Terra Help and Information

bullet1 Help!

bullet2 Some special functions

bullet3 Command files

Collect a bunch of commands in a file and run all the commands in a batch  where xxxx is the command file. The commands in the file should follow the ordinary Terra command syntax and the file could be named whatever. This feature has been useful to me when I have switched between different conditions. First testing with testsets, then playing Terra against some other program locally and finally play Terra at ICS. Earlier on Win95, when playing other programs I used to turn off the pondering and lower the hash memory. Nowerdays on Win2000 (started with win98) I'm always using ponder on. When playing on ICS I'm certainly pondering and maximize the hash settings. Instead of having different Terra.ini files I write small command files. In Win95 playing against other programs on the same processor, I run Terra XBoard /run=mg.run,

mg.run looked like:

------------------------------------------------------

book on

Booklearn on

PostBook on

Postlearn on

ponder off

hash on

hashsize 32M 4M 3M

-------------------------------------------------------

bullet3 Automatic play against other computers

There are numerous ways to play against other programs automatically. In order to play just one game, start WinBoard and select the two programs, set time levels in WinBoard and select two machines under Mode. In order to play a match with n games, the most easy one is to start WinBoard from the consol command line.

The command could be something like:

WinBoard /cp /fcp="terra.exe" /fd=c:\terra\  /mg 10 /ponder

I didn't give any /scp parameter here for the other program because then I can select engine when WinBoard starts.

Take a look in the WinBoard  help to get the complete picture.

It is also possible to play Terra against other programs with other GUI:s  as well. In some of them you can set up full tournaments and get the games saved as well as a tournament table.

bullet3 Test suites

A test suite is a collection of more or less hard positions with a solution included.

The EPD-format has the bm tag followed by one or more Best Moves. There is also this am tag followed by one or more "Avoid Moves"

Terra has a function to read an EPD collection of positions and try to solve them one after the other within the set time frame. When finished Terra will display the result and write it to the file Testset.txt. Two files will be created: TestsetWrong.epd and TestsetRight.epd.

Run the command:

testset EPD-file

where EPD-file is the test suite.

I have included a few test suites in the package but there are lots more of them. For example at   Dann Corbits site .


Even for test suites there are special managers that sends the position to the chess programs and let it analyzing until time is out, collect all the results and produces a  test result output. We have EPD2WB and GradualTest  that both handle test suites.

bullet3 Using chess servers

Chess Servers are servers to play chess on.

WinBoard and some other programs has the ability to connect to chess servers and let a program play against humans or other programs. Of course you can play there by yourself with WinBoard or other Chess Server interface programs.  I have tested Terra at ICS (Internet Chess Server) and it works fine. There are other servers as well with the same protocol. ICS costs money (if you don't log on as a guest) but there are free ones like FICS (Free Internet Chess Server).

If you intend to use Terra on a chess server I want you to clearly state in that server that this is a program and it's Terra that is playing. At ICS you can put this information on the server with the set command. For example:

set 1 This is the Terra 2.6 program on a PIII 1,2 GHz

set 2 some other things....

set 3 ....

the numbers after set are the line numbers.

When someone does the command finger 'your handle' they will get the information returned:

This is the Terra 2.6 program  on a PIII 1,2 GHz

some other things....

....



bullet3 Evaluating EGTB positions

If you have endgame positions and want to find out the EGTB value you can set up the positions one by one and start the analyze. You can also as an alternative place the positions in one file and rune the command testtb epd-file .

Two files will be created: FoundTB.epd and NotFoundTB.epd.

bullet3 Converting "Lisp-style pgn

A new command convert from.pgn to.pgn will convert a LISP-type pgn notation to a 'normal' pgn. Not tested but it works on Fritz4.pgn.

With LISP-type pgn I mean something like this

1.e4 (1.d4 d5 (1... Nf6 2.g3) 2.c4) e5 2.Nf3 etc

Please give your comments in WinBoard Forum or email me. This document was updated 2004-08-02.