This script is designed to act as a pseudo engine in Xboard, so that you can play against a Novag chess computer with a serial interface using the Xboard interface. Prerequisites are Python3 and the PySerial library. Since this is written in Python, theoretically, it should work under Windows, but that hasn’t been tested. In Windows the built in support for Novag computers in Arena is recommended, and the UCI engines created by Alain Zanchetta: http://alain.zanchetta.free.fr/softs/Alainza.Uci.1.0.335.1.Setup.msi
| Model | RxD/TxD | Baud |
| Super VIP | RS232/TTL | 1200 or 9600 |
| Super Forte C | RS232 | 1200 or 9600 |
| Super Expert C | RS232 | 1200 or 9600 |
| Super Nova | RS232/TTL | 9600 |
| Diablo 68000 | RS232 | 1200 or 9600 |
| Scorpio 68000 | RS232 | 1200 or 9600 |
| Diamond | RS232/TTL | 9600 |
| Sapphire | RS232/TTL | 9600 |
| Diamond II | RS232 | 9600 |
| Sapphire II | RS232 | 9600 |
| Star Diamond | RS232 | 57600 |
| Star Sapphire | RS232 | 57600 |
| Citrine | RS232 | 57600 |
For those computers which are marked as ‘RS232/TTL’, you will need a suitable hardware adapter to connect to a PC serial port. You can buy one from https://sites.google.com/site/bergersprojects/chess_accessories/novag-arena_interface or build one yourself following instructions from https://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/index.php?title=Novag_Distributor_Replacement. This script was developed on a PC running Linux (Ubuntu 20.04 as it happens), and has been tested with a Novag Sapphire, Diamond II, Star Diamond, Super Nova, and Citrine (fixed in 1.5). It has also been tested with an emulated Super Expert C running on MAME (https://www.mamedev.org/).
Different generations of machines have variations between the ‘dialect’ of Novag protocol they speak, some of those variations have been incorporated in to the script, but no doubt there are still bugs and variations to be found. Any bug reports, improvements or feedback, please send to user kalatov at https://hiarcs.net/forums/