FAIRY-MAX 4.

8A RELEASE NOTES
Fairy-Max is a self-documented open-source engine for Chess and Chess variants.
It is a derivative of the World's smallest Chess program, micro-Max, and althoug
h no special effort is made to keep the size of its source code to the utmost mi
nimum, its humble origins make that the engine outine is still only about 100 li
nes of C-code. The whole source is contained in a single file (fmax4_8.c).
Fairy-Max is a WinBoard compatible engine. This means it does not display a Ches
s board itself, but has tu use WinBoard for that purpose, and should then be sta
rted by starting WinBoard, and instruct it to use Fairy-Max for thinking up the
moves.
Fairy-Max uses a hash table of 96 MegaByte by default. It is essential that this
table fit in the memory of your computer, with sufficient room to spare for Win
dows and other support programs, and a posible opponent program. On old systems,
the amount of DRAM might not be sufficient for this. To prevent that Fairy-Max
will slow down thousandfold (with a corresponding drop in playing strength) by s
ubstituting hard disk for memory, you will have to instruct it to use a smaller
hash table. To this end, you would have to replace the name Fairy-Max\fmax in th
e short-cut to start WinBoard in a specific mode, in the startup dialog box if y
ou start through the WinBoard icon itself, or in the winboard.ini file by "Fairy
-Max\fmax 20". (Including the quotes and space!) The 20 indicates Fairy-Max shou
ld only use 12MB hash table. (Each increment/decrement of this number would doub
le/half the hash size, i.e. 21 would mean 24MB, etc.) It is usually OK to use ab
out a quarter of the availble memory, even if you run Fairy-Max twice (by playin
g it against itself).
Fairy-Max should be possible to compile it with any C compiler. It was developed
using gcc under cygwin. On this platform, it can simply be compiled with the co
mmand:
gcc -O2 -mno-cygwin fmax4_8.c -o fmax.exe
This gives you a perfectly functional executable, which you can shrink in size s
omewhat by using
strip fmax.exe
For compiling under Linux, you have to define the compiler swithch LINUX. This c
an be done by adding the
command-line option "-D LINUX" (without te quotes) in the compilation command.
If you want the executable to show up in Windows as a nice icon, rather than the
standard symbol for an executable, you have to link it to an icon pictogram. I
do this by the sequence of commands:
windres --use-temp-file --include-dir . fmax.rc -O coff -o fres.o
gcc -O2 -mno-cygwin -c fmax4_8.c
gcc -mno-cygwin *.o -o fmax.exe
strip fmax.exe
I have no idea if this is a good or a stupid way to do it, I have zero experienc
e in programming Windows applications, and this was a copy-cat solution based on
the WinBoard source code that seemed to work.
Have fun,
H.G. Muller

New features compared to previous releases:

* Support for a cylindrical board (used in predefined variant Cylinder Chess)
* Support for lame leapers and multi-path lame leapers.
* Support for e.p. capture of Berolina Pawns.
The supplied fmax.ini file now includes definitions for Cylinder Chess, Berolina
Chess,
Falcon Chess (patented!) and Super-Chess (TM) next to the usual set (normal Ches
s,
Capablanca Chess, Gothic Chess, Shatranj, Courier Chess and Knightmate). Note th
at
Cylinder Chess and Berolina Chess can only be played in WinBoard 4.3.15 with leg
ality testing off.
SOME NOTES ON SUPERCHESS
Super Chess is defined with the standard pieces used in the Dutch Open of this v
ariant:
Archbishop (A), Marshall (M), Centaur (C) and Amazon (Z) (which in Super Chess a
re referred to as
Princess, Empress, Veteran and Amazon, respectively). But it also has definition
s for the
Cannon (O), Nightrider (H), Dragon Horse (D) and and Grasshopper (G). If you inc
lude any of those
pieces in the initial setup, Fairy-Max will use them. You can instruct WinBoard
to use these pieces
in stead of the default AMCZ by redefining the pieceToCharTable of WinBoard with
a command-line option.
Note that the promotion rules for SuperChess are not yet implemented in this ver
sion of Fairy-Max:
the opponent can promote to anything (but if it is not Queen this will come as a
complete surprise
to Fairy-Max), and Fairy-Max itself only promotes to Queen. (Even if it already
has one...)
The Grasshopper can currently only be used in WinBoard when Legality testing is
off.
SOME NOTES ON FALCON CHESS
Falcon Chess features a piece that is covered by a U.S. patent (#5,690,334), the
Falcon,
which is a non-leaping piece that can follow three alternative paths to any (1,3
) or (2,3)
destination. (In the sme terminology as where a Knight reaches any (1,2) destina
tion.)
The current version of Fairy-Max is licenced to use this piece in the way it doe
s now.
This does NOT imply, however, that any code you derive from Fairy-Max, (somethin
g that in
itself you are perfectly allowed to make) is also licensed to play Falcon Chess,
or use the
Falcon in another Chess variant, if any of the modification you made reflect in
any way on
its skill in playing Falcon Chess or these Falcon-containing variants.
In such a case you would have to seek a new license from the patent holder, Geor
ge W. Duke.