While it's useful to know that you don't need technology to play chess960, it's also useful to rely on that technology when it's available. Generating a random chess960 start position is one obvious example where technology makes the process a lot easier; calculating the equivalent SP number is another. What tools are available on the web to accomplish these tasks? A search on 'chess960 position generator' appears to identify dozens.
The first on Google is the well known FISCHERANDOM CHESS: Random Position Generator at Chessgames.com. Along with a random start position, it returns a FEN string that can be used to create a PGN file to record the moves of a game starting from that position. Unfortunately, as I've mentioned several times, the 'position #' attached to the start position is nonstandard. This means you need a second tool to do the conversion.
A little further down the Google list is the Starting Position Generator at Chess-960.org. Once you discover its quirks (you have to click the 'generator' button before clicking the 'notation' button) it accomplishes the task it's billed to do. Unfortunately, as I pointed out in Impediments to Chess960 Acceptance, the tool has at least a couple of bugs, rendering it unreliable.
Another tool is the Chess 960: Starting Position Generator at Very.co.il. Unfortunately, like the Chessgames.com tool, it ignores the standard chess960 numbering scheme.
Along with these links, Google returns a variety of other tools for different platforms, including at least one calculator. It was hard to believe that nothing did the task I wanted, so I decided to adapt one of them to suit my needs. I'll cover that in another post.
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