Two Contributions to the User's Program Library Europe (UPLE)

[Ángel Martin]

Update: Well, not so good news I'm afraid.

The field# <-> coordinates routines work just fine, so the data input is using the familiar A-H, 1-8 conventions. Game initialization is now also automated.

A couple of gray areas remain unclear, like the opening option - very confusing (read: not documented) and possibly not working as intended. Also there's no information provided about pawn promotion or castling, although the problems start much earlier than that.

The program is making some invalid moves here and there, either wacko jumps or sometimes illegal field codes used as source/destination.

After quite an extensive review I'm not sure I can get to the bottom of these issues, so I'm pausing my research for the time being, sorry. I may do another attempt in a few days or so...

The attached module includes the result of my work so far, in case somebody wants to take a look...
LBL "JCH80" is the main program and also he starting point via XEQ "JCH80".
The program always plays black (not changeable). White pieces located in rows #1 and #2, white square (H1) to the right, white queen on its color (D1).

I meant to pit it against the (more powerful) CH136 (LBL "CHESS", also in the module and yes this one plays just great) , but it doesn't get pass the fourth or fifth move depending on the games, very disappointing.