Something stirring in the shadows...

I have only fond memories of Vicki...  The website is still up, but Vicki has not used a clock cycle in years.  The current release is several years old... written in C.

I am currently (as in already busy) rewriting Vicki.  Vicki 2.0 is a complete rewrite of the engine, reusing nothing but the name.

I am not looking at any existing computer chess code and I am avoiding any heavy bias to single papers and single units of theory - trying my own. The research in computer chess is all but exhausted.  So all that is left is to redesign the wheel for the fun of it and looking at existing code will spoil it for me... Vicki is not meant to "extend" the envelope of computer chess.  It's my Everest and South Pole.  

Vicki 2.0 is being written in Java.  Java's speed is comparable to C and C++ (in some people's opinions!) Also, I want something which is easily transferable between Linux and Windows platforms.  C does not really cut it for me any more.

Board representation will the elusive bitboard (or bitmap) technique.  It cannot be that hard... (famous last words!) and I cannot ignore it's advantages any longer.

I hope to post regularly and have something on the main website up and running soon.