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Online Chess With Physical Pieces On a Chessboard
D4C5CE writes "A chess-playing German tinkerer has contrived (and made a video of) an amazing contraption that plugs real chess pieces into the freechess.org server using a 20W LED projector and an old webcam to read moves on a projected chessboard."
This looks like the same concept behind Microsoft's Surface AKA Big-Ass Table.
Seems very much like the radio chess sets that saw some popularity in the late '80s.
node-def: a tactical hacking sim. Now in open beta.
It's kind of amazing when you consider it; all this work has been done by just one guy. He could turn this into a business, there are lots of chess hobbyists around..
Wake me up when it can physically move pieces for your opponent's moves. For now there are certainly tens of ways to do piece tracking.
Most of the games played on freechess.org are 'lightning' games, and usually its the 'fastest' setting of "1 0" which is 1 minute total per player with no time added per move. Some of the players individually have game counts in the hundreds of thousands. Normally these players play 'sets' of games, 10 or more consecutively, against any given opponent.
Some of the player play a very hucksterish style, with the goal being to simply eat away at their opponents clock with surprise checks, highly dubious sacrifices, and other outright gorilla tactics. Its very fun to watch, and to play.
"His name was James Damore."
Old shit. Then TRS80 interface in 1982. All the old fuckers are dead now so this is new to young stupid punks like you!!
Give credit where due, people. This isn't impressive because move-sensing chessboards are somehow new. This is impressive because he made his own projector that displays time and opponent move information on the board. Then he used an old, old webcam and custom software to determine the move that he is taking. He made circuit boards, frames, and other equipment. He probably spent 100 hours and a lot of effort in order to make it slightly easier to play chess online.
If a DIY setup like this doesn't bring at least a little smile to your face, your hacker spirit is dead.
The ______ Agenda
I built something like that 5 years ago using magnets and reed switches.
FUCKING MAGNETS??? HOW DO THEY WORK???
Yes, most.
Ok, if 15% counts as "most", then you are right.
This is what I get for posting in a chess thread.
I'd get rid of the pixellated lines and propose a blinking square where the piece needs to land.
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Actually he says in his project diary (in a forum where they usually take TFTs apart to rebuild them into things like these or even one's own R2D2) that quite contrary to Microsoft's approach, all his web cam looks for are the pieces' shadows on the board cast by ambient light.
No need to detect more than that, the server knows which chessman comes from a particular square.
Interestingly, a few weeks ago I read that something very much like this also was some sort of graduation project of a couple of students at a tech school here in Finland... don't have the link handy unfortunately.
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
Reminds me of the Cowboy Bebop episode "Bohemian Rhapsody."
Keep your eyes to the sky.
I often wondered why they never gave Deep Blue, or any other chess playing PC, an interner connection. S, if you think youre the tits, you can go online to www.beatdeepblue.com or some shit, and play. You may have to wait in a queue, so it can dedicate all computational power to the art of chess, but why couldnt this be possible? Pipe dream I guess, or vodka dream.
I would have moved either the knight or the bishop to a6, or else sacrificed the bishop at g6. What's the best move at that point?
http://digitalgametechnology.com/site/Electronic-Boards/
Although the DGT boards are really nice the cost is something many people will not be willing to pay. Odd that after all the years it has been out someone else has not released a more economical version.
I first read "contraption" as "contraception". Seems almost as accurate.
Property is theft.
Are you saying DGT amazingly (even more so at their price tag) stopped short of placing a cheap little LED on each square, as pretty much every stand-alone chess computer has done at least since the early 1980s?
Jeebus H. Christ, I thought someone hooked up a chess piece-moving robot arm to one of these web chess sites several years ago.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
A friend's request to display custom content on a projection clock made me wonder if/why there are really no such displays (as in "1ft digits across the room") that could be computer-interfaced with the likes of lcdproc, or even for pixel graphics.
Has anyone seen such a thing commercially available without the need for DIY optics?
Cowboy Bebop anyone?