dgtchess

An event-driven node.js driver for the electronic DGT chess board.

Install via npm:

npm install dgtchess

Status

This project is still in alpha-status. Unfortunately I don't have access to a DGT chess board, so I can't continue development. Please contact me if you want to continue the development of this module or have a DGT board to lend for some weeks.

The current version of this module uses only the UPDATE BOARD modus and instead of moves, only changes are triggered through the 'data' event.

Usage

var DGT = require('dgtchess');
var board = new DGT.Board('/dev/ttyUSB0');

board.on('ready', function() {
  console.log('Serial No:', board.serialNo);
  console.log('Version:', board.versionNo);
  console.log('-----');
});

board.on('data', function(data) {
  console.log('Field:', data.field);
  console.log('Piece:', data.piece);
  console.log('-----');
});

board.on('move', function(move) {
  console.log('Move:', move);
  console.log('-----');
});

This might result in the following output:

Serial No: 12345
Version: 1.7
   +------------------------+
 8 | .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . |
 7 | .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . |
 6 | .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . |
 5 | .  .  .  .  .  k  .  . |
 4 | .  .  R  .  .  .  .  . |
 3 | .  .  .  .  .  K  .  . |
 2 | .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . |
 1 | .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . |
   +------------------------+
     a  b  c  d  e  f  g  h

-----
Field: c4
Piece: EMPTY
-----
Field: c5
Piece: WROOK
-----
Move: { color: 'w',
  from: 'c4',
  to: 'c5',
  flags: 'n',
  piece: 'r',
  san: 'Rc5+' }
-----
Field: f5
Piece: EMPTY
-----
Field: e6
Piece: BKING
-----
Move: { color: 'b',
  from: 'f5',
  to: 'e6',
  flags: 'n',
  piece: 'k',
  san: 'Ke6' }
-----

Events

'ready'

The 'ready' event is fired once the basic data (i.e. version and serial number) are read from the board.

'data'

Once something on the board has been changed, i.e. a move gets (re)moved, this event gets triggered. The passed object has the properties field and piece.

Background

The protocol for communicating with the electronic chess boards is well documented by DGT in their developer section. There you can find the DGT Electronic Board Protocol Description (version 20120309) which is the base for this node.js implementation.