From: ace3@quads.uchicago.edu (AA Acero (Tony))
Subject: Re: Question: Giics
Followup-To: rec.games.chess
Summary: GIICS doesn't know about Ethernet 
Keywords: ICS, GIICS, Ethernet
Reply-To: ace3@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 18:50:12 GMT

In article <92272.163905K3006E7@ALIJKU11.BITNET> <K3006E7@ALIJKU11.BITNET> writes:
>Dear fellow net chess players,
>I have a question concerning the usage of giics(141).
>I have a PC that has its own IP address, meaning it has its own
>Ethernet card (FD0490 EtherBoard16), and running Crynwr packet
>driver NE2000.
As far as I know you can't use serial port routines to interface to an
Ethernet adapter.  Giics just doesn't know how to deal with Ethernet,
mostly because I don't know what needs to be done.  I got the
impression someone had modified giics to work with Ethernet, but I've
received no patches; perhaps I misunderstood.

>Has anyone gotten giics to work with a similar configuration,
>or would know how?  I have tried playing with the source code,
>but could not even get it to compile, much less working for
>a direct ether connection.
The source is missing a graphics library that I wrote; the library
binary was included in some of the earlier versions but is somehow
missing from 1.41

Not to despair: 1.42 will be out in the next few days -- it will
include the graphics library source, a make.ini for NDMAKE, and full
instructions on recompilation.  By way of apology I must note that
until very recently, there had been no interest in recompiling giics.
I've been fixing deficiencies in the distribution almost as fast as
they've been brought to my attention.  My goal has always been for
giics to be a collective work -- not a one-man-show.

[configuration deleted]
>
>I think someone must have gotten it to work, because I cannot believe
>all these people from Sweden, Peru, and so on are calling up by
>modem and PC using giics!

I think most people dial-in from home to their local mainframe (at
school or work) and then telnet to ICS -- there's no need to make a
long distance phone call!

> Anyhow, I also have a VMXA and a unix
>account, if that helps me to log in indirectly (I can't imagine how
>this would simplify things though) through these systems.
>I suspect the trick is in the configuration giicscnf.exe where I have
>to put in the IRQ and stuff.  If anyone has any suggestions at all,
>remembering I am not much of a computer person, I would greatly
>appreciate it, and will promise you at least one free beer the next time
>you are in Austria.
>In summary, if you did any of the following to/with giics, can you
>please send me info as to exactly what you did:
>    1) changed source code
>    2) log in indirectly through unix/vmxa, then run giics
>    3) trick giics to think you are using a modem by configuring
>       with giicscnf.exe
>Sincerely,
>Myron    (oops)

I'm sorry it's been such a pain to try use giics -- I do hope someone
will step forward and extend giics to work with Ethernet if it's not
too much of a hassle.  We could also use an artist type to
redesign/enhance the pieces and the user interface, and perhaps an
English-major type to rewrite the documentation so that normal people
could understand it (like Linus Torvalds says about the Linux
documentation, 'it sucks raw eggs').

tony acero



-- 
Anibal Antonio Acero (tony) | University of Chicago | `To baldly to go where
ace3@quads.uchicago.edu     | 5640 S. Ellis Ave.    | no one has gone before',
(312)702-8214 (lab)         | James Franck Inst 340 |  what Patrick Stewart
(312)702-8387 (office)      | Chicago, IL 60637     |   _should_ be saying