Winboard for windows?

[Luis Babboni]

Hi,

is redundant to say "winboard chess engine for Windows"?
"winboard chess engine" is enough to know its just works in Windows?

Thanks!

[Evert]

is redundant to say "winboard chess engine for Windows"?
"winboard chess engine" is enough to know its just works in Windows?

"WinBoard" is the Windows port of XBoard, a graphical user interface.
A "WinBoard chess engine" is a chess engine that communicates using the CECP protocol (aka, the "XBoard protocol" or "WinBoard protocol"). This in no way implies that it only works in Windows.

[Luis Babboni]

...
A "WinBoard chess engine" is a chess engine that communicates using the CECP protocol (aka, the "XBoard protocol" or "WinBoard protocol"). This in no way implies that it only works in Windows.

Thanks Evert!

So if my engine just works in Windows, is correct to say:
"winboard chess engine for Windows" ?

[MikeB]

is redundant to say "winboard chess engine for Windows"?
"winboard chess engine" is enough to know its just works in Windows?

"WinBoard" is the Windows port of XBoard, a graphical user interface.
A "WinBoard chess engine" is a chess engine that communicates using the CECP protocol (aka, the "XBoard protocol" or "WinBoard protocol"). This in no way implies that it only works in Windows.

Why was it called winboard in the first place - we would normally say xBoard for Windows , xBoard for Linux and xBoard for Mac when an APIs ported to different systems.

[Evert]

Why was it called winboard in the first place - we would normally say xBoard for Windows , xBoard for Linux and xBoard for Mac when an APIs ported to different systems.

While I can't speak for the guy who did the port, the name "xboard" follows a UNIX naming convention where the name of the program is "board" and the "x" indicates it runs under the "X Window System". So indeed the natural name for the Windows port is "winboard", and the OS X port would be "osxboard".

"Xboard for Windows" would then be a Windows program that runs under the X11 server for Windows (which is a bit obscure and not commonly installed).

[MikeB]

Why was it called winboard in the first place - we would normally say xBoard for Windows , xBoard for Linux and xBoard for Mac when an APIs ported to different systems.

While I can't speak for the guy who did the port, the name "xboard" follows a UNIX naming convention where the name of the program is "board" and the "x" indicates it runs under the "X Window System". So indeed the natural name for the Windows port is "winboard", and the OS X port would be "osxboard".

"Xboard for Windows" would then be a Windows program that runs under the X11 server for Windows (which is a bit obscure and not commonly installed).

So in essence , somebody wrote a program called "Board" for those were too "bored"? 😉😳😎 ( too play chess on the commandline interface)

[Luis Babboni]

Glup!

[JoshPettus]

Well for years the only way to run XBoard on OSX was through a X11 server on OSX. So the name still applied. Although once we moved to GTK+ it became possible to run it directly through Quartz. I suppose I could have called the gtk+/quartz app MacBoard....But it's the same exact codebase where as winboard is quite separate. Not to mention I feel a true MacBoard should be using the native OSX Cocoa toolkit. (But there have been quite a few advantages of keeping it GTK. Possible for a amateur coder like me figure out and throw it all together, easier to maintain by our non mac coder, ability to use SVG images which is not supported by the OS natively, use of the same localization files, and I'm sure many other areas).

And then I have to consider the loss of brand recognition which is important...