This section describes SCID's old hardware support. You probably want to use Graham's Eboards engine.
Scid supports two types of external hardware, configured in
Tools-> Connect Hardware-> Configure.
Novag Citrine (and compatible boards) use an
internal driver that was developed specifically for the Novag
Citrine board, but may also support other boards.
This driver allows to enter moves but the boards
logic does not recognise the position set-up, nor the
pieces as such.
Input Engine Drivers are meant to be a free,
open interface to hook up any hardware to Chess GUIs. They
are modeled after the usual style of a chess engine. The
specifications of the protocol can be found at the Dgtdrv Website, while Ozkan has patched an updated version of the serial driver suitable for the DGT Electronic Chessboard.
Depending on the hardware the board may know the position set-up and the
pieces by their move (eg DGT boards).
Other UCB Boards
Note - Scid does not include any input engine by default. Input engines are
meant to be independent programs that can be used with a variety of GUIs.
Settings
The name of the Port depends on the Operating System and hardware.
Usually external hardware is hooked up by a Serial, USB or BlueTooth connection.
Depending on the platform, usual names for the port are:
Linux :
For Serial ports, common names are /dev/ttyS0, /dev/ttyS1 (etc).
The nominal USB device names are /dev/ttyUSB0 , /dev/ttyUSB1 (etc).
Less common names include /dev/usb/tts/* or /dev/usbdev*
(where the asterisk * stands for some
additional name). BlueTooth devices commonly show up as /dev/rfcomm0.
MacOS:
Todo
MS Windows follows the usual DOS convention, where
the serial ports are labeled COM1:,
COM2: etc. This naming also applies to
converters, however they sometimes get numbers beyond 4.
This section describes SCID's old hardware support. You probably want to use Graham's Eboards engine.
Configuring an Input Engine compatible driver requires additional fields.
Engine command: The name of the program
used as a driver engine. For example, the DGT driver engine on
Linux is usually called dgtdrv2.i686. though a fully
qualified name may be required.
Engine parameter: This field
is passed as parameters to the driver engine. The values
required depend on the driver, and should be given in its
documentation. The DGT driver engine needs a two letter
code specifying the board orientation and the moves that should
be sent to the GUI. The first letter may be l or
r depending on the clock sitting to Whites left or
right, the second letter may be a, b or
w depending whether all, only black or only whites
moves should be sent.)
Hitting OK will store the setup in Scid's configuration
and immediately start the driver selected.
The status of the external board can be monitored by the Hardware Status button. This button can also be
used to hook up already configured hardware immediately without
calling the configuration dialog.