VoiceChess

A chess program that talks: digitised speech through the computer’s speaker announces its moves. On start-up it asks whether to PLAY, ANALYZE or LOAD a game, then for your colour (B or W) and a level of play from 0 to 6; in analyse mode it also asks which colour moves next and the move number, so a position can be set up. The move display includes castling (O-O and O-O-O) and en passant, and the program reports checkmate and stalemate.

The code reads “(C) 1983 Artic Computing Ltd.” and “AUTHOR: C.A.Thornton.” Softsync’s product listing describes it as adapted from the Artic Computing program for the ZX Spectrum; the program’s player labels read both “SPECT. PLAYER” and “TS 2068 PLAYER”.

Program Analysis

The download is a single TZX made of one raw-data block (a direct recording of the tape, about 4 minutes 54 seconds), so the files are not visible in a tape browser. Decoded, it holds four ordinary ROM-loader blocks with good checksums:

• chess: the BASIC loader, which does CLEAR 27000, loads the screen, hides the tape messages with POKE 23570,16, loads two code files and starts the game with RANDOMIZE USR 36864.
• s: the loading screen, 6,912 bytes at 32768.
• g: 168 bytes at 65368, the UDG area.
• C: the program, 38,530 bytes at 27000, holding the chess engine and the speech samples.