GAVON Portable Chess System

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Bryan Whitby
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GAVON Portable Chess System

Post by Bryan Whitby »

Josu Bergara Ede from Spain has developed a new portable chess system based on the Raspberry Pi called Gavon.
Details and screenshots are available on my web site that can be found here,
http://usbchessboard.yolasite.com
Gavon enables you to play chess without connecting either to a PC or monitor.
When the Raspberry Pi boots it will automatically load the Gavon chess program.
Via the LCD screen and selection buttons, you can select the engine, level and game mode.
Move entry is via the the selection buttons.
Game engines available are.
Faile v. 1.2
Fruit v. 2.1
Rodent v. 2.1
Greko v. 10.3
Ivanhoe 999946f
Stockfish v. 3.32
If you are interested in building your own system in kit form
or would like to buy the system complete then please contact Josu.
jbergara@gmail.com
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sje
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Post by sje »

I'll mention that the name "Gavon" is the reverse spelling of "Novag" although most readers here likely already noticed that.

The Broadcom ARM CPU in the US$35 Raspberry Pi runs at 700 MHz and can usually be overclocked to 800 MHz to match the performance of the 808 MHz ARM CPU in the Revelation II dedicated chess computer. While the Gavon system mentioned in the earlier post does not yet have a DGT board interface, work on such an interface for the Raspberry Pi is in progress. What the Raspberry Pi can't do, at least yet, is run the emulations of closed chess engines available to the Revelation II.

The Raspberry Pi stores its operating system and all its applications on an SD card. A 4 GB card is sufficient for experimentation and an inexpensive (US$20) 16 GB card is large enough to hold every decent publicly available chess program at the same time.
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Bryan Whitby
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Post by Bryan Whitby »

Thanks for the additional info.
Josu the developer has advised me that hopefully by tomorrow he will also have Gavon working with the SolusChess autosensory board as well as the DGT board.
Good news for me as I have a fully working Solus board :-)
Wardy
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Post by Wardy »

Very interesting, especially the dgt support. I've dropped him some questions. Be great to have the latest version of stockfish too if possible.
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sje
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Post by sje »

If a Debian version of Linux (like Raspbian) is running on a Raspberry Pi connected to the Internet, only a single line entered at a text console instance is needed to install Stockfish:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install stockfish
The same is true of most other chess software residing in the Debian package world.
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sje
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Post by sje »

A few years ago I wrote a C++ chess program for small systems like the Audrino Mega (8 KB RAM). The program's name is "myopic" as it can't see very far.

It can run on a Raspberry Pi, using about 0.2% of the available memory. Myopic needs a terminal console for an interface, but this could be changed by anyone with a little skill and some motivation.

For a limited time, the source for myopic can be found at:

Code: Select all

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/31633927/RPi_myopic.tar
To install:

Code: Select all

$ tar xf RPi_myopic.tar
$ cd myopic
$ g++ -O3 -o myopic *.cpp
To run:

Code: Select all

$./myopic
Wardy
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Post by Wardy »

I've ordered a complete kit from Josu. Finally I might have a use for my dgt board :lol:

Josu has plans to add more engines and has been an absolute joy to deal with so far. The system even gets personalised with your details.

Been wanting an excuse to get a Pi for ages too :wink:
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Monsieur Plastique
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Post by Monsieur Plastique »

This looks very interesting. Over the last few months, I have been considering what is the best way to obtain a true portable IM strength machine that is not bound to a PC configuration or external board and is not one of the ubiquitous, sealed "throw away" tablets on sale these days. Of course, the last generation Novags had the portability factor, supermarket battery power, etc and even would have been strong enough for me, but you are lucky if you own one of those these days.

I had also considered the smartphone route, but after researching these products, the build quality of these devices really is of the "throw away" mentality and all use proprietary batteries even though the batteries can be replaced by the user. It is also a little silly buying a smartphone for chess when you can obtain a fully dedicated solution that does nothing but play chess (assuming you feel about it all the way that I and many others here do).

I would be interested to know more specifics regarding the kit (i.e precisely what is included, versus what I can buy locally, etc - for example, I can buy the Raspberry PI here in Australia from Element14). A guide as to what skill levels and procedures might be needed to construct the kit would be useful as well. I know my way around circuits and a soldering iron, but I am not a soldering robot either :)
Chess is like painting the Mona Lisa whilst walking through a minefield.
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Monsieur Plastique
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Post by Monsieur Plastique »

Wardy wrote:I've ordered a complete kit from Josu. Finally I might have a use for my dgt board :lol:

Josu has plans to add more engines and has been an absolute joy to deal with so far. The system even gets personalised with your details.

Been wanting an excuse to get a Pi for ages too :wink:
Well I guess you are the guinea pig then. I hope you will share your step by step adventure with us on this forum.
Chess is like painting the Mona Lisa whilst walking through a minefield.
Wardy
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Post by Wardy »

But of course I will.

Pico chess also looks interesting too.
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Bryan Whitby
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Post by Bryan Whitby »

I built my own from scratch.

Josu sent me a free restricted version of Gavon (restricted meaning that the chess engines would only play up to 25 moves) so that I could experience what Gavon performed like before I paid for the full Gavon package and future updates.

I bought my Adafruit LCD Kit from here.

http://shop.pimoroni.com/products/adafr ... tK7h7IgGK0

Very easy to assemble just as long as you know how to solder as there is quite a lot of soldering involved.

Then you need to do a little Linux programming via Putty on your PC which Josu was very helpful with and that's about it.

I decided to purchase the full Gavon package by sending my Raspberry PI serial number and the full Gavon program was emailed back.

Also I needed a portable battery kit to power my Raspberry PI which I bought from here.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00E0KXO86/r ... TE_3p_dp_1

But if you buy the complete kit from Josu then I'm sure everything has been assembled by him and it's ready for you to use.
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Post by Wardy »

I wanted the least painful route to get up and running :-)

The picochess display currently being evaluated looks good too.
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pr1uk
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Post by pr1uk »

King Performance Chess Computer M830
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