UCI Drivers for Dedicated Machines

Many dedicated chess computers are able to communicate with PCs or Pocket PC through a serial interface ; for Pocket PC, CEBoard already has the possibility to communicate with these computers to record games or play against them with one of its engines. This page is about the PC Side of the same ideas; I have written a skeleton of UCI Engine which I can then specialize for any chess computer I have which is able to communicate through the serial interface : implementing the UCI protocol allows the integration of the communications with the dedicated machines in famous programs such as Chessbase GUI (I am using Fritz 10 most of time as user interface) or Arena.

Why integrate a nice dedicated machine such as a Star Diamond in a PC software ? Of course, when I want to play against the Star Diamond, I prefer to move its pieces rather than looking at my PC's display but actually there are several scenarios where this connection is interesting :

1. human VS dedicated machine : Fritz/Arena can then record the game automatically
   
2. dedicated machine VS dedicated machine : having just to play the moves on one machine and on the computer is very practical ! Very often, when I play the moves on the two machines and try to record them also on a computer, I forget to enter several moves on the computer and then have to rely on the "replay" feature of one of the dedicated machines.

How to use the UCI Driversfor dedicated machines

1. install them with this msi (note : you need to have .NET Framework 2.0 installed)
2. "register" the engine in the choosen GUI :
   Fritz : "Engine -> Create Uci Engine" and then browse to find the executable (by default installed in %ProgramFiles%\Alainza\Alainza UCI Drivers)
   Arena : "Engines -> Install New Engine"...

How to play a game against SD under Fritz or Anera

Set the level (it is also possible to set it on the ST itself) and click OK.

If you want to store all messages sent  by the SD for later review, then check "Save Star Diamond messages" and select the file to create.

During each game, a diagnostic log is created under application data's folder, click on "Clear log files" to remove all generated logs.

How to have Fritz or Arena record a game completely played on the Star Diamond

Fritz : go to "Tools" -> "Analysis" -> "Shootout" and then select the SD engine.

Arena : go to "Game" -> "Demo"

Then, on the SD's configuration dialog box, check "Recording mode" : there is no way for the UCI engine to know the mode set by the user interface, and therefore if you don't check this dialog box, the SD will play against himself as expected by the user interface.

Latest version
Download UCI Engines for dedicated machines (V1.0.329.1 = Novag Star Diamond, Sapphire II and Diamond)