Sam Trenholme wrote on Tue, Oct 20, 2009 04:24 PM UTC:
Hey, it looks like you never telnetted in to a Chess server.
Basically, a client like xics or winboard is a pretty GUI front-end; one would telnet in to the Chess server (either with or without a GUI client). There, you could shout with other players, chat in channel 1 or any other channel, flirt with the few girls who would show up—or play chess.
It was possible to play chess on the server using crude ASCII graphics, with an ASCII diagram for the board (R=Rook, etc.) if you were using a simple telnet client and didn’t have a graphical client—I even played ICS chess using dumb terminals back in the day, before the big mid-1990s FICS-ICC split.
The clients came later, allowing people to have an attractive looking board to play chess on their screen. There was also an ICS-like server for people playing Chinese chess, one for people playing Go, and I think even one for Shogi.
If you have a telnet client around, telnet in to your server and see what it’s like. Some basic commands:
help RTFM is easy on the FICS server.
matchplayer, where player is the player you wish to play
examine examine a game already played
To telnet in, telnet 80.100.28.169 5000 and take a look around. As an aside, the ASCII grpahics for Capa boards don’t look right. Also, I was unable to enter in any moves when telnetted in without it telling me the move was illegal.
Hey, it looks like you never telnetted in to a Chess server.
Basically, a client like xics or winboard is a pretty GUI front-end; one would telnet in to the Chess server (either with or without a GUI client). There, you could shout with other players, chat in channel 1 or any other channel, flirt with the few girls who would show up—or play chess.
It was possible to play chess on the server using crude ASCII graphics, with an ASCII diagram for the board (R=Rook, etc.) if you were using a simple telnet client and didn’t have a graphical client—I even played ICS chess using dumb terminals back in the day, before the big mid-1990s FICS-ICC split.
The clients came later, allowing people to have an attractive looking board to play chess on their screen. There was also an ICS-like server for people playing Chinese chess, one for people playing Go, and I think even one for Shogi.
If you have a telnet client around, telnet in to your server and see what it’s like. Some basic commands:
- help RTFM is easy on the FICS server.
- match player, where player is the player you wish to play
- examine examine a game already played
To telnet in, telnet 80.100.28.169 5000 and take a look around. As an aside, the ASCII grpahics for Capa boards don’t look right. Also, I was unable to enter in any moves when telnetted in without it telling me the move was illegal.