THE CHESS PLAYER (Quicksilva) Author: Martin Wren-Hilton LOADING THE PROGRAM You will find the procedure for loading a program in the Spectrum BASIC manual, chapter 20. The procedure for loading the program is given below: 1. Connect the EAR socket of the Spectrum to the EAR socket of your cassette recorder. 2. Make sure the tape is wound to the beginning. 3. Set the volume control to a suitable level. 4. Set maximum treble, minimum bass on the tone controls. 5. Type LOAD "" CODE. 6. Press ENTER. 7. Start the cassette recorder. 8. The program will RUN itself once loaded and will provide instructions. If the program does not load correctly try a different volume level. (c) Copyright 1982 Quicksilva Ltd. SOFTWARE FOR THE SINCLAIR SPECTRUM FROM QUICKSILVA THE CHESS PLAYER The Earth hung in the void, turning on its axis, basking in the sun. Thus far in its life the Earth had suffered no major discomforts; the odd Ice Age or two, pin pricks here and there from Man's bombs. When it was still young it remembered the near miss it had with a comet and when still younger could vaguely recall the days before the moon drifted in from the depths of space to join in a dance with Earth. Life was good, and providing Man was careful the Earth looked forward to a long, peaceful middle age. This golden age for the Earth unfortunately ended yesterday. Some murky distant planet orbiting an ancient sun in a forgotten backwater of the Universe had given birth to a supremely malevolent and extremely intelligent Cyborg: The Chess Player. Evil beings abound in the Universe, as indeed do good, but most evil beings are content to dominate the weaker by conventional means: bombs, plagues, micro-wave ovens and so on. The Guardians of Right throughout the Universe can generally cope with this, they know where they stand, the subjugated people know who's who and what's what and get on with digging out the Uranium deposits. The Chess Player, however, is another kettle of octopi entirely. Worse than any average Evil Being, he is truly nasty and unpleasant. The Chess Player chooses to toy with planets before destroying them; playing chess with the race he wishes to conquer. And now The Chess Player is hanging just above the thick atmosphere of the Earth and snickering to himself. The Earth knows it only has a slender hope of survival and that is if the Chess Player can be beaten. The Chess Player plucks a satellite from its orbit and chews on it absent-mindedly while looking over the Earth. Then he leans forward, thrusting his head into the atmosphere and calls for a challenger in a voice which shakes the Earth. He leans back and pulls a board from Dimension X, sets it out before him then waits for a challenger to come forward ... THE CHESS PLAYER Load the cassette with LOAD "" CODE. The program loads in two blocks. Once loaded, The Chess Player will ask you a few questions. First, you will be asked if you want to play a game or analyse a board. Answer with P or A. Assuming you press P (the usual response) you will be asked if you are using a black and white or colour television. Answer with B or C. Next, you are offered the choice of whether to LOAD a previously SAVED board or not. You are finally asked for your choice of colour (B or W) and the level of play (1 to 6). The response times are: 1 replies in 7 seconds and plays an easy game. 2 replies in 50 seconds and plays a reasonable game. 3 replies in 3 or 4 minutes and plays an above average game. 4 replies in 6 minutes and plays a good game. 5 and 6 reply in up to 6 hours but play very strong games. N.B. These timings are only approximate and vary according to the game situation. To move a piece, enter the co-ordinate of the square you wish to move from, then the co-ordinate of the square you wish to move to; eg. E2-E4. If you make a mistake, you may rub out the offending characters using delete and if you make an illegal move you will be told so. If you wish to castle, just type in the King's move and The Chess Player will know you want to castle. When he castles, he will display either O-O or O-O-O. You may use the en-passant privilege and if The Chess Player uses the privilege it will display PXPEP. Other commands available when you are being asked for your move are: M - Prints all moves so far on the screen (or printer if attached). Z - Copies the board onto the printer (if present). S - Saves the game currently being played onto cassette in three short blocks. You may then continue later, exactly as you left off. R - Resign. X - Change sides and/or level of play during a game. If, when the title page is up, you answer A to the first question, you may then analyse the board. The position of the board cursor is indicated by a flashing piece or square. Press SPACE to move the cursor along. When you come to a piece or square you wish to alter, proceed as follows: press 0 to clear that square or (if you wish to insert or alter a piece) press PCM, where P is the piece to be inserted, C is the colour of the piece and M indicates whether the piece has moved or not. For P, use K-King, Q-Queen, R-Rook, N-Knight, B-Bishop and P-Pawn. For M, enter Y (has moved) or N (has not). Eg. NBY means black knight that has moved. When the board is set up correctly, type Y and answer the three questions according to how you wish the game to continue. The game usually ends in checkmate, and The Chess Player will wait for you to press a key before restarting.