The Internet Chess Library -- An anonymous ftp archive at chess.onenet.net
(this file may be somewhat out of date!  :-) )

The chess archive consists of the content of the directory tree contained
in /pub/chess.  At the top level of this tree are a few informational files
which are briefly described below (the contents of these files will be 
updated from time to time):

  ICS.getting-started
	This is an old introduction to the ICS (internet chess server).
	The information will apply somewhat to the current server, but it
	has changed a great deal since this was written.
  README
	This is a file containing a welcome message and a statement of the
	general purpose and intent of the archive.
  README.archive-structure
	This file.
  README-pictures-of-netchessplayers
	This tells how you might donate a digitized picture of yourself or
	a chessplayer you know into the archive.
  README-where_is_ICS.info
	This is a 'link' to the file containing the current Internet
	locations of the main ICS's (currently, one in USA and one in
	Europe.)
  README.too
	This is an informational note related to finding recently uploaded
	data.
  chess-FAQ
	This is the Chess FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions, and answers).
  gnu-chess-FAQ
	This is a FAQ for GnuChess, a public domain chess playing program
	from the GNU (Gnu's Not Unix) project -- part of the Free Software
	Foundation.
  ls-lR
	This is a complete listing of the current contents of the archive,
	without descriptions.  Filenames only.  A Index with descriptions
	is probably not a possibility at this time because of the limited
	resources of the current maintainer. (Any help on this would be
	greatly appreciated)
  where_is_ICS.info
	This is the info file for the locations of the ICS's.  
	README-where_is_ICS.info is linked to this file.



The rest of the archive is divided into a number of subdirectories which 
attempt to classify the data somewhat.  Below is a listing of directories 
in this archive and what one might expect to find there.


/pub/chess/
  Amiga/		Software and data for/related to Amiga computers.
  Atari/		Software and data for/related to Atari computers.
  CBUFF/		Files and data for the CBUFF (ChessBase Utilities
			  File Format) project.
    Atari/
    DOS/
    Macintosh/
    Unix/
    data/
    doc/
    src/
  DOS/			Software and data for/related to IBM PC compatible
			  computers running DOS/Windows.
    Bookup/  		Bookup data files.  This is a link to the 
                          directory:
			  Game-Databases/Bookup/
    ChessAssistent/  	ChessAssistent data files.  This is a link to the 
			  directory:   
			  Game-Databases/ChessAssistent/
    ChessBase/  	ChessBase data files.  This is a link to the 
                          directory:
			  Game-Databases/ChessBase/
    NicBase/		NicBase data files.  this is a link to the 
                          directory:
			  Game-Databases/NicBase/
    Tools/		Utility programs for DOS.  Archiving and 
                          compression utilities needed to unpack most of 
                          the data in this archive may be found here for 
                          DOS.
  Game-Databases/	This is a directory tree dedicated to Chess game 
			  databases in varying formats.  Utilities to 
                          convert from one format to another may be found
                          in the Tools directory.
    Bookup/		Bookup database files.
    ChessAssistent/	ChessAssistent database files.
      Tools/		Utilities for manipulating/converting ChessAssistent 
                          data files.  This is a link to the directory:
			  Game-Databases/Tools/ChessAssistent/
    ChessBase/		ChessBase database files.
      Tools/		Utilities for manipulating/converting ChessBase 
                          data files.  This is a link to the directory:
			  Game-Databases/Tools/ChessBase/
    ChessBase_CBUFF/	ChessBase database files from the CBUFF project.
                          This is a link to the directory:  CBUFF/data/
    NicBase/		NicBase database files.
      Tools/		Utility programs for manipulating/converting 
                          NicBase files. This is a link to the directory: 
			  Game-Databases/Tools/NicBase/
    PGN/		This is the PGN (Portable Game Notation) project
			  directory tree.  It contains utilities for the 
                          PGN format (including tools for converting 
                          between other formats) and game databases in 
                          the format.  A DOS program for viewing these 
                          databases is available.
      Events/		PGN format data files of events in specific years.
        1990/
        1993/
        1994/
      MGR/		The MASTER GAME REPOSITORY directory.  contains 
                          (or soon will) thousands of games in PGN format.
      Players/		PGN data file of games for specific players: 
                          Kasparov, Tal, Fischer, Karpov, Polgar, and 
                          others!
      Tools/		Utilities for PGN data files.  Conversion tools 
                          and a reader.
    Tools/		Utility programs for all Databasse formats in the 
			  Game-Databases area. 
      ChessAssistent/
      ChessBase/
      NicBase/
      PGN/		This is a link to the directory:  
                          Game-Databases/PGN/Tools/
  HTML/			Hypertext files.  For use with Mosaic (WWW)
                          clients.  If you don't know what this is, don't
                           worry.  It's specific to distributed 
                           information over the Internet.
  ICS_help/             All the help files for the ICS.
  Macintosh/		Software and data for/related to Macintosh's.
  NeXT/			Software and data for/related to NeXT computers.
  PGN/			This is the PGN (Portable Game Notation) project
			  directory tree.  It contains utilities for the 
                          PGN format (including tools for converting 
                          between other formats) and game databases in 
                          the format.  A DOS program for viewing these 
                          databases is available.  This is a link to the 
                          directory:  Game-Databases/PGN/
  SAN_testsuites/	This is a collection of test positions for testing
			  the problem solving capabilities of chess 
                          software.  These files are related to the SAN 
                          (Standard Algebraic Notation) project, the 
                          distribution of which may be obtained in the 
                          Unix/ directory.  SAN utilities and datafiles 
                          use PGN.
  Unix/			Software and data for/related to Unix OS.
  X/			Software and data for/related to X-Windows.
  chessbits/		Archives of the Chessbits Electronic magazine 
                          which will probably not come back to life, 
                          although an occasional ICS-Newsletter seems to 
                          have picked up the slack.  These are found in 
                          texts/ 
  dropoff/		A place to drop things off where no-one but the 
                          archive maintainer can get to them.  Please 
                          accompany anything with a brief note.  
  ics-tourn/		Data and games related to tournaments held on the
                           ICS's.
  masters/		Collections of games for masters and tournaments 
                          in ascii format primarily (some are PGN 
                          compatible)
  matches/
    WCC_1993/		Games of the World Chess Championships in 1993.  
			  Fide men's and women's and the PCA match as well.
  pictures/		digitized pictures of chess related art and/or 
			  chess players both famous and not so famous. 
  projects/		A directory tree for software projects donated to
                          the archive.  Not necessarily chess related.
    metagame/
    morph/
  texts/		General texts of materials, analysis and some game
                          scores.  A grab-bag of chess related materials.
    PCA_Qualifiers_1993/ 
  uploads/		A directory containing lots of subdirectories for 
                          donating materials to the archive.  Pick an 
                          appropriate directory here for your upload.
  windows/		Here is where new applications for MSwindows or
			  other brands of windows for the IBM PC reside.
			  This area is new, so many windows applications
			  still are in th DOS directory.
  xchange/		A place for data/software you want to make 
                          available to everyone but which you might not 
                          want to place in a 'permanent' area do to it's 
                          developmental/experimental nature.


