PicoChess stand alone chess computer has born :-)

[j_romang]

Two days ago, I posted about my Raspberry Pi/Stockfish dedicated chess computer (http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=44901). Unfortunatley there are problems with the USB stack on this device, so I decided to switch to an 802MK II computer (http://store.cloudsto.com/rikomagic/rik ... etail.html) until problems are solved.

I'm proud to show you the first video of this little beast playing stand-alone :
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xt4b85_pichess2_tech

The bad new is the the 802MK II is a little more expensive than the Raspberry Pi ; but the good news is that Stockfish runs 5 times faster on it, and there is much more space for the hashtables (1GB). As far as I know, I now have the world's strongest dedicated chess computer at home


I will publish sd card images for the 802MK II in the next days ; but if you want to build it yourself here is the source code : http://www.picochess.org

[JuLieN]

Congratulations Jean-François! (For Picochess, not for 3. d3 ).

Sadly, having no DGT board, I can't test it, despite I own a RPi...

[j_romang]

Surely, the DGT board is the most expansive part of this system ; it tried to build a cheap hand-made electronic board (http://wiki.electrolab.fr/Projets:Perso:2011:Echiquier) but it endend into an ugly horror with plasctic and electric cables ; nothing compared to the beautifull wodden DGT board

[Michel]

Perhaps you can make it play on FICS. For example using icsdrone...

http://sourceforge.net/projects/icsdrone/

[j_romang]

That would be awesome ; and the 802MK device I'm using has embedded wifi , so the networks connection is wireless. But as I'm using the DGT XL clock as display (6 characters), and the board as the input device ; I think interaction with the server would be very painfull (how would you login ? how would you choose an opponent ?). I never used icsdrone or fics : maybe I'm wrong

[Michel]

Actually icsdrone would do all that for you. Here is a typical command line

icsdrone -handle yourhandle -password yourpassword -program stockfish -sendLogin "seek 2 12 m" -sendGameEnd "seek 2 12 m" -daemonize on -proxy on

Then your engine will play 2 12 blitzgames. There are of course more advanced options using scripts and such.

If you don't have an account you can use yourhandle=guest and yourpassword=xxx for an unregistered account.


There are some embedded systems on FICS (run by nematocyst) using icsdrone. However I think they run on routers. Not on pico computers.

[Michel]

Sorry stockfish is an UCI engine so you need polyglot as well

icsdrone -handle yourhandle -password yourpassword -program "polyglot -noini -ec stockfish" -sendLogin "seek 2 12 m" -sendGameEnd "seek 2 12 m" -daemonize on -proxy on

Polyglot is here

http://hardy.uhasselt.be/Toga/polyglot-release/

(HGM has somewhat more recent versions but I am not sure if he makes them
available separately from winboard/xboard).

Another comment: for an unregistered login it is not necessary to specify the handle "guest" on FICS.
An arbitrary (non-existing) handle works as well.

[mephisto]

Hi Jean-Francois
Congratulations on your excellent project.
I am a little disappointed that the Rasperry PI wasn't up to the job as I also own one.
My project team has been contemplating the same as you but using one with of my DIY boards which can be seen here. http://usbchessboard.yolasite.com/
Keep up the good, regards
Bryan

[gleperlier]

Congrats Jeff !!

[j_romang]

Ok, now I have a better understanding of icsdrone ! Yes I could easily make stockfish play on ICS with this little ARM device, but it would be much more difficult to have the human player (with the board) playing on fics : I can't use icsdrone to do it, because the DGT board handling bypasses the UCI events.