Mike Adams

Pulsar Atomic Chess page

pulsar2009-atomic-9b atomic code only download. 10-11-2009


http://www.adam16mr.org/pulsar2009-atomic-9b.zip
This code is freeware except I require one thing. If you use this code I expect credit to be given to me, Mike Adams, and that you are using my pulsar 2009 atomic code. this credit should be very clear, for example right on the download page or in the profile of the account running the code, so anyone who comes across your atomic engine or other use of the atomic code, could readily determine it is based on or derived from this code release.

This code is the atomic engine only. the files used in pulsar2009-9b.exe to run other variants have been removed. About 30 lines of code in the pulsar2007-9e.c and winboardfunctions.c files ( i stil use the file name from 2007) have been removed mostly pertaining to things like makemove for different variants. these will not be needed if you use this code for atomic. The common code, between the atomic engine and other engines, for example book code, is included, with the exception of the edit i mentioned, neccesary to make it compile and link.

Nov 15 2006 Code Only! Program links are below from most rectent to least recent.

http://www.adam16mr.org/pulsaratomic2006-3code.zip   I have relased the atomic program source code. This is the source code I last worked with, with no documentation other than what is allready in the program. Bear in mind a lot of this code was borrowed from pulsar and the atomic code was largely written in 2002. This was prior to my going to school in programming, and in fact i started on pulsar in 1998 with a sprinkling of knowledge and idea for the program that did not consider program managability. But with that said it is now released.

The current version of pulsar atomic is no longer a seperate program. It can be found on http://www.adam16mr.org/pulsar.html   Its now one program that plays atomic, regular chess, 3checks, twokings, suicide/giveaway, losers and crazyhouse. There is also a linux release, both 32 bit and 64 bit on that page.

older versions

May 14, 2007 http://www.adam16mr.org/pulsaratomic2007-5.zip This release is a continuation of pulsaratomic2007-4 and does not change the engine or playing strenght. Three new features are added. The first is a new program argument 'rand' such as -fcp "pulsaratomic2007-5.exe rand" that makes pulsar choose moves slightly at random. Most moves wont vary but some moves will. A random score of 1-20 is added to different evaluations. You can modify how much randomness with a 'k' argument in the pulsar.rc file. k + 9 would bring k to 38 and k - 9 would bring it to 2. If your not using the rand argument modifying k wont have any effect. Program arguments and the pulsar.rc file are explained below.

The second new feature is that in ics play pulsar will now claim a draw by the 50 move rule. Finnaly in both ics and home play if you go to the winboard, general options and select 'show thinking', pulsar will show its score, depth and main line in winboard.

May 12, 2007 http://www.adam16mr.org/pulsaratomic2007-4.zip Some have suggested the change in evaluate was to radical. This is the same version as pulsaratomic2007-1 which is a continuation of pulsaratomic2006-3, and only has the new code to deal with the connectedkings and connected rook king but no other changes in evaluate.

May 11, 2007 http://www.adam16mr.org/pulsaratomic2007-3.zip this release introduces two new modifiable values, an i value that is a bonus for connecting a rook with opponetns king, and a j value that is a bonus for the losing side if they connect a king to a king. You can modify these bonuses with i + 5 for example in the pulsar.rc file explained below. Also most all evaluate values are changed in this release. And finnaly a bug in quiescent search was found and fixed. http://www.adam16mr.org/pulsaratomic2007-2.zip is an earlier release that day. The evaluate values didnt seem to be quite as good.

May 4, 2007 http://www.adam16mr.org/pulsaratomic2007-1.zip This release is the same program as pulsaratomic2006-3 with one exception. A file named atomicFirstMove.txt may be created that lists similar to atomicBookWhite the first few opening moves. End the file with a $. Example

b1c3
b1c3
e2e4
d2d4
g1f3
$

It will choose from those openings for whites first move. Each move listed in the file has an equal chance to be played so if you repeat some lines you increase its chance to be played.

I have done these may 28 and 29 releases in response to people who have told me they want to or mainly play at home with the program not with it connected to a server. Checkmate result reporting, move now and step / retract move in the winboard menu are now more or less fully supported making it easier to use when played locally against yourself. Sample bat files for home play at regular strenght and handincapped strenght are inluded. If you extract everything to the winboard directory you can modify them or just click on them to play. The sample bat files include the 'fics' program argument to play by fics castling rules. You can remove this to have the program play by icc castling rules.

May 29 2006 morning www.adam16mr.org/pulsaratomic2006-3.zip   Only change is it now will report checkmate when you play at home rather than play on after it has lost. However right now it will end a game when it checkmates the opponent if fics rules are on. the (fics) program argument, or when its king is destroyed if it is the loser.

release May 28 2006 evening www.adam16mr.org/pulsaratomic2006-2.zip   Same as the release early today but step/ retract move in the winboard menu fully working. Also included is a home-atomic-handicaped.bat file that you can click on to play against atomic-pulsar were atomic pulsar will use 6000 ms for the game. Right click on that file and select edit to change the ms value to make it stronger or weaker.

release May 28 2006 Same version as below but with support for step/ move now in homeplay and step / retract move seems to work if its out of book before you do a retract.www.adam16mr.org/pulsaratoimc2006-1.zip   If you extract to the winboard folder you should be able to run it at home by clicking home-atomic.bat

release April 24 2006 is the stable version of pulsar that has some bug fixes, a changed evaluate and now supports both a pular.rc file, explained below, and 4 program arguments. A bug in the code regarding fics castling should be corrected in this verion. Also the april 24 version supports book lines that can go as long as 50 half moves. To download www.adam16mr.org/pulsar-atomic-2006-6.zip   Program arguments and how to use a pulsar.rc file is explaines below. See www.adam16mr.org/pulsar.html   for my regular chess and 3checks pulsar program and also for how to get and use winboard which is an interface you can load atomic-pulsar into.

Older versions

release April 21 2006, a version of atomic-pulsar that supports a pulsar.rc file. Only the april 24 2006 version supports the y and z terms explained below. file name pulsarV2.01a-2006-2.exe. To download www.adam16mr.org/pulsar-atomic-2006-2.zip   Create a pulsar.rc file with your adjustes evaluate values.

I believe -fcp "pulsarV2.01a-2006-2.exe 1" will tell it to use fics rules. Basicly any program arguments after the executable name will work to tell it to use fics rules. Pulsar has always supported fics rules in all releases, but defaulted to icc rules on servers other than fics, whos name it parses. If your on fics you dont need to worry about doing anything to get it to work there but if your on uschesslive you'll need the program argument.

You can download the older (stable) version of pulsar atomic version of pulsar-atomic at www.adam16mr.org/atomic-pulsar.zip It does not support all the features of the new version and is the stable version of atomic-pulsar.

Email me any feedback and any opening books you have created for pulsar are welcome. You can let me know if i can try them or if its ok to post them.This zip file is updated from pulsarV2.01a-2006-1.exe which was released earlier on 4-21-2006 to fix a crash. That version can still be downloaded at www.adam16mr.org/pulsar-atomic-2006.zip .

Chess engine: Program arguments

You can use 4 program arguments with pulsar-atomic-2006-6.zip. they are.
  • 'fics' no quotes , to tell it to use fics rules.
  • 'norc' no quotes, to tell it to ignore any puslar.rc files
  • the terms fics and norc must be in lowercase
  • a number from (1, 2, 4 , 8 , 16 , 32) to tell it how much to multiply the hash by. The default is 8. If that is to much ram try 1, 2 or 4. Basicly at 1 it will allocate 500,000 hash spots. at 32 it will allocat 16 million. Each spot i think is about 16 bytes.
  • a number from 250-60,000, dont use a comma in the command line, that will handicap its search time for the whole game to as little as 250 ms and as much as 60000 ms.
  • the order of these arguments doesnt matter.

An example: -fcp " pulsarV2.01a-2006-6.exe norc fics 4 3000"

That would tell it to use fics castling rules, ignore the pulsar.rc file is there is one, use half the default hash, and play the whole game, any game, in 3000 ms or 3 seconds, useful for a handicapped bot.

Modifiable evaluate

With atomic pulsar you can create a pulsar rc file similar to the one creatable in the wild 0 version. Each piece, p, n, b, r, q, can have a value added or subtracted from it of 10% to 90%. the syntax is something like 'p + 2' or 'p - 2'. Dont use quotes. Place each modified value in a file called pulsar.rc ( I recommend you store winboard executable, atomic pulsar executable, and pulsar.rc file all in the same directory).

additionaly three other terms other than the pieces can be used. x for the pawn advance table. 'x + 9' would almost double the agressiveness it pushes pawns. y for how much of a bonus a passed pawn gets, and z for how much of a bonus it gets to castle. Sample pulsar rc file below.

p + 2
q - 1
z - 9
x + 5

You can write this file in notepad. terminate each line by hitting enter. Note that each line is exactly 5 characters and must be all lowercase for any letters. '[lower case letter like p][space][+ or -][space][a number that can be 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 or 9][then hit enter and modify another value below it if you want and hit enter after that line]

If you click on the atomic pulsar executable without connecting it to winboard it will start the engine in a dos prompt. The default values for a p,n,b,r,q, and y and z will be shown. p-q is displayed as M1 through M5. If you use a pulsar.rc your modified values will be shown.