Claude and I have been working hard on bringing you a nice chess game just for Synchronet sysops and I'm please to announce SynChess 1.0 is available for you in giblab.
Installation is easy and instructions are included in the readme.txt file. I've not tried the install-xtrn.ini so if someone would like to give it a go and let me know, I'd appreciate it. For now, it just has player v computer.
I was wondering, what is jpegXL? I'm using SyncTerm, and when I ran SynChess, I saw what looked like fairly standard CP437 graphics with ANSI colors (with the chess board with blue and cyan squares). The only mention of jpegXL is once near the top of the instructions, so I'm not sure if I need to do something to enable jpegXL or not (and I don't even know what jpegXL is).
Re: SynChess is now available
By: Nightfox to nelgin on Thu Mar 19 2026 21:50:22
I was wondering, what is jpegXL? I'm using SyncTerm, and when I ran SynChess, I saw what looked like fairly standard CP437 graphics with ANSI colors (with the chess board with blue and cyan squares). The only mention of jpegXL is once near the top of the instructions, so I'm not sure if I need to do something to enable jpegXL or not (and I don't even know what jpegXL is).
It's a losless image compression format that CTerm supports. Make sure you have a recent version of SyncTERM. It looks like it was added over a year ago tho.
Thanks for the other feedback.
Your chessboard should look like this:
https://postimg.cc/gXn6DVZc
But wow, what a fantastic BBS door! Just amazing! Good work Nelgin/Claude! :-)
Re: Re: SynChess is now available
By: Gamgee to Nightfox on Fri Mar 20 2026 02:12 pm
Another thing I noticed - In the readme for SynChess, it says the access requirements includes "80 COLS" - Is that correct syntax? For some of my doors, I've used "COLS 80", so "80 COLS" seems backwards. I'm not sure if Synchronet will accept that as valid, will it?
I do kind of wish the computer moves were a little more obvious, slow or animated or something. They computer moves are so fast, I usually had to look at the move log to be able to tell what/where they moved.
I'm using a fairly recent version of SyncTerm, version 1.8b from February 28. So jpegXL should just work? There's nothing I need to do or enable to get jpegXL to work in SyncTerm?
Another thing I noticed - In the readme for SynChess, it says the access requirements includes "80 COLS" - Is that correct syntax? For some of my doors, I've used "COLS 80", so "80 COLS" seems backwards. I'm not sure if Synchronet will accept that as valid, will it?
The copy and mask features of SyncTERM are perfect for animating things like this. Point Claude at exec/syncterm-bounce.js for an example he can work from.
Aren't you idling in the IRC channel...?
Mine looks like that (using SyncTERM v1.8b). It's an awesome game! I was a little confused by this prompt:
Checkmate! You win!
(P)GN (A)gain (Q)uit
I do kind of wish the computer moves were a little more obvious, slow or animated or something. They computer moves are so fast, I usually had to look at the move log to be able to tell what/where they moved.
But wow, what a fantastic BBS door! Just amazing! Good work Nelgin/Claude! :-)
I do kind of wish the computer moves were a little more obvious, slow or animated or something. They computer moves are so fast, I usually had to look at the move log to be able to tell what/where they moved.
Thanks to Deuce, there's now a nice animation for both ANSI and jpegxl versions. I was going to have variable speed but I don't think it's necessary. It's not intrusively slow.
Yeah, I played it right away and really appreciated the changes! It's really set a new standard for door board games, I think.
Thank you so much for the compliment. I'll have to see what else I can come up with.
I didn't know about that jpegXL before this. I think that could potentially be useful for a lot of things.
As Digital Man says, this is a new bar for people to jump. It might be nice to have a bit more documentation that's easy to comprehend for the uninitiated :)
I'd never have got this done without Claude and a bit of Deuce for the animation.
Does this door work with any BBS or is it Synchronet only and does it only work with SyncTerm?
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