ICoN To play chess on ICoN, you need to download a special program onto your machine - it is easy and will only take a few seconds. You will find the programs under Chessboards option at the bottom of this page. When you load them you will need to change the 'server' address so you go to ICoN.
The ICoN server address is ichess.central.sa.edu.au
and the port is 9870
The ICoN chess server is a version of the server used by the fabulous Internet Chess Club in America - www.chessclub.com highly recommended for adults and strong players . The programs that make up this Server have been written by Professor Daniel Sleator and are provided under a very generous licence agreement so that students across Australia can discover and enjoy the game. Special thanks also for many years of wonderful technical support from Jason Elliott of Logic Sculptor and Brian Howse and Henry Legedza from Dept of Education, Training & Employment in South Australia. Many many thanks to all these gentlemen - ICoN could not run without them.
When you first join ICoN, you should register yourself by typing
r at the ICoN login screen. Your nickname must be unique - no
one else is allowed to have it - there can only be one Adam, for
example. To test whether the name is taken, just type the name at the
logon screen before you register it - if you can logon as a guest,
you can go exit from ICoN and then register using that name.
The most important part about registering is the email address you
supply - it must be a proper email address like
agoldsmith@knightsandbytes.com.au - note the @ and no spaces.
Remember that you should add capitals to your nickname if you want
them - GoodMove is easier to read than goodmove, for example
ICoN will send the password for your nickname to the address you
specify. When you try to connect to ICoN for the first time with your
nickname, type the password quite fast - if you take too long, ICoN
will not accept it.Once you logon, you can change your password to
something easier using the password command eg password wqrereff
easier
Atmosphere
Chess on ICoN must be fun and it must be friendly. You can chat with
your opponents using the tell command and you can shout messages for
everyone to hear. But whatever you type, it
must not be rude or nasty. If it is, you won't be able to use
ICoN. If someone is rude to you, tell an admin - someone with an *
next to their name.
When someone challenges you to a game using the match command, you
can type acc to accept or dec to decline or ignore the challenge. You
can challenge more than one person at once and when one accepts your
challenge, the other challenges disappear. When you finish a game,
you normally say thank you or thx to your opponent.
Finally, please be patient. If you type a message to someone and they
don't reply, don't think they are rude, they've probably just made a
typing error. Many players may never have used a keyboard before.
Rated games:
When you are a registered player, you can get a sensible rating after
about 6 games. When you challenge a player to a rated game, ICoN will
tell you how many points you can gain or lose if you win/lose or draw
the game. When you play a rated game you should try to play by
yourself. If you are at school with friends, use the school's ICoN
nickname eg alberton. If your school does not have its own ICoN
nickname, just ask an admin and they will help you. If you just want
to play a friendly game, or be assisted by a chess coach, don't add
an r to the challenge and the game is not rated.
Chess boards