This program (rshd.exe) provides a pseudo-rshell-like server for Winboard
that runs on Win98 (and probably Win95) systems.  It provides no password
or other protection and perhaps ought not be used on a system that is
connected up to the internet for this reason.  But on a personal LAN,
where only you (and/or other friendly people) have access, this shouldn't
be a problem.

You simply run rshd.exe on a system on which you have a chess engine
that you want to run.  Then Winboard (on another system) can launch that
engine and communicate with it (with appropriate Winboard switches set).

Examples of Winboard switches:

This is what I use to run my program Shrike on ICC with Shrike on one
Win98 machine and Winboard on another (I have an ethernet cards for
my local network and a dial up connection to get to ICC):

    /fcp "c:\chess\myprogs\shrike\shrike40w.exe -x -h32 -p5"
    /fd c:\chess\myprogs\shrike
    /fh 192.168.1.4
    /sgf ICCgames.pgn
    /zp
    /ics
    /icshost chessclub.com
    /icshelper timestamp

To run Winboard on one machine and two opponent engines on two other
machines I do something like this (three machines):

    /fcp "c:\chess\myprogs\shrike\shrike40w.exe -x -h32 -p5"
    /fd c:\chess\myprogs\shrike
    /fh 192.168.1.4
    /scp "c:\chess\comet\b04\files\comet-wb.exe"
    /sd c:\chess\comet\b04
    /sh 192.168.1.5
    /sgf ShrikeVsComet.pgn
    /mg=10
    /tc 3:00
    /cp

You can of course run both Winboard and an engine on one machine and the
opponent engine on another machine (two machines):

    /fcp "c:\chess\myprogs\shrike\shrike40w.exe -x -h32 -p5"
    /fd c:\chess\myprogs\shrike
    /scp "c:\chess\comet\b04\files\comet-wb.exe"
    /sd c:\chess\comet\b04
    /sh 192.168.1.5
    /sgf ShrikeVsComet.pgn
    /mg=10
    /tc 3:00
    /cp

The IP addresses I use for my ethernet connections are ones reserved
for local networks.  IIRC, addresses of the form 192.168.xxx.yyy are
reserved for this purpose (isolated networks and testing) and can be
used w/o conflict with others who use these addresses.

The rshd.exe provided was compiled with the Watcom compiler.  Modifications
to the source may be necessary to compile it with other Windows' compilers...

Dan Newman
dnewman@bellatlantic.net