Andrew Tannenbaum  	  Apr 28 1992, 8:41 am     show options
Newsgroups: rec.games.chess
From: t...@ima.isc.com (Andrew Tannenbaum) - Find messages by this author
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1992 15:41:32 GMT
Local: Tues, Apr 28 1992 8:41 am
Subject: ICS features
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ICS with the xics interface is a great way to while away the hours!

I have a few suggestions for improvements to ICS , and I haven't seen
any other forum for discussing this, and since most ICS players are
here, I'll do it here.  If you don't like that, don't read on.

There is some degree of unreliability in the server or network, which
causes lots of games to terminate prematurely.  It would be nice if
this could be rectified somehow.  Right now, there is a "save" feature,
but it's not automatic.  It would be nice if this were automated as
much as possible, so that games were saved during crashes, etc.  I say,
do the file i/o, it's not that much overhead, is it?  Barring that, it
would be nice if you could have the program print a line of Forsyth
or some other notation that described the board, and then you could
type (or mouse paste) it back into ICS (with a cooperative approval by
both players).

Other such cooperative adjustments by players would be nice, maybe to
pause or add some time to a clock if something went haywire like when
someone comes into your office, or the phone rings - I've tossed a few
games this way.  This would require mutual cooperation, of course, and
I understand that it could be problematic.  If your opponent concurs,
then it should be fine.  If he doesn't, too bad (like a draw offer).

Another feature I'd really like to see in ICS is anoTher sort of "who"
command.  Right now, the who command has id's, games, and ratings.
There is also an idle time indicator in some servers, which I think is
good.  I think there should be two "who" commands, one with server
info, and another with personal info, like name, email address, and
location (maybe call it whois or finger).  Right now, the only clue
about location is the automail address field, which is not often used.
I figure that users should set their own finger info , no need to
bother the ICS admin, and that way the users can maintain whatever
confidentiality they feel comfortable with.  I'd also like to use the
finger commands with a specific user name.

        Andrew Tannenbaum   Interactive   Cambridge, MA   +1 617 661 7474

	
Terje Pedersen 	  Apr 29 1992, 2:14 am     show options
Newsgroups: rec.games.chess
From: terj...@stud.cs.uit.no (Terje Pedersen) - Find messages by this author
Date: 29 Apr 92 09:14:10 GMT
Local: Wed, Apr 29 1992 2:14 am
Subject: Re: ICS features
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Better saving features is obviously needed.
another feature that I would like to see is :
a command "start" and "stop" that starts/stops the clock
and:
a way to monitor the time taken for the moves to travel from
the server to the player. If this time rises sharply you could
issue the stop command. This monitoring feature should show the
times for both players. The best thing would be that the server
compensated for this time loss, if it got unreasonably high.

and:
a way to add time to the clock. If the netlag is on the rise,
and if both agree , adding a specified amount of time to both clocks
would be useful.

-- 
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