This document answers some frequently asked questions about the graphical chess interfaces XBoard and WinBoard. A hyperlinked version of this FAQ is available on the Web through the page http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/FAQ.html.
This FAQ is in need of revision. Please contact us if you'd like to help update it.
XBoard and WinBoard are graphical user interfaces for chess. XBoard runs with the X Window System on Unix systems (including GNU/Linux); see topic [B.1]. WinBoard runs on true 32-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems, such as Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, ME, XP, Vista, and should continue to work on future 32-bit Windows systems. It does not work on Windows CE (also known as Pocket PC), nor does it work on 16-bit Windows systems such as Windows 3.1. See topic [B.2].
As a shortcut to most things mentioned in this FAQ, try Tim Mann's Chess Web page, http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html. This page page is currently a very bad place to get the latest released versions of XBoard and WinBoard and the most up-to-date version of this FAQ, though. A better place is the WinBoard forum. Also see our Savannah project pages at https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/.
If you have other questions about XBoard/WinBoard that aren't answered in this FAQ, you can try Aaron Tay's WinBoard and Chess Engines FAQ, atdefunct URL.
For general news and information about chess, try the CCC forum or the WinBoard forum. Anothe possibility is the newsgroup hierarchy rec.games.chess.*, especially the groups rec.games.chess.misc and rec.games.chess.computer. Both of the latter groups have very informative FAQs maintained by Steve Pribut; look for them on the newsgroups or at defunct URL.
Like other GNU software, you can get XBoard, and WinBoard by anonymous FTP from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ and its many mirror sites. Look in the subdirectories xboard, and winboard. The .tar.gz suffix on the files there indicates they were packed with tar and compressed with gzip. The .exe or .zip suffixes indicate files that were packed and compressed with zip.
For other chess software, try the Internet Chess Library. Use anonymous FTP to connect to ftp.freechess.org, or go to the Web page http://www.freechess.org/. You can get chess software, game collections, the FAQ file for rec.games.chess, and other chess-related material there, in the directory pub/chess. The FTP server can automatically decompress files for you as you download them, useful if you don't have gzip.
Here is a sample anonymous ftp session. Some of the ftp server's responses are abbreviated, but all the commands you must type are included.
% ftp ftp.gnu.org
Connected to ftp.gnu.org
Name: anonymous
Password: your-email-address@your-site
ftp> binary
200 Type set to I.
ftp> cd /pub/gnu/xboard
ftp> dir
-rw-r--r-- 1 14910 wheel 1057625 May 20 00:25 xboard-4.2.7.tar.gz
ftp> get xboard-4.2.7.tar.gz
150 BINARY connection for xboard-4.2.7.tar.gz (1057625 bytes).
226 Transfer complete.
ftp> quit
At this writing, the current version numbers are:
Bug reports, suggestions, and offers to help on XBoard or WinBoard should be sent to bug-xboard@gnu.org.
Beginner questions and discussion about the program may get faster answers on the WinBoard Forum at http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/. This forum also constains a section dedicated to propose and discuss new features for WinBoard / XBoard or WinBoard protocol, and reposrt bugs, and offers downloads of pre-installed packages of WinBoard bundled with other software, useful for conducting computer-computer tournaments.
If you are developing a chess engine that works with XBoard or WinBoard (or an alternative GUI that works with such engines), see the Chess Engines mailing list, hosted at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chess-engines. For better response, join the above-mentioned WinBoard forum, or the CCC forum.
Any time you want to report a possible bug in XBoard or WinBoard, we need to know exactly what you did, and exactly what error (or other) messages you got.
If you are using Unix, run the "script" program, run XBoard with the -debug flag (if you get as far as running it), do whatever is necessary to reproduce the problem, type "exit" to the shell, and mail us the resulting typescript file. We also need to know what hardware/operating system combination you are using. The command "uname -a" will usually tell you this; include its output in your typescript.
If you are using MS Windows, run WinBoard with the -debug flag, and send us a copy of the WinBoard.debug file. If you aren't sure how to add command-line flags to WinBoard, you can hit Ctrl+Alt+F12 to create a WinBoard.debug file after WinBoard starts, but that is not as good, because a few messages that would have been printed at the start are lost.
Either way, please send us the exact text of the commands you typed and the output you got, not just your recollection of approximately what they were. The messages may seem meaningless to you, but they are very meaningful to us and essential for diagnosing problems.
Our plans are always in flux. As with most free software projects, the next release will happen when it happens -- or it may never happen. This has always been the policy for XBoard/WinBoard. Releases have never been promised in specific time frames.
Starting in November 2003, several new developers have joined the project, and work is now hosted at https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/xboard/. Lots of work is just getting underway, but nothing is far along yet.
Here is a partial list of items that have a nonzero probability of happening in finite time.
XBoard is a graphical user interface for chess. It displays a chessboard on the screen, accepts moves made with the mouse, and loads and saves games in Portable Game Notation (PGN). XBoard is free software. It serves as a front-end for many different chess services, including:
Chess engines that will run on your machine and play a game against you or help you analyze, such as GNU Chess and Crafty (topic [D.3] below).
Chess servers on the Internet, where you can connect to play chess with people from all over the world, watch other users play, or just hang out and chat.
Correspondence chess played by electronic mail. The cmail program (topic [B.6] below) automates the tasks of parsing email from your opponent, playing his moves out on your board, and mailing your reply move after you've chosen it.
The Web and your own saved games. You can use XBoard as a helper application to view PGN games in your Web browser, or to load and save your own PGN files.
XBoard runs under Unix or Unix-compatible systems. It requires the X Window System, version X11R4 or later. There are also ports of XBoard to 32-bit Microsoft Windows and to the Amiga. See topics [B.2] and [B.3] respectively.
WinBoard is a port of XBoard to 32-bit Microsoft Windows systems, such as Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, ME, and XP. It uses the same back end chess code as XBoard, but the front end graphics code is a complete rewrite. WinBoard is free software.
The WinBoard distribution includes a sample Chess engine.
The WinBoard distribution also includes the ICC timestamp and FICS timeseal programs (topic [B.12]).
cmail (topic [B.6]) has not been ported to Windows. All the other XBoard functions are included in WinBoard. The International Email Chess Group web site at http://www.iecg.org/ recommends ECTool (http://www.ectool.nu/) for playing correspondence chess under Windows.
You install WinBoard as follows. Download the WinBoard package to your PC (see topic [A.2]). It will be a file with a name like winboard-4_0_0.exe. Double-click on this file in the Explorer or File Manager to run it. Follow the on-screen prompts.
AmyBoard is a port of XBoard to the Amiga, by Jochen Wiedmann. The distribution includes a port of GNU Chess. AmyBoard is free software.
The current version of AmyBoard is 330.5 (based on XBoard 3.3.0). No one is currently maintaining it.
System requirements:
If you would like to use an ICS, you need an Internet connection via either
AmyBoard is available in the Internet Chess Library (topic [A.2]).
Note: I am not a Mac user and have not tried this myself, so I cannot answer questions about it.
Because MacOS X has a Unix base, XBoard will compile and run on it. You do need an X11 (X Window System) server and client libraries. I'm told that these come standard with MacOS X 10.3 and later. Once you install the X11 package, XBoard is reported to compile and run without changes.
You can avoid having to compile XBoard (and GNU Chess) yourself by using the Fink sofware packaging system. See http://fink.sourceforge.net/ and http://finkcommander.sourceforge.net/ for more info on Fink.
There is no version of XBoard or WinBoard that runs with the native (non-X11) Mac graphical interface, and none that runs on MacOS 9 or earlier.
No. This port would probably be a lot easier than the Win32 and Amiga ports were, because VMS has the X Window system (under the name DECwindows) and is now POSIX compliant. If you are working on this, send mail to bug-xboard@gnu.org to let us know.
cmail is a program that helps you play and keep track of electronic mail correspondence chess games using XBoard. It is distributed with XBoard and has its own manual page. cmail is free software. It was written by Even Welsh. cmail has not been ported to Windows; sorry.
The first step to building XBoard is to get the distribution file. See topic [A.2] for places you can ftp the software from.
Next, decide what directory tree you are going to install XBoard in. The default is /usr/local, but you probably don't have write access to that directory unless you are a system administrator. If you do, type the following to install it there:
gzip -cd xboard-*.tar.gz | tar -xvf -
cd xboard-*/
./configure
make
su
make install
If you want to install xboard in your personal home directory ($HOME/bin), type this:
gzip -cd xboard-*.tar.gz | tar -xvf -
cd xboard-*/
./configure --prefix=$HOME
make
make install
If the first step above fails because you don't have gzip, see topic [A.2], and ask a local Unix expert if you need more help. If you have any problems with the last two steps, read the READ_ME and INSTALL files in the xboard-*/ directory. You will also find this FAQ there.
You don't need to have gcc to build XBoard. Almost any Unix C compiler should do.
The only way for two humans on different machines to play chess in real time using XBoard/WinBoard is to use an Internet Chess Server as an intermediary. That is, each player runs his own copy of XBoard or WinBoard, both of them log into an ICS, and they play a game there. Two copies of XBoard/WinBoard cannot communicate with each other directly.
Instructions on how to get started with Internet chess are included with the XBoard and WinBoard distributions. The network addresses included in the distribution may not always be current. The oldest and largest ICS is the Internet Chess Club at chessclub.com, which now has a fee for registered use, but still allows free unregistered use. There are also many newer sites with no fees, using the Free Internet Chess Server implementation (FICS). The most active FICS site is freechess.org. On these and most other chess servers, the port number to use is 5000.
If you don't have network connectivity to any ICS site, you can run your own server using a version of the FICS code, but this is not easy. See http://www.tim-mann.org/ics.html#ownics for advice and pointers.
The cmail program included with XBoard lets you play email postal games with another human; see topic [B.6].
Two humans can play chess on the same machine using one copy of XBoard/WinBoard in Edit Game mode, but the clocks don't run in this mode, so it's of limited usefulness.
See also topic [D.2], Winsock Chess.
WinBoard does not run on Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, etc., not even with the Win32s compatibility package. The main problem is that Win32s does not have threads or real concurrent processes. A port of WinBoard to Windows 3.1 is possible in theory, but it would be difficult and messy, and no one is going to do it.
WinBoard does not run on Windows CE (also known as Pocket PC). I don't know what would be required to port it.
WinBoard does run well on full 32-bit versions of Windows, such as Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, ME, XP, and Vista, and should continue to work on future 32-bit Windows systems. To use the help files in Vista, you will need to install the WinHlp32.exe from MicroSoft on your Vista system.
application/x-chess-pgn pgn
application/x-chess-pgn; xboard -ncp -lgf %s
The exact procedure depends on which Web browser you are using. The current version of WinBoard automatically configures itself as your PGN viewer for local files, Netscape 4.x and later, and Internet Explorer. This automatic setup probably works for all other current Web browsers, too.
WinBoard sets this up automatically when you install it, except on old versions of Windows NT (prior to 4.0). On Windows NT 3.51 or earlier, go to the File Manager, click on the File menu, select Associate, enter "pgn" as the extension, and use the Browse button to find your copy of WinBoard and set up the association.
First, get the appropriate version of timestamp or timeseal for your machine from ftp.chessclub.com or ftp.freechess.org. Second, be sure that you can connect using XBoard without timestamp/timeseal. Third, be sure that you can connect using timestamp/timeseal without XBoard. See the help files on ICC and FICS or ask people online if you have problems.
If you are in a completely ordinary situation, where your machine is directly on the Internet and you can connect to ICC or FICS without timestamp/timeseal using just the command "xboard -ics" or "xboard -ics -icshost freechess.org", change that command to one of the following:
xboard -ics -icshost chessclub.com -icshelper timestamp
xboard -ics -icshost freechess.org -icshelper timeseal
If you have a firewall between your machine and the ICS, see topic [B.19].
If you normally have to use the "/icscomm" command line option on xboard to log into a second machine, and then telnet to ICC or FICS from there, you are going to have to run the Unix version of timestamp or timeseal on the second machine. (If the second machine is not running Unix, you are out of luck.) Get the appropriate version of timestamp or timeseal onto the shell machine via FTP; see the help files on ICC and FICS for instructions. Then simply run it when you would normally run telnet. In this configuration you are not protected against lag between your PC and the shell machine, or for lag caused by heavy load on the shell machine itself from other users.
For further information on timestamp and timeseal, see the help files on ICC and FICS.
If you select an ICS from either the WinBoard Startup dialog or the Windows Start submenu that WinBoard installs, WinBoard automatically runs timestamp or timeseal if the ICS you chose is known to support it.
If you are constructing a WinBoard command line by hand, add the option "/icshelper timestamp" or "/icshelper timeseal" to the WinBoard command line to use timestamp or timeseal. Both timestamp.exe and timeseal.exe are included in the WinBoard distribution. They both function identically to the Unix versions, as documented in "help timestamp" on ICC and "help timeseal" on FICS.
If you have a firewall between your machine and the ICS, see topic [B.19].
If you normally have to use the "/icscomm" command line option on WinBoard to log into a shell account, and then telnet to ICC or FICS from there, you are going to have to run the Unix version of timestamp or timeseal on the shell machine. (If the shell account is not on a Unix machine, you are out of luck.) Get the appropriate version of timestamp or timeseal onto the shell machine via FTP; see the help files on ICC and FICS for instructions. Then simply run it when you would normally run telnet. In this configuration you are not protected against lag between your PC and the shell machine, or for lag caused by heavy load on the shell machine itself from other users.
For further information on timestamp and timeseal, see the help files on ICC and FICS.
XBoard and WinBoard have full bughouse support. Offboard piece holdings are shown next to the board, and you drop offboard pieces by dragging them with the mouse (holding the left button down) to their drop square, or left-click the piece and the drop square, just like when you enter any ordinary move.
XBoard and WinBoard can display only one board at a time, but you can observe your partner's game by running a second copy of the program and logging in as a guest. (Unfortunately, this is not possible if you are using the /icscomm option.) To observe your partner's games automatically, use the "follow" or "pfollow" ICS command; see the ICS online help for details.
Zippy is an interface that lets a compatible chess engine (such as GNU Chess or Crafty) act as a computer player on an Internet Chess Server. Zippy is included in both the XBoard and WinBoard distributions. It is implemented as a small amount of additional code within XBoard or WinBoard. For documentation, see the file zippy.README, included in both distributions or available from my chess Web page, http://www.tim-mann/chess.html. The version of zippy.README on my Web page is often more up-to-date than those in the XBoard/WinBoard distributions. You'll also find a "biography" of Zippy and pointers to the original Zippy the Pinhead comic strips on my Web page. Please read zippy.README carefully before you ask me any questions about Zippy.
Using a computer to choose your moves on a chess server is considered cheating unless your account is on the computer (C) list. Read "help computer" on your favorite server for details on their policy. Most of the servers have plenty of computers running now, so they will not be excited about having you run a new one unless you have written your own chess engine. They don't really need yet another Crafty or GNU Chess clone.
This is a non-trivial task. XBoard and WinBoard were not designed with a clean interface for talking to chess programs; they were written to work with an existing version of GNU Chess that expects to be talking to a person. Your program has to emulate GNU Chess's rather idiosyncratic command structure to work with XBoard and WinBoard. We are gradually cleaning up, improving, and documenting the interface as newer versions of XBoard and WinBoard come out, however.
For documentation, see the file engine-intf.html, included in both distributions or available from Tim Mann's chess Web page, http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html. The version of engine-intf.html on Tim's Web page might totally obsolete, though. To know how the current WinBoard or XBoard version communicate with their engines, use the documentation in the XBoard/WinBoard distributions, or on the WinBoard forum.
The source code for WinBoard is available from the author's Web page, http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html.
WinBoard is currently developed using gcc under Cygwin. To build WinBoard with the free Cygwin tools, available from http://www.cygwin.com/), use the command "make -f makefile.gcc" from the winboard directory of the source distribution.
You can build the program from the MSVC++ GUI by opening the project file (winboard.dsp) and telling MSVC++ to build the project. You can also build it from the the command line by using the nmake program supplied with MSVC++. The makefile for MSVC is makefile.ms in the winboard directory.
WinBoard 4.2.5 was successfully compiled with the net release of Cygwin as downloaded on 20-March-2001 (cygwin1.dll 1.1.8, gcc 2.95.2-6, binutils 20001221-1, flex 2.5.4-1), but exhibits a command-line parsing bug; see item 511 in the ToDo file that comes with WinBoard. WinBoard 4.1.0 does not compile with Cygwin. WinBoard 4.0.7 is known to compile with Cygwin BL20.1.
To build WinBoard with Borland C++ 4.5, use "borland.mak", supplied with the WinBoard sources, as the Makefile. Support for Borland C++ was contributed by Don Fong and has not been tested by the author of WinBoard.
WinBoard is a Win32 application, so you definitely need a compiler and tool set that supports Win32. In particular, older versions of DJGPP can build only 32-bit MSDOS programs; that is, programs that use a DOS extender to get a 32-bit address space and do not make any Windows calls. The latest versions of DJGPP are said to be able to build Win32 programs when used with the proper extension package(s), but this is not known to work with WinBoard. Use Cygwin instead.
See also topic [C.16].
There is no single answer to this question, because there are many different kinds of firewalls in use. They work in various different ways and have various different security policies. This answer can only provide hints.
Note that you can't access Internet Chess Servers through a Web proxy, because they are not a Web service. You talk to them through a raw TCP connection, not an HTTP connection. If you can only access the Web through a proxy, there may be a firewall that stops you from making direct TCP connections, but there may also be a way through it. Read on for hints, and contact your local system administrator if you need more information about your local configuration.
A helpful user mailed me the following explanation of how to use WinBoard with WinGate:
"I have managed to setup WinBoard though my WinGate proxy. I have the Office version. What I needed to do was to setup the TCP/IP connection to add the User/Host name and my provider service name for the DNS, but I had to leave the HOST IP address blank. I have not played with all the variations, so it may be just that I have the DNS lookup enabled."
I hope this helps, though I don't find it very clear. I don't have a copy of WinGate myself and can't help if you have questions about it.
If you are using some other non-SOCKS fi