Psion Chess as a UCI engine

Discussion of anything and everything relating to chess playing software and machines.

Moderator: Ras

Michel
Posts: 2329
Joined: Mon Sep 29, 2008 1:50 am

Re: Psion Chess as a UCI engine

Post by Michel »

v1.4.1 The engine is also stopped after mate or draw.

https://github.com/vdbergh/psion-chess/ ... tag/v1.4.1
Michel
Posts: 2329
Joined: Mon Sep 29, 2008 1:50 am

Re: Psion Chess as a UCI engine

Post by Michel »

Michel
Posts: 2329
Joined: Mon Sep 29, 2008 1:50 am

Re: Psion Chess as a UCI engine

Post by Michel »

Could someone edit the CPW page on Psion Chess https://chessprogramming.org/Psion to add a link to the repository:

https://github.com/vdbergh/psion-chess

Thanks!
Michel
Posts: 2329
Joined: Mon Sep 29, 2008 1:50 am

Re: Psion Chess as a UCI engine

Post by Michel »

v1.5 Much less overhead. TC 10+0.1 now works.

https://github.com/vdbergh/psion-chess/ ... s/tag/v1.5
Michel
Posts: 2329
Joined: Mon Sep 29, 2008 1:50 am

Re: Psion Chess as a UCI engine

Post by Michel »

Psion Chess plays on lichess.

You can challenge it at

https://lichess.org/@/psion-chess

For now this just runs on my laptop. So it may go offline at any time. I will look for a more permanent home.
Michel
Posts: 2329
Joined: Mon Sep 29, 2008 1:50 am

Re: Psion Chess as a UCI engine

Post by Michel »

Essay
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Apr 10, 2020 10:27 pm
Full name: Sophie Abbot

Re: Psion Chess as a UCI engine

Post by Essay »

Hi Michel,
It's fascinating to see some of these very early micro-computer chess programs brought back to life.
We also have Steve Maughan's post regarding Richard Lang's Cyrus IS Chess and also Bill Forster's work on Dan and Kathe Spracklen's Sargon chess program from 1978 and his new follow-on project - an updated version he's calling Zargon.
Michel
Posts: 2329
Joined: Mon Sep 29, 2008 1:50 am

Re: Psion Chess as a UCI engine

Post by Michel »

v1.7 "position fen" now works so that EPD opening books can be used.

The README also contains some test results.

https://github.com/vdbergh/psion-chess/ ... s/tag/v1.7

I suppose this project is now essentially complete. I only need to find a more permanent home for the bot. I'll probably rent a server. I was going to do that anyway.
Last edited by Michel on Fri Oct 23, 2026 1:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Michel
Posts: 2329
Joined: Mon Sep 29, 2008 1:50 am

Re: Psion Chess as a UCI engine

Post by Michel »

Essay wrote: ↑Fri Oct 23, 2026 12:55 pm Hi Michel,
It's fascinating to see some of these very early micro-computer chess programs brought back to life.
We also have Steve Maughan's post regarding Richard Lang's Cyrus IS Chess and also Bill Forster's work on Dan and Kathe Spracklen's Sargon chess program from 1978 and his new follow-on project - an updated version he's calling Zargon.
Yeah with the advent of AI such projects have become much easier... This port of Psion Chess was essentially trivial. I only needed to give Claude a few instructions and that was it.
Michel
Posts: 2329
Joined: Mon Sep 29, 2008 1:50 am

Re: Psion Chess as a UCI engine

Post by Michel »

Does anyone here know Richard Lang personally?

I have emailed him several times, asking if I could distribute the DOS program Psion Chess with https://github.com/vdbergh/psion-chess/ (or provide some other method to make it automatically available to the project) but he has not replied so far. ChessGenius for DOS is a free download (http://chessgenius.com/cg3dos/index.html) but this appears not to be the case for the older Psion Chess.