Waxman

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Waxman 1.1 ¹

Waxman,
also known as Pocket Chess for Windows, is a shareware chess program by Ivan Bacigal from the 90s, Waxman 1.1 in 1991 as MS-DOS engine, Waxman 1.2w in 1992 running under Windows. In 2008, Waxman became Chess Engine Communication Protocol compatible ¹. The program uses 10x12 board representation, incremental attack updates, alpha-beta search with iterative deepening, aspiration window, killer moves and refutation moves, history heuristic - all pretty cutting-edge back in 1990. Later on, Ivan Bacigal added null move pruning and tried several types of futility pruning. The newer WinBoard versions also use internal iterative deepening and late move reductions, and since 2017 tapered evaluation ². Waxman's name resembles the Russian word for chess Шахмат, while its original name was VaxMan, an attempt to camouflage the program as a DEC VAX management utility ³.

Screenshot

Waxman 1.2 Windows Screen

Forum Posts

• Waxman Pocket Chess v1.3w by Fred, rgcc, May 11, 2002
• A blast from the past: WAXMAN by Mike Scheidl, CCC, December 11, 2008

External Links

Chess Program

• WAXMAN | WinBoard Chess Engine by Ivan Bacigal
• Waxman : Check-Tech Software : Free Download & Streaming (Internet Archive)
• Waxman chess engine with WinBoard | View from the Potting Shed, March 08, 2011
• Waxman in CCRL 40/15

Misc

• Waxman from Wikipedia
• Franz Waxman - Theme, Variations and Fugato, Original Soundtrack from Crime in the Streets, 1956, YouTube Video

Watch on YouTube

References