A chess-playing program with a high-resolution graphics display of the board, and the following features:

• Play white or black against the computer, or play against another player, or in auto-mode the computer plays itself


• 10 levels of play, giving novice to professional standards


• Computer moves in twenty seconds at lowest level


• Board display with joystick, cursor, or co-ordinate entry of moves and rejection of illegal moves


• Plays according to current FIDE-ratified rules, and displays moves as standard FIDE notation (for example, the 50-move rule etc.)


• Continuous clock display for tournament chess


• Allows any position to be set up, and 'mate in n' problems to be solved


• Whole games or single board positions can be saved to cassette

This chess-playing program helps the novice chess-player by its use of friendly interfaces, such as joysticks and cursor-keys, to get to grips with chess, while at the same time providing a game of increasing complexity on the higher levels for all further advanced players.

The game displays the last few moves in algebraic notation, the official notation now endorsed by FIDE (Federation International Des Echecs) for use in tournaments: the only modification is that whereas most tournament players use abbreviated literal algebraic (ie Bc4, Ngf3, ed:), the form used for display here is expanded literal algebraic (ie Ng1-f3, Bd3Xh7+, g7-g8Q, etc.)

Using this system, there can be no ambiguity, and the letters and numbers conform to a simple co-ordinate system (displayed on two sides of the board during a game) which can be picked up quickly by a beginner, giving him a first step into the vast wealth of chess literature, most of which is now published in this, or very similar, notation.

The player first selects either joysticks or cursor-keys. A move is then made by first moving the flashing cursor above the starting square and pressing the fire button (or the RETURN key respectively); then, doing the same for the finishing square will specify a move.

The 'usual' style of entering moves is possible at any time: this involves typing a sequence such as 'd2d4' or g1f3' specifying the start and end co-ordinates of the move. Attempts to play illegal moves are met with a message to 'Try again' and no penalty is meted out to the player. If you promote a pawn, the computer will ask you which piece you wish to promote into; answer by pressing "N" for a knight, "B" for a Bishop, "R" for a Rook or "Q" for a Queen.

Castling requires special explanation: to castle (if castling is possible), you should first specify your king's current sqaure, an then specify the square that he would be at if he castled on that side of the board.

So, White king-side castling is carried out by the string 'e1g1', and is printed in the lower window as '0-0': queen-side castling is printed as '0-0-0'. These conform to the accepted standard of algebraic notation.

'En passant'; although the program both plays it and allows you to play it under the correct circumstances, it is only displayed as though it were normal pawn capture. This is in keeping with the accepted notation, which also does not treat 'en passant' as being different from other moves.

The program starts with the main menu, which provides the following options selected by single keys:

Skill-level (0-9)

There are ten levels of difficulty ranging from 0 (easy) to 9 (very hard).

Be warned: on levels 8 and 9, response-time may be in the order of hours!

Where applicable you are presented with the following options:

During a game, ESCAPE may be pressed at any time. This is not destructive, since you may continue the current game from the menu by pressing RETURN or 'fire' on either of the joysticks. You may make alterations to the options (such as level, which side or sides the computer is playing etc.)

All that remains to be done is to give a sample chess problem that can be solved by the program, to give you an idea of how to use the facilities provided. To enter a piece at a square, simply move the flashing cursor over that square and type "wn" for a white (k)night, "bq" for a black queen or "wp" for a white pawn, for example. Pressing DELETE deletes the contents of the square. Note that the program does not allow pawns on the first or eighth rank, nor more than a single king per side, nor more than sixteen pieces per side.