Sigma Chess 6.2.

0 Release Notes
March 2010
________________________________________________________________

CONTENTS

1. SIGMA CHESS 6 LITE & PRO

2. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
3. CHANGE HISTORY
4. LICENSE AGREEMENT
5. DISCLAIMER

IMPORTANT: Before running Sigma Chess 6.2, please read the License Agreement
and Disclaimer sections below and make sure you agree to ALL conditions.
________________________________________________________________

Sigma Chess 6.2 is a very strong Macintosh chess program with an intuitive user
interface and many features. Sigma Chess 6.2 is additionally bundled with the
unregistered version of the World Chess Championship strength HIARCS as an optional
engine!!

See the included manual HTML manual for details or visit the Sigma Chess web-site:

http://www.sigmachess.com

The author Ole K. Christensen can be contacted via e-mail at:

ole@sigmachess.com or ole@kagi.com

1. SIGMA CHESS 6 LITE & PRO

Previous versions of Sigma Chess were available in two different versions: The
freeware feature restricted Sigma Chess 6.1 Lite and the commercial full featured
Sigma Chess 6.1 Pro.

However, as of version 6.2.0 Sigma Chess will only be available as a single freeware,
full featured version.

2. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Sigma Chess 6.2 requires an Apple Macintosh or MacOS compatible meeting the
following requirements:

• Processor : PowerPC or Intel.

• System Software : Mac OS X 10.3 or later. Mac OS 8.6/9.x is no longer officially

supported.
• Monitor : 800 x 600 resolution or higher with thousands or millions of colours.

IMPORTANT: Sigma Chess is a legacy PowerPC application and therefore needs

Apple’s Rosetta emulation software in order to run on Intel based Macs. This is pre-
installed on Mac OS X 10.5 and earlier, but must be installed manually on the new Mac
OS X 10.6.

3. CHANGE HISTORY

Version 6.0.0 ==> 6.0.1

• New option to preserve newlines during PGN import/export (also applies to

copy/paste).
• Added a shortcut for the "Analyze Game..." command.
• Replaying moves, when "Show Future Moves" is on, now preserves the scroll setting.
• Typos fixed in the Draw Offer and Preferences dialogs.
• User's Manual proofreading done by Ron Ormston.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused startup crashes under OS 8.6.
• Fixed a bug with the Save dialog not appearing in some cases under OS 8.6.
• Opening a single-game PGN-file didn't respect the show final/initial position setting.
• Fixed a bug that somtimes caused crashes when saving changes to games.
• Fixed a bug that caused strange problems if more than 8 board plug-ins were
installed.

Version 6.0.1 ==> 6.0.2

• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused crashes when the engine was running in
multiple game windows concurrently.
• Fixed a file type incompatibility with Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar): Sigma Chess
documents couldn't be opened from the Finder or the Dock.
• Under OS 8.6/9 it was not possible to work with very large game collections (400.000
games or more), due to a limitation in the "Reserve memory for general use" option.
• Deleting games in large collections is now much faster than before.
• The "Turn board if Black is identical to Player Name" preferences option didn't work
when opening single game PGN files or collection games.
• Sometimes didn't recognize single game PGN files and opened them in a collection
window instead.
• Under OS X, collections created when opening a PGN file are now stored in the
current user's "Documents" folder (in case the current user hasn't got write
permission to the "Applications" folder).

Version 6.0.2 ==> 6.0.3

• Fixed a couple of silly bugs in the Import Library Positions dialog (the "Include
moves..." and "Skip moves..." options worked precisely the way they shouldn't work!)
• The Mate Finder no longer causes Sigma to crash when the "Cancel search without
performing move"-option is chosen after a mate has been found.
• The "Toggle Info Pane" option is now retained in the Preferences file.
Version 6.0.3 ==> 6.1.0

• Support for the UCI (Universal Chess Interface) protocol. You can now run other
chess engines from within the Sigma Chess GUI. See section 7 above for more
details.
• Fixed a rare bug where Sigma would sometimes play incorrect/losing moves from
the opening library.
• Fixed a bug in the 3D board, where the cursor would sometimes disappear after a
pawn was promoted.
• Fixed a couple of issues with PGN import, where games with empty ELO tags or
missing result tags caused errors.
• When saving a game in the PGN format, Sigma now automatically adds a ".pgn"
extension if it is missing.
• Fixed a bug where Sigma would crash when creating a new library if no library was
loaded initially.
• Fixed a bug where Sigma would sometimes freeze after having searched for a very
long time over a move (several minutes).
• If the user loses on time, Sigma will now only ask the user to continue once (per
game). Subsequent time forfeits automatically resets the player's clock.
• You can now select the engine ELO rating with greater precision (in steps of 10 rather
than in steps of 100 ELO points).
• The strength of the low end ELO settings has been reduced (several users had
complained that the 1200 ELO setting was more like a 1300 ELO setting!).
• Sigma no longer crashes when printing collections where the info title is longer than
31 characters.
• Fixed some bugs in the opening library.
• Fixed a bug where saving a game, starting a new game in the same window and
then saving again would override the first game.
• Fixed a bug where exported PGN files didn’t have the correct file type (text).
• Corrected a game in the Capablanca collection.

Version 6.1.0 ==> 6.1.1

• The piece and board plug-ins are now working again!

• Fixed a problem during PGN import of games with invalid ASCII characters.

Version 6.1.1 ==> 6.1.2

• If the user attempts to use ‘Analyze Game’ at the end of a game, a note is displayed
explaining that this is not possible.
• Fixed a problem with single game PGN files in PC format, where the “Save As...”
command would result in an internal error.
• If the frame color in a board plug-in is too light, Sigma now renders the file and rank
letters in black.
• Fixed some typos in the HTML User Manual.
• Fixed a minor incompatibility with the new OS X 10.4 (Tiger), where the text in list
header buttons incorrectly erased the background.
• Fixed a minor incompatibility with the new OS X 10.4 (Tiger), where the toolbar button
label font was sometimes changed.
• Fixed a rare incompatibility with the new OS X 10.4 (Tiger), where Sigma Chess
couldn’t be started because OS X thought it was a text file.
• Clicking on an edit control with focus no longer de-selects that edit control!
• Fixed an issue with the “Set as default” checkbox in the Game Info dialog; it didn’t
have any effect when resetting games.
• Removed a loophole which allowed library changes to be saved in the Lite version.
• The Sigma engine can now move faster at the low ELO settings (it’s no longer
programmed to complete the ply-1 search).
• The strength of the low ELO settings has been increased a little (I had reduced it too
much in 6.1.0!)
• The playing style and randomize mini toolbar buttons are now disabled (as they
should) when a UCI engine is selected.
• Fixed a bug where saving changes to the second game in a collection with two
games would swap the games.
• Fixed a bug where Sigma Chess would block if the user tried to log off while Sigma
Chess had a modal dialog open.

Version 6.1.2 ==> 6.1.3

• Now bundled with the new HIARCS 10 engine!

• Sigma Chess 6.1 Pro can now host matches between chess engines (from the
“Engine Match...” command in the “Analyze” menu). Is not supported under OS 9.
• Fixed a bug in Sigma’s transposition table handling.
• Fixed a bug when sending FEN commands to UCI engines.
• The “Copy Position” command now includes the move number and half moves since
last capture or pawn move.
• The PGN import now supports long algebraic notation too.
• PGN import now allows non-English letters (á, ê, ü etc).

Version 6.1.3 ==> 6.1.4

• Now bundled with the new HIARCS 11 engine!

• Sigma can now display multiple variations for UCI engines (such as the registered
version of HIARCS 11.1) supporting the MultiPV option. The MultiPV option allows you
to see the engine evaluations and principal variations (PVs) from the "k" highest
ranked candidate moves. You can set "k" directly in the engine manager, or
increment/decrement "k" with the two round buttons on the lower border of the
analysis pane, to the left of the text stating either "single PV" or "multiple PV". These
buttons are greyed out when the current number of variations is either the maximum
or minimum number possible. Another term for multiPV is "k-var", for "k-variations"
• Main lines and variations can now also be shown horizontally. This option is available
from the new mini toolbar below the “Analysis” pane.
• Sigma now displays the transposition/hash table usage for UCI engines supporting
the “hashfull” option.
• The Analyze Game functionality has been improved: Both the actual and suggested
score are now included (the actual score is shown first and in brackets). Also, the
score limit in the Analyze Game dialog now controls the actual score improvement
between the actual and suggested lines, which is more useful. Finally, annotation
glyphs (? and ??) are added for blunders.
• The UCI Loader icon no longer shows in the Dock (thanks Jesse :-)
• You can now import multiple games into a collection. This is useful if you e.g. have a
lot of single game PGN files that you want to merge into one collection.
• Larger 2D board sizes.
• Transposition tables can no longer be changed if an engine match is running.
• Copy/paste games now also supports annotations with non-English letters.
• Move markers on the board are now thicker/bolder and hence easier to see.
• Fixed a bug in the opening library.
• Fixed a couple of typos in the game over messages.
• Fixed a bug where Sigma sometimes hung when branching a game.
• Fixed a bug where Sigma sometimes hung when playing multiple games
simultaneously.
• Fixed a bug where Sigma’s transposition tables were disabled in Auto/Demo Play
mode.
• Fixed a bug where the move marker was not cleared on the board when analyzing
games.
• Fixed a problem with Sigma’s time usage in the low ELO settings.

Version 6.1.4 ==> 6.1.5

• Now bundled with the new HIARCS 11.2 engine!

• No longer crashes when opening Sigma by double clicking a previously saved game
or collection.
• No longer fails when importing long PGN games.
• The “Copy Analysis” function now copies all lines in case MultiPV is used.
• Fixed a bug where “Analyze Game” sometimes skipped moves.
• Improved the time allocation handling in the low ELO settings.

Version 6.1.5 ==> 6.1.6

• Now bundled with the new HIARCS 12 engine!

• Fixed some stability issues.

Version 6.1.6 ==> 6.2.0

• Now released as a single freeware full featured version.

• Now bundled with the new HIARCS 13.1 engine!
• Fixed a buffer overload issue in the UCI Loader which caused crashes in some
cases.

4. LICENSE AGREEMENT

Although Sigma Chess 6.2 is freeware, it is copyrighted and NOT in the public domain. It
may not be modified in any way and may thus only be distributed in its original form. It
may not be sold, or included on a CD-ROM or any other physical media without explicit
permission by the author.

Unless explicitly otherwise stated the above license also applies to all subsequent
versions of Sigma Chess 6.2.x.

5. DISCLAIMER

The Sigma Chess 6.2 software is provided as is without any warranties of any kind
either express or implied. By downloading, installing and/or using the Sigma Chess 6.2
software, the user/customer accepts all responsibility and agrees that the author of
Sigma Chess cannot be held responsible or liable for any damage, data loss or harm of
any kind whatsoever caused directly or indirectly by the installation and/or usage of the
Sigma Chess 6.2 software.