Raspberry Pi / Stockfish dedicated chess computer/board

[j_romang]

I would like introduce the 'PiChess' (http://www.pichess.org) project. The goal the this project is to create a dedicated chess computer based on the Raspberry Pi (http://www.raspberrypi.org/), the Stockfish chess engine, the DGT eboard en DGT XL Clock (http://www.dgtprojects.com/), and the dgtnix driver (http://dgtnix.sourceforge.net/).



Status

You can see a video here : http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xt2eul_pichess_tech

The inital proof of concept is working on a standard Linux PC, but there is a nasty bug in the Raspberry Pi USB firmware causing the device to hang (http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... 0&p=158380). I hope this will be solved in few weeks

Done so far :

-Added DGT XL clock message display to dgtnix driver
-Added DGT board/clock support to Stockfish

Playing strength

This will be one of the strongest dedicated chess computer on the world My initial testing on Rasperry Pi hardware versus a 4 core Intel i7 shows we have grandmaster strength (http://lefounumerique.xooit.com/t1202-S ... rry-Pi.htm)

Engine Score St
1: Stockfish on Pi 40,0/100 ····················
2: Komodo3-64-sse 20,0/20 11111111111111111111
3: Pharaon 14,0/20 =1=1=101=110==110111
4: AnMon 5.75 11,0/20 ==1=1110=010==011001
5: SOS 5.1 for Arena 10,5/20 10001=10100111=001=1
6: Gaia64 4,5/20 00100100010=00000100

100 games played / Tournament is finished - Level: Blitz 2/1 - Hardware: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2405S CPU @ 2.50GHz with 8,0 GB Memory

TODO

Add opening books, and allow opening book selection
Save games to PGN on the SD Card
Add more time controls, and display remaining time on the clock
Allow to takeback moves
Analysis mode

Help needed : SD card packaging

I would like to provide a Raspbian based sd card image that loads stockfish at boot time.

Help needed : logo / documentation

If you have some graphic/english skills, I would like to provide a simple PDF sheet that explains how to use the board and the config modes.

[ZirconiumX]

I'd like to help.

I have a RPi and will be getting another one soon.

Perhaps I could document how to get SF running on two Pi's?

Matthew:out

[j_romang]

Hello Matthew,
I did my PC vs Raspberry Pi tournament with Arena, using this method : http://www.playwitharena.com/?Tips_%2B_ ... and_Arena.
You should be able to setup Pi vs Pi matches like this using the Arena GUI.

But I can't see how you would like to use two Raspberry Pi with just one DGT board ?

[mcostalba]

I have seen you have recently forked SF:

https://github.com/jromang/Stockfish/tree/dgt

This is one of the reasons I uploaded dev branch on github: I really like and support this (new) way of developing.

Have fun and good luck with your amazing project

[j_romang]

Thank you I'm really impressed by Stockfish's strength on this little piece of hardware !
I also discovered GIT two weeks ago thanks to tour repository I really like the way forked projects can be easily updated to follow the upstream project latest version.

[Werewolf]

This looks really great.

What would be fantastic is if someone developed something like a Chess Machine Card which could slot into a PCI port and be run as a USB engine alngside other programs.

It would be like upgrading your P.C!

[mcostalba]

Thank you I'm really impressed by Stockfish's strength on this little piece of hardware !
I also discovered GIT two weeks ago thanks to tour repository I really like the way forked projects can be easily updated to follow the upstream project latest version.

My 2 cents here

Code: Select all

Instead of:

    string positionFEN = pos.to_fen();
    positionFEN = positionFEN.substr(0, positionFEN.find(' '));
    //cout << "Compare " << positionFEN << " with "<<fen << endl;
    if&#40;!positionFEN.compare&#40;fen&#41;) return ml.move&#40;);


perhaps you can write


    if &#40;pos.to_fen&#40;).find&#40;fen&#41; != string&#58;&#58;npos&#41;
        return ml.move&#40;);

[j_romang]

Yes, that's much better than my code
Thanks for the tip !
https://github.com/jromang/Stockfish/co ... 4a1c8a1ba0

[IanO]

...but there is a nasty bug in the Raspberry Pi USB firmware causing the device to hang (http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... 0&p=158380). I hope this will be solved in few weeks

You could also consider using a different USB-serial converter. FTDI is primarily a Windows company and their Linux/Mac drivers and support are horrible.

[j_romang]

Unfortunately, I can't change the FTDI controller in the DGT board with my soldering skills And this controller works well with an x86 PC and Linux...so the problem really comes from the Raspberry Pi.
If the firmware/hardware issue isn't solved, I will port this project to a 802MK II USB microPC (http://laptoptabletpc.co.uk/rikomagic-8 ... b-micropc/).