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Note that I have stopped actively supporting TurboGo! While you are still able to download the program if you wish, there are much better programs these days to help you to play or learn the game of go. Read here for more information. |
Simply put: a lack of time, and other priorities and projects. Read here for more information.
The overwhelming majority of the internet distributed shareware are in ZIP compressed format to save storage space and to reduce download time. So, knowing how to handle these ZIPed download files is just as important as knowing where to find useful files to download.
What you should have downloaded if everything went ok is a file called "turbogo5.zip" (or something similar). This file has the extension .ZIP and should be unpacked with a utility like "pkzip.exe" or one of the many Windows-utilities that can unzip these kind of files. You may want to go to this URL:
Here you can download a program called "WinZip". After installation, this program will recognize .ZIP files automatically and unpack the zip file you downloaded when you doubleclick on it. After unpacking, you can install TurboGo and you're ready to play!
It's very hard to give a correspondance between a go program's level and a human Kyu level. This is because the program doesn't play like a human. In some areas it will be much stronger and in others much weaker than the corresponding person. As you learn its style, you will be able to beat it with a different handicap since you can exploit its weaknesses.
Given that, at level 5, in the first game against someone not familiar with it, I would put TurboGo at about 12 kyu, depending on the style of the opponent. Generally it will play better against someone who plays standard sequences and doesn't challenge it to tricky contact fights. It also depends on the board size: TurboGo will play much stronger on the 9x9 board, and weaker on the 19x19 board.
For more information about the playing strength of TurboGo, please read the TurboGo helpfile.
No, it isn't, and it's not likely to happen anytime soon.
For Macintosh owners, there may be two options:
Sorry, but no. TurboGo is my personal project, and I am not willing to share my work at this time.
If you have any questions about TurboGo or about making your own program, please don't hesitate to ask me. I will be glad to help you if I can, but I will not give away the source code for TurboGo.
If your question is not listed here, just email me your question and I will try to answer it as soon as possible.