Z88 KORNER
Home
Z88Chess
Z88 EPROM - Z88 Users' Club Magazine
Digital Setting Circles Project for the Meade LX10 telescope
Z88 EPROM IC Programmer
Z88 EPROM Card Emulator
Z80 MU - Z80 and CP/M emulator for the PC
Contact me
Links

Last updated:

 Z88CHESS

At last! Chess for the Z88, and not before time too! Why has no-one done this before?

This version of Z88Chess is in version 0.02 Beta (Beta = please tell me of any bugs that you come across!)

Z88Chess is based on CYRUS IS Chess (C) 1982 Intelligent Software by Richard Lang. It includes some enhancements but currently lacks the following features:

  • Chess Clocks
  • Saving a game
  • Loading a game
  • Print move history to a file/device
  • Print current board position to a file/device
  • Help pages

What it does include is the following features:

  • 8 levels of play - including 3 problem solving levels
  • Take back a move
  • Play back the untaken move
  • Game replay
  • Force Z88Chess to play next best move
  • Board setup
  • Unbelievable sounds (and ability to turn them off!)
  • Human v Z88Chess, Human v Human and Z88Chess v Z88Chess modes
  • Invert board (Black at bottom, White at top)
  • Keeps a record of pieces taken
  • Swap chessmen to text notation
  • Call up board square references

Things to be aware of:

  • Press ESC to stop Z88Chess thinking - this may turn the Z88 off if it's Timeout counter expires.
  • Should be safe to run in the Z88 enviroment - I've not had a crash for a very long while myself but don't take any risks as this is a Beta version - back up that data. You have been warned.
  • The Z88Chess application is a 'bad' one, using only 8K of RAM, but it does hand back about 4K when it is suspended.
  • When promoting a pawn, the keyboard becomes "sticky" - keep pressing the key until the promoted piece appears - this is a bug that I've got to try and fix.
  • Z88Chess makes extensive use of UDGs - be aware of this if you are using UDGs elsewhere. Because of this Z88Chess does not draw the chess board at all well when using WinZ88 - but you can change the chessmen by pressing <>M.
  • Z88Chess is 32K application.
  • Do freely distribute this software.
  • I will finish Z88Chess off as soon as I find more time.

I hope that it is fairly self-explanatory of how to use Z88Chess......

Download the binary files from here:

Version V0.03 Beta (fixes a DOR bug identified by Garry Lancaster - thanks!):