Many changes have been made to this version. A lot of code has been rewritten from scratch, which should result in a more stable and faster environment. The most important visible improvements are:
In addition to the (default) Chinese rules, TurboGo now also supports the Japanese rules.
Languages files can now be easily changed or added, they are in separate text files in the "Languages" subdirectory. At this time, TurboGo supports 12 languages thank to the effort of a number of translators. You can easily add your own language, but if you do: please send it to me so I can add your language to the official release as well!
A Joseki tutor has been added, with more then 40,000 standard opening moves. TurboGo also uses this database if it plays itself, resulting in a more varied choice of opening moves.
TurboGo plays quite a bit stronger then the previous version.
Instead of having to work your way through a number of screens to start a new game, you can now set all game parameters in one screen.
Komi is now supported.
TurboGo has a "recent file" list, that will allow you to easily retrieve the files that you most recently loaded or saved.
Several new replay options like "jump to comments" have been added. You can also use the keyboard (the arrow keys) to replay games.
Check for updates. If you have a connection to the Internet, you can let TurboGo check whether there is a newer version available for download.
Animate captured stones. If you like, TurboGo will show an animation when stones are captured.
TurboGo now supports linking file extensions to the program. This means you can double click on a .SGF game file and it will automatically open in TurboGo.
And much, much more...
Version 4.01 (March 9, 1998)
This release is mainly a bugfix for a small, but very annoying bug, where handicap games that were stored in the .SGF format are not loaded correctly. It should be fixed now, sorry.
The readme.txt file has been translated into the Swedish language (thanks Roland!).
As usual, a few minor problems have been fixed as well.
Version 4.0 (January 14, 1998)
Many changes have been made to this version, which is one of the reasonsto give it version number 4.0. It will be impossible to name all the changes, but here are the most important ones:
Use of 3-D looking bitmaps for both the board and the stones is now supported. You can use either the .BMP files that come with TurboGo, or you can even create your own in your favourite bitmap editor and use these!If you think your .BMP files are better looking than mine, and you are willing to share them with the rest of the world, please let me know and I will put them on my homepage so everyone can download them. My artistic capabilities are very limited, so please don't hesitate to email me if you have better bitmaps.
TurboGo is now fully translated into the German language (thanks Robin!). This includes all texts in the program, the helpfile and the LIESMICH.TXT file.
The TurboGo program now supports the Italian language, with thanks to Federico Di Palma who did the translation.
A couple of translations are being worked on right now. They are not finished yet, but I felt they were good enough to be included in this release of TurboGo, so please be patient if you occasionally see an English sentence. These translations are:
* French (by Bernard Mlakar)
* Spanish (by Alejandro Montiel Castillo)
* Swedish (by Roland Johansson)
Don't forget to contact me if you would like TurboGo to be available in your language and you're willing to translate. I'd be happy to send you the texts and include your translations into TurboGo.
The import and export filter for .SGF files has improved a lot. In addition to these improvements, TurboGo now supports showing the comments in a game. You can read and edit these comments, and then save them for future reference. This way, you can also write comments in your own games, and save them in the standard .SGF file format.
TurboGo has had some major changes in it's internal design structure. Although this is not something you will notice immediately, it has become much more stable and Windows 95 compliant when compared to previous versions.
TurboGo now has its own setup program. It will install TurboGo in the directory you choose and create shortcuts in the Start Menu. An uninstall option is also provided.
In the preferences window, you can now disable confirmations being asked when you start a new game or when you want to leave TurboGo.
Playing strength has improved by a few stones. Unfortunately, I am still working on some parts of the playing engine, and they are not quite finished yet. I expect these to be finished in two months or so, which should again improve the playing strength with a few stones.
As usual, many, many smaller things were fixed or improved as well. Thanks a lot to everyone who sent me suggestions (or bugs) about TurboGo. I still maintain a list of all your wishes, so please keep them coming! I will try to put them all in TurboGo as soon as possible.
My homepage on the Internet has moved. From now on, please direct your browsers to the following address: http://www.turbogo.com. This site should be faster than the old one, and I guess the name is easier to remember as well!
Version 3.1 (July 7, 1997)
Added support for the German language, thanks to the efforts of Robin Prosch, who did the translation. It's not quite finished yet (you might bump into an English sentence now and then) but I felt it was already good enough to be included. In the next version, everything should be translated into German!
Incidentally, I have received a few requests from people whether it would be possible to have a version of TurboGo in their own language. The answer is simple: YES, I'd be glad to do it, but you will have to do the translation for your language yourself. If you would like to translate TurboGo to your language, don't hesitate to contact me. I can give you the texts that would need to be translated, and then you can make the decision if you want to do it.
Counting has improved. When counting, TurboGo will only remove dead stones when it is 100% certain that they can be captured. This usually means that several dead groups will still be considered "alive" when counting. During counting, you can now manually click on groups to toggle their status between alive and dead.
You can now print your games to any printer that is installed in Windows 95. Please note that the shareware version only prints the first 100 moves of a game.
The "Smart Go File" standard is now supported. The .SGF file format is the standard file format for exchanging Go games between different go programs. You can save and load .SGF games now.
I also fixed some other bugs, mainly in the playing mechanism, so TurboGo should play a little stronger. However, improving the playing strength was not my main objective for this version. I mainly wanted to add the new features mentioned above. For version 3.2 I will focus on the playing strength, so that version should play considerably stronger.
Version 3.0 (April 4, 1997)
The first version for Windows 95. This port was my main reason for releasing version 3.0. During the port to Windows 95, I have improved a lot of small things, but didn't add many new features. My main reason was to make TurboGo run in Windows 95, and worry about features later.
Version 2.1 and before
These are the DOS versions of TurboGo. Although you can still download the DOS version from my home page, I'm no longer working on it, so it will not be improved anymore in the future.