Electronic chess notation

Hi

Does anybody know of any handheld electronic chess notation devices?

Paul

If I am not mistaken, there is an application for the iPhone (and maybe on the Android market?) that costs around 5 USD (not sure about this number) that does electronic chess notation.

EDIT: Found what I was looking for... It's called "ChessNotePad," costs 4.99 USD and is usable at any rated tournaments in place of writing notation by hand.

I don't, but it sparks a line of thought.

I'm not even sure what an "electronic chess notation device" might be, but when I consider that, I immediately flash to all the OTB games I haven't written down, because I'm both lazy and rather inept at writing algebraic notation by hand.  I'm very prone to making mistakes in the recording, such that the games make no sense when played back.

Some automated, computerized way to record OTB games would actually be kind of cool and useful to have.  The automated part gets complicated, and probably expensive, but the computerized part...  Well, it's probably possible to snag that off the shelf right now.

I'll have to dig around for an off the shelf solution.  It seems like one possibility is to see if I can find a chess app for my phone that:

• Allows human vs. human games
• Records games in PGN
• Exports PGN

If I can't find something off the shelf, I might be able to find something open source and start hacking on it.  That's a very interesting idea.  I'd still have to enter games into the phone to mirror what's happening on the board, but it would be less distracting than having to write stuff down with pencil and paper, and trying to remember the right way to say which knight or which rook did what when two different pieces could have ended up on that square.

I'll have to fiddle around with this idea and see if I can come up with anything.  If I can't find something off the shelf, the idea has enough merit that it might even inspire a software development project.  There's more than likely already something on the shelf I could adapt to this purpose though.

Thanks for the inspiration, even if what I'm rambling about isn't even what you had in mind.

http://monroi.com/products/personal-chess-manager.html

That indeed seems to be just the ticket, but after coaxing the site into revealing the price, it turns out to be $359.00!!

Gulp!

Yep.  It's definitely overpriced.  But it's the only one of it's kind that I know of, that you can use in tournaments. 

While an individual TD might allow it's use in a tournament, I'm pretty sure the only allowed electronic score keeping devices by the USCF in rated play are a MonRoi and a device with the eNotate software on it. I belive the latter is only certified to work on a specific hardware device (maybe a Dell Axim but I would have to research it).

Any other devices, last I knew, where not officially sanctioned by the USCF and a TD really shouldn't allow their use.

Yep, only can be used on non-phone devices and they aren't planning on porting it to any other devices according to their FAQ.

To the OP, in casual games I use SCID on the go for Android. If you don't turn on Analysis, it works pretty well. I've had it crash so far one time in the middle of notating, so you might want to save early and save often if you want to use something like that.

It is a little hard to get games out of it in the current version but the devoloper is looking into exporting games to PGN. Right now I just copy the individual games out (PGN format) and paste them into my gmail, then copy back into my DB program on my computer. If you use SCID on your computer you probably could connect your device and copy over the whole database and import the games that way too.

On the Android, and non-certified front, I dug up Chess Pad.

It would work if you entered all the moves perfectly, but I didn't find any way to undo an incorrect entry.  I hit the back button and entered different moves, which it recorded as variations.  At the end of it all, I can't figure out how to sort the PGN file out so that it looks reasonable.  There's a rook sitting where a rook couldn't have been sitting in the real game, so it must be screwed up.

Just the same as trying to record by hand, for my purposes.  Chess Pad fail.

Oh well.  Next?!

Thanks guys... very interesting

There is a fairly new one and MUCH cheaper than MonRoi. Played with it at the Florida Nationals in December of 2013 (my opponent used it in the Parents and Friends tournament section). Great little device, and USCF approved! It's selling for $169 at the plycount.com website. It allows for illegal moves as in a real chess game, meaning it will Not correct you. It provides no help other than that it won't let you input 2 white moves in a row or 2 black moves in a row (good for little kids who sometimes forget who's turn it is!!!) Also, USCF rules state that if using an electronic notation device one must MOVE FIRST, then input move. this way you do not get to have a visual aid to observe the position after your input and then make the decision not to play it. That's the caveat. You have to play the move first, THEN notate.