That other DGT e-board

[sje]

We've talked about the DGT serial chessboard, the DGT USB chessboard, and the DGT Bluetooth chessboard. But did you know that there's another DGT board?

(Dramatic pause) (tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock)

Yes, it's the DGT serial draughts board.

http://digitalgametechnology.com/site/i ... ghts-board

Being a an American and so typically innocent of non American culture, until a few years ago I did not know of such a thing as European draughts, which some in the US would call 10x10 checkers. And I didn't know that "draughts" is pronounced "drafts". Indeed, the word "draughts" isn't even present in my spell checker dictionary. I learned 8x8 American checkers from my dad over fifty years ago and neither him nor I have ever touched a 10x10 checker board.

Perhaps one of the European members might make me feel better by admitting a corresponding unfamiliarity of American 8x8 checkers.

I suppose that the DGT draughts board is very similar to the DGT chess board electronically. The scan rate might be a bit faster as only fifty squares need to be examined vs sixty four. But I don't understand how promoted men are recognized. In the American game, a promoted man (a king) is realized as two checker pieces, one stacked upon the other. But I don't think this would work with the DGT recognition technology. Maybe there are additional, different pieces used as kings for a total of four kinds of pieces.

It seems to me that the DGT draughts men might be used with a DGT chess board if the resonant frequencies of the men have matches in the DGT chess pieces. Yes, some new software would be needed, but maybe that software could live entirely external from the DGT board firmware.

--------

I was about four or five years old when my dad taught me checkers. We used a large, soft plastic roll-up board and big red/black pieces perhaps 75 mm in diameter. I don't think I ever won a game against him.

--------

I've written a couple of checker playing programs, none of them very good. The first was on an HP-67 calculator with 224 bytes of programmable RAM. Not only was my program very weak, it also took many minutes for a move. But at least the program knew the rules and never made an illegal move.

[Alain]

We've talked about the DGT serial chessboard, the DGT USB chessboard, and the DGT Bluetooth chessboard. But did you know that there's another DGT board?

(Dramatic pause) (tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock)

Yes, it's the DGT serial draughts board.

http://digitalgametechnology.com/site/i ... ghts-board

Very interesting !

Being a an American and so typically innocent of non American culture, until a few years ago I did not know of such a thing as European draughts, which some in the US would call 10x10 checkers. And I didn't know that "draughts" is pronounced "drafts". Indeed, the word "draughts" isn't even present in my spell checker dictionary. I learned 8x8 American checkers from my dad over fifty years ago and neither him nor I have ever touched a 10x10 checker board.

Perhaps one of the European members might make me feel better by admitting a corresponding unfamiliarity of American 8x8 checkers.

I can tell you indeed that French do not know about Checkers ! I discovered their existence with the first electronic games and/or software for 8 bit machines.

In French, we say "Dames" (which by the way is also what we use for the Queen in chess) for the draughts... and it is interesting to note that Fidelity Electronics released a "Dame Challenger", not a "Draught Challenger":

I suppose that the DGT draughts board is very similar to the DGT chess board electronically. The scan rate might be a bit faster as only fifty squares need to be examined vs sixty four. But I don't understand how promoted men are recognized. In the American game, a promoted man (a king) is realized as two checker pieces, one stacked upon the other.

So do we !

Thanks again for this very interesting post !

[sje]

Common shogi (i.e., Japanese chess) is played on the squares of a 9x9 board using eight kinds of unpromoted pieces plus two kinds of promoted pieces; the kind of a piece is given by one or two kanji characters printed on its top. Pieces are all the same color, not of two colors as in western chess; each piece is pentagonal and points away from the player who controls it. All pieces are the same shape, although in traditional sets the stronger pieces are slightly larger than the weaker ones. The pieces are flat and a promoted piece is indicated by flipping it over.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogi

I have developed a design for implementing piece recognition for common shogi and most other shogi variants. Unlike the DGT e-board design, a shogi e-board system has to allow for one or two piece rotations and to disallow an arbitrary horizontal planar rotation. I don't have the resources or the time to patent this and indeed someone may have come up with the same system idea already.

My idea can be extended to handle taikyoku shogi (36x36 board) with its 402 pieces and 253 different piece kinds. For the likely market of a taikyoku shogi e-board, a serial number plate with room for only one digit would suffice.