Chessbase Mac Compatibility

[David G Congalton]

Hi George

From Chessbase News in 2006.

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"I am a user of fritz 8 and also Hiarcs 9 and a daily visitor of your web site.

By the way I want to know that whether your newly released fritz 9 has a Linux verson or not because who caan bear the price of windows as well as fritz and on the other hand the great operating system Linux is absolutely free. Please inform me

gopal das

No, sorry. There's an economic reason for this: it takes a pile of time and effort (i.e. money) to develop software for a particular OS and if it's not going to sell enough copies to cover the development costs, it's not going to get made. And I'm not just talking through my hat here; we had years of requests for a Mac version of ChessBase and, after one was released, the sales were (shall we say) somewhat less than mediocre and loads of money got lost on that particular venture.

I'm in no way busting on Linux here, but it's nowhere near as popular as Windows. If the day comes when the split between them gets closer to 50/50, I'm sure that a Linux version will be seriously considered. -- SL"

Guess its never become finacially viable.

There are technical articles and discussions on the subject which indicate that chessbase can run on a Mac but they're way over my technical know how. Perhaps one of our IT geniuses can help out.

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The Apple Mac has become very popular in recent years. First introduced in 1984 it was the first personal computer to have a mouse and a graphical user interface. Now, the modern Mac, like other personal computers, is capable of running alternative operating systems such as Linux, FreeBSD, and, in the case of Intel-based Macs, Microsoft Windows.

This is great news for chess players who love their Mac. So many wish to use ChessBase software but have not had the ability until recently since there is no special Mac-version of ChessBase, Fritz, or the playchess.com client. And ChessBase has informed us that there are no plans for a Mac version for the future either.

There are two good alternatives for Apple-Users with a new Macintosh Intel processor:

1, Apple offers “Boot camp” for free. “Boot camp” enables you to install Windows XP on your system if you have one of the new Intel-Macs. This way you can run two different operating systems on one device. You may either start it with Windows or with Mac. You will find more information about “Boot camp” here.

2. Another alternative is to install VMWare or “Parallels desktop”. That allows you to switch from a Mac program to a Windows program without a reboot of your system.

ChessCentral carries a line of Mac chess software. The most popular is Chessmaster 9000 for the Mac. This is a good all around chess program made to challenge your chess playing skills. For training we like the Think Like a King Family Package (which also works on PCs). You can also get Shredder Chess a power packed chess playing software program for Mac.

Mac users now have many ways of honing their chess playing skills without giving up their beloved Macs.