Mac (OSX), Other OS's, and Chess Databases

All Things Chess
1

We’ve seen a rise in use of Macs, especially among high school and college students.

Other than using Parallels or some other method to run Windows on a Mac to allow ChessBase (or Chess Assistant) to run there, what chess databases are there for this purpose?

I am aware of Exachess, but haven’t seen it. There is also SCID which is being supported again and is open source and free - but looks to have a little bit of a “hobbyist requirement.”

Also, part of the reason I am interested in databases is to be able to email games/databases to students - so a single common format that worked across platforms would be nice, and that hopefully would work as well as ChessBase, and also be easy to install for “plain users” of computers.

Any comments?

2

I think you mean SCID? (scid.sourceforge.net/). I use it on Linux. I think you’d have to build it from source to run it on a Mac. So, yeah, “hobbyist requirement.”

I think you really have to export to PGN for that. SCID is probably the closest thing to an open cross-platform database standard, but unless ChessBase decides to add code to import SCID-format DBs, that’s of no practical value. But everything reads PGN.

3

Typing this on my MacBook with OS 10.4.11. I principally use ExaChess (full version), but have also used SCID. SigmaChess is a lower priced alternative (I have it too), but has some drawbacks. A couple of comments.

Exachess is very flexible, and does things that SCID won’t, such as open multiple game windows, and search across multiple databases. Still on version 3, which does have some bugs, but has perfectly good work arounds for all the ones I’m aware of. I had a beta version of ExaChess 4 from the author late last year, but haven’t heard anything since. It’s inconvenient to order; I ended up sending a cashier’s check to Australia, as he isn’t set up with PayPal. Biggest disadvantage, although you can search across multiple databases with almost any number of total games, it has problems with individual databases starting somewhere around four or five hundred thousand. When I bought a 3 million game megabase from Chess Assistant, I had to use SCID to break it down into 10 PGN databases which Exachess could convert to its own format.

SCID. If you have better Unix skills than me, you may be able to figure out how to use the very latest version, 3.6.xx. I’m using version 3.5, which is the latest version provided for use with Fink. With this version, at least, you can only search one database at a time, and can’t open multiple game windows. PGN databases open as read only; you need to save to SCID format to edit anything. It’s a bit quirkier and less user friendly than ExaChess, IMHO. On the other hand, it will handle large databases, searches are fast, and it has a lot of options for annotations, generating opening reports, and other useful functions. Considering that it’s free, there is absolutely no reason not to try it. You’ll need to install X11 as well.

SigmaChess is a great front end for engines like HIARCS and Fruit. It will handle databases of up to a million games (but no more), and the full version is quite inexpensive. It will not search across multiple databases, and the search mask is less sophisticated than SCID or ExaChess. The worst disadvantage is that alternate lines can only be saved as text comments. That is, you can’t play through a variation by clicking on the moves the way you can with the other programs.

I guess I should give some links:

exachess.com/
sigmachess.com/home.html
finkproject.org/ (If you want to install SCID, and will settle for version 3.5, then install Fink, and follow the instructions on the Fink page for installing SCID, or any other supported program that you want)

4

I second the motion for a good Mac chess database. Though I can run Windows programs on my Mac, I’d rather have Mac versions. I looked briefly at Exachess, and it didn’t look appealing. … just my opinion, of course. :slight_smile:

5

ChessBase actually did do a Mac version back in the early Nineties, but apparently didn’t do enough business to make it worth their while. Before I decided to buy ExaChess, I even wrote to ChessBase to ask if they had any plans for a future Mac version. They said no. Maybe if a lot of chess playing Mac users wrote to them . . .

I don’t care to install Parallels, and put Windows on either of my Macs.

Once you read the entire ExaChess manual, and experiment with it, it’s really a good program. Not quite as good as Chess Base 7, which was the last version I used before getting rid of Windows, but close. I am a bit concerned that it appears to be a small one man operation, and I don’t know about future development.

It’s actually a bit surprising that more Windows users don’t try SCID. I should have mentioned that I’ve also tried that on a computer at work. In Windows, it’s very easy to install, and you can also try the forks Scid-pg (which has more sophisticated engine functions) or ChessDB (which comes with a downloadable online megabase). Considering that it’s free, and will do what most people need, I have to assume that a lot of people just don’t know about it.

6

I have ChessDB and run it under Windows on my Mac. ChessDB is really excellent for a free program. I imagine the paid databases have more features … but ChessDB has everything I need for the present. I still would rather have a Mac program. Any programmers out there?

7

Another Mac app is ChessMaster 9000 for Mac. Quite good, but also quite bloated if all you want to do is create a PGN file manually. For the latter purpose, I use J2Chess.

8

I dabbled with SCID before. Kinda interesting, but overall, I’d have to say I’d prefer Chessbase Light free edition over SCID. I have a ton of smaller databases anyway, so the 30k game limit isn’t a problem.

Basically I downloaded a huge amount of databases either by Opening, or by tournament. Its not as elegent as a massive 1.5 million game database, but works pretty good for someone that just wants to get some new ideas on opening play.

With a rating less than 1500, my best bet for for improvement is Reasses Your Chess by Jeremy Silman. I went through that a while back, but need to go through it again, I mostly forgot the lessons now. :blush:

You know the old saying: “Life happens when your making other plans.” Had planned on going through the book, then following up with more study, but stuff came up, and eventually just forgot about my chess plans. Want to get back into studying chess though.