How are the files made?

The files of the Overtom Chess Computer Museum are made fully automatically.

This is done with the help of a program which was made with a programming language called Powerbasic.

The program may look somewhat old-fashioned, but works faster than any Windows program. It makes all the 800 files in less than 10 seconds.

The picture above shows the main menu of the program. By typing D (for Dutch) the program will communicate in Dutch and the menu will look like this:

In order to select a computer, the following menu is used, which can scroll through all the computers of the collection:

In the picture above, the TASC R30 is selected, which is the strongest computer of the collection.

Entering a new computer or changing the data of an existing specimen is done via the menu shown below:

This menu makes it possible to enter or modify the data. All the files of the museum exist in Dutch and English versions. Part of the translation of the Dutch text into English is done automatically. The Dutch version is shown below:

The program can also produce several lists, such as the estimated value of the collection, the shortest games and various other data. This is done with the following menu:

In the picture the option S (short games, no more than 10 moves) is chosen.