click the icon, this dialog box appears :
Check "always bla bla bla" and click OK, the final message is displayed :
Now the Pocket PC and the PC can communicate over a serial link :-)
On the PC, the port is displayed in the first dialog box (COM4: in my sample) ; on the Pocket PC, I don't know ;-) There are usually two ports created, a incoming port and an outgoing port. Use the second to connect to the PC, on my Pocket PC, it is COM6:
You can use PHM's device manager to discover the corresponding COM port, or try all ports one after the other.
Before trying to connect CEBoard and Arena, you should use PocketSerial.exe (in CEBoard's folder) and Hyperterminal to check the serial link.
Once the serial link is established and the two COM ports well known, launch CEBoard and click on the right most icon ("Connect External Board"), the following dialog box appears :
Select the right COM port, "Auto232" board and choose between "Drop current game" or "Save in CEBoard Autosave Pgn" for the "When bla bla bla" option : as the idea is to drive CEBoard from Arena, "Ask me" is not an allowed option here.
Click "Connect", the Engine choice dialog box appears :
Choose the Engine, select "Evaluation" and "Line" if you want engine's thougts to be stored in the pgn file on pocket pc and click start.
Set the time control and options. It is enough for CEBoard, you can forget it now (it should display new game)
Start Arena, select "Options" and then "Autoplayer", and go to "Options" tab
Select the right COM port, and if desired "Switch Colours" and go back to "Play" tab:
Check "Master", select the number of games and then click "Start Connection". If things go well, the match starts :
And both engines should play one against the other:
