Welcome to Dame checkers board!
======= == ==== ======== ======

Dame imposes on any player the rules known as british draughts.  As a
compile time option it presents an eight by eight board.

First, make up your mind, then click the piece to move (final!), then
click the node to go to.

As of to date, you may run the program, play a game against yourself,
simplech or checkers, and then another, let checkers fight simplech,
change initial settings and quit, whithout crashing or failing silently.

(Thats what I wrote a month ago, and it did not prove, so its here again.)
(Ok, at least on the intel platform its stable now. c.f BUGS)

The graphics for pieces and patches can be changed by supplying self-
made pictures in .tiff, .jpeg, .png, .xpm, .gif file formats.  For
details study those that came with this archive.

Forthcoming versions will provide means to play across the internet:
watch your friend compete witch chinook believing its you, believing
its her.

	As of this - release 0.26 - further development will
	concentrate on interfacing with the checkers server.
	This may require complete redesign of the "protocol"
	already in use.  Don't expect anything soon.



Credits
=======

Courtesy of Lena Petrovic <lenap@CS.Princeton.EDU> and John Langford
Dame comes with "checkers", a nice computer player.

Courtesy of Martin Fierz <mafierz@ibm.net> Dame comes with simplech,
a tricky opponent.

The "mc_checkers" theme is taken from John Thornley's and David
Sinclair's Mac Checkers application.

Jim Loy lets you read his informative book on checkers, while it isn't
printed yet, http://www.mcn.net/~jimloy/checkers.html



Why gtk/gnome ?
=== ========= =

Its performance appeared to me acceptable also on this old computer
that I am using; It does not to want a lot of coding skills; It
promises to spread many systems soon, requiring no additional
installations for dame to work.

Why at all ?

?



Install from sources
======= ==== =======

Files:

- dame-0.26.tar.gz: Complete self-contained source tree including configure
  scripts, dame, patched checkers and simplech to build in one run.

[- checkers.tar.gz: Lena Petrovic's commandline checkers program]
[- simplech.tar.gz: Martin Fierz' commandline checkers program  ]

Requirements:

Dame makes use of gtk, the gimp toolkit, and of gnome, the gnu newtork
object model environment. dame should run on any linux system from a
recent redhat, debian or suse distribution, most likely on any other
system, that both gtk and gnome have been ported to, including freebsd
and solaris? Requires gnome 0.30. You want it.

Step by step instructions:

+ unpack dame-x.xx.tar.gz

- change to the newly created directory "dame"
  type ./configure --prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/games
  (prefix depends on where the gnome libraries live, bindir is there
  for FSSTND conformity)

- type make

- type "make install" to have it systemwide

- you can test dame without having to become root, simply type
  (if you still don't have checkers installed)
  ./dame.src/dame -w human -s ../../../..`pwd`/dame.src/official.png
  to get you going


Peter Chiocchetti <girbal@super.tacheles.de>

created   Sam Okt 31 12:41:12 CET 1998
last mod. Sam Jn  9 11:09:09 CET 1999

this seems too long ago ?  Look at
http://super.tacheles.de/~girbal/dame/


If you feel like it, send me a postcard:

Peter Chiocchetti
Drferstrae 19
A-6063  Rum
AUSTRIA
