Pulsar page has moved

adams161 · Post by **adams161** » Tue Nov 13, 2012 9:09 am

Pular is a project I worked on off and on from fall of 1998 to summer of 2009 and the engine has been in release since 2003. It's a specialty engine that plays crazyhouse, atomic, losers, and giveaway. I believe it's included with the current Winboard engine package, and i have kept a pulsar page up as well which has moved to http://www.LanternChess.com/pulsar/

Current project is Lantern which consists of Lantern Chess, a Java chess client to ICC with UCI and winboard engine support for analysis when examining or observing, and Lantern on Android, which is my android ICC client. The android client is in beta and Lantern Chess is now included on the icc download software java page.

In any event this post is primarily to indicate the new pulsar page and anybody who is linking who is still maintaining links that sort of thing and has a pulsar link this would be the place to link now.

Mike

IGarcia · Post by **IGarcia** » Tue Nov 13, 2012 11:59 am

Thanks!
I used to play lot against pulsar in windows, time ago.

Just spot you have a linux version, but links are not working, neither 32 or 64 bits

http://www.lanternchess.com/pulsar/puls ... b-linux-32
http://www.lanternchess.com/pulsar/puls ... b-linux-64

TY again.

Ignacio.

adams161 · Post by **adams161** » Wed Nov 14, 2012 9:27 am

thanks i changed them to zip, i think the original link you quoted works now as well.

http://www.lanternchess.com/pulsar/puls ... nux-32.zip
http://www.lanternchess.com/pulsar/puls ... nux-64.zip

IGarcia · Post by **IGarcia** » Wed Nov 14, 2012 6:25 pm

adams161 wrote:thanks i changed them to zip, i think the original link you quoted works now as well.

http://www.lanternchess.com/pulsar/puls ... nux-32.zip
http://www.lanternchess.com/pulsar/puls ... nux-64.zip

All links working now.
Apreciated

A few test games have done and found some problems...

Pulsar plays ok as black. But I cant make Pulsar play normal chess as white.

It starts with b3 and give away the queen and games usually ends with an illegal (for normal chess) move

Code: Select all

&#91;Event "test"&#93;
&#91;Site "?"&#93;
&#91;Date "2012.11.14"&#93;
&#91;Round "2"&#93;
&#91;White "Pulsar"&#93;
&#91;Black "Phalanx"&#93;
&#91;Result "0-1"&#93;
&#91;TimeControl "2/3"&#93;

1.b3 d5 2.e4 dxe4 3.Qg4 Bxg4 
    &#123;Error reading move&#58; e1d1&#125;
4.Ba6 Nxa6 5.d4 Qxd4 6.b4 Qd1# 
    &#123;wtime 95015, btime 109953&#125;
0-1

This happens in both 32 bits and 64 bits linux vesrion.
GUI SCIDvsPC 4.8

Regards.

adams161 · Post by **adams161** » Wed Nov 14, 2012 7:44 pm

I'll have to take a look at that when i have a linux box set up. These linux binaries were released in 2007 and i haven't spent a lot of time with them since. If i was to do any fixes for linux it would be to port the 2009 version to linux not fix the 2007 version.

IGarcia · Post by **IGarcia** » Thu Nov 15, 2012 1:27 am

adams161 wrote:I'll have to take a look at that when i have a linux box set up. These linux binaries were released in 2007 and i haven't spent a lot of time with them since. If i was to do any fixes for linux it would be to port the 2009 version to linux not fix the 2007 version.

Hi again

By looking into logs and doing some more tests seems I found the reason. SCIDvsPC is not sending the "new" command to engine when Pulsar is white.

So, by playing in a terminal, sending commands manually I can reproduce the problem:
If pulsar does not receive the new command, it will play suicide chess.
if receives the new command will play normal chess.

I don't know about xboard protocol. If the new is mandatory for white and black, then is SCIDvsPC problem.

Still its strange your engine plays in different way. Seems like the normal variant is set only when receives the new command, if not defaults to suicide chess. And this is probably you don't want (to be default no normal chess).

Regards.
Ignacio

adams161 · Post by **adams161** » Thu Nov 15, 2012 1:34 am

yea my testing would have been with winboard and i did a little with xboard. that is all i can claim to support really though i've seen it work with other gui's.

Mike

IGarcia · Post by **IGarcia** » Thu Nov 15, 2012 2:10 am

adams161 wrote:yea my testing would have been with winboard and i did a little with xboard. that is all i can claim to support really though i've seen it work with other gui's.

Mike

By looking into xboard protocol found that "new" its the initialization for black engine.
So is not a GUI problem. Then I tested again in a xterm, sending commands manualy and with "variant normal" Pulsar plays ok as white.

Seems there is an issue with pulsar. Becase NOT sending "new" and sending variant normal (which is not part of protocol) Pulsar plays ok with white.

Maybe my english is too confusing to explain. My conclusion is:

Your code has a problem, not setting the default variant to normal till its received as explicit command or till it receives a new command.

From the protocol specs ( http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/WinBo ... -intf.html ).

Code: Select all

new
    Reset the board to the standard chess starting position. Set White on move. Leave force mode and set the engine to play Black. Associate the engine's clock with Black and the opponent's clock with White. Reset clocks and time controls to the start of a new game. Use wall clock for time measurement. Stop clocks. Do not ponder on this move, even if pondering is on. Remove any search depth limit previously set by the sd command.

Ponti · Post by **Ponti** » Thu Nov 15, 2012 2:37 am

adams161 wrote: Current project is Lantern which consists of Lantern Chess, a Java chess client to ICC with UCI and winboard engine support

Mike

Can Lantern Chess connect to FICS or JaqueMate! ?

adams161 · Post by **adams161** » Thu Nov 15, 2012 3:41 am

As I said, back in 2007 when i released pulsar2007, I only tested in winboard/xboard and i may not strictly follow the winboard protocol as i should and it could be broken in some GUI's outside of winboard/xboard.

This post is an update to the link to pulsar. I have not worked on this project now in several years and i can accept that pulsar is mishandling new and breaking in some GUI's and apologize. However I don't know that i will re-open this project.

Since pulsar offers variant support (atomic crazyhouse etc) and there are not a lot of engines that do, I wanted to update the download link but this is not an on going project. I will continue to maintain a pulsar download page but at this time I do not know that i will be working on it any further and don't want to create the expectation that i will.

The reason the web page has moved is I canceled the domain it was hosted on and i had to find a new home for the pulsar page. The change in pulsars hosting does not indicate i've re-opened this project.

Mike

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