Ed's
Oldmoves to PGN
Conversion Program
version 1.72

Above is a screen shot of my "Oldmoves to PGN Conversion Program." "Ed's Old" is a utility to convert Internet played chess games the "oldmoves" format to the standard PGN format. Please note that if you desire, this entire program can be run from a batch file... with no interaction with it at all!! I still use this program all the time but I almost never see this screen anymore! Each of the fields that you see can be configured to your own liking. Not interested in converting your games to PGN format that are less than... say... 6 moves? If so, you would enter 6 in the appropriate box. Not interested in converting... say... your WILD games? Enter 'no' in that appropriate box. Just interested in converting the games that you played during this month? This is possible too. You can overwrite or append your PGN file... you can choose to convert just your rated games, etc., etc. As with all the programs I write, note that you can change the screen colors to your own liking if you don't care for my defaults. The program is a stand-alone executable file, comes with it's own documentation file built right into it, and is just 142 Kb in size... about a 35 second download with a 28.8 modem. If you prefer, you can download a "zipped up" version which is only about 65 Kb in size.

Program Revisions

Version 1.72

• I was informed that ICC changed the oldmoves DATE format from this:

Casperov (1714) vs. EdCollins (1757) --- Wed Oct 28, 16:06 CDT 1998

to this:

Casperov (1714) vs. EdCollins (1757) --- 1998.10.28 16:40:46

I changed the program so that it now handles this format as well. Thanks Gary.

I also noticed that if you played a suicide game on ICC (known as "Loser's Chess" there) and configured the program to convert your suicide games but not your wild games, the program was not converting your ICC Loser's Chess games, since this is considered wild(17) there. The program stopped looking if it saw that you didn't want to convert wild games and didn't bother to check if you DID want wild(17) games. This is now fixed.

Version 1.62

• Fixed a glitch. The program was not grabbing the date from the oldmoves input file correctly, if the line contained, of all things, a space at the end of it.

Version 1.61

• Added the ability to convert your Suicide games.

Version 1.51

• Minor bug fix.

Version 1.44

• Added the ability to shell out to a DOS prompt with the ALT-D keystroke combination.
• The program now requires that the first line in the oldmoves.log header contain both a "vs." AND a "---". This helps filter out invalid games.
• The program will no longer allow you to name your PGN "output" file the same name as you oldmoves "input" file. Doing so would effectively erase the oldmoves file, something I have no desire to do.
• Added the option of entering "8888.88.88" in the date field which will now convert all the games that you played that MONTH.

Version 1.32

• Fixed another minor glitch. I discovered a "Game report" line within my ZIICS oldmoves.log file, after playing in a tournament on FICS. This line also contained a "vs." within it and the program logic was expecting a game immediately after that.
• Incorporated the documentation file as part of the actual program.

Version 1.21

• I discovered that the program could possibly crash while attempting to convert a WILD game. (I don't usually play wild games which explains my lack of testing in this area.) This potential error has now been fixed.

Version 1.1

• The program crashed if it encountered an end result line which was missing the second bracket. For example:
  

1. f4 (0:02) e5 (0:03)
2. g4 (0:02) Qh4 (0:01)
{White checkmated
} 1-0

Note that this is NOT the proper format for the oldmoves.log file. However, the program will no longer crash in cases like this.