A Freshmeat update appeared recently for Joshua v0.1.3a, a software package designed as part of an autonomous chess playing robot. The software runs on a PC and controls stepper motors that drive a manipulator for moving the chess pieces. The software reads the position of the chess pieces through a photosensitive chess board. Joshua can play against a human player or it can play itself. The software includes an intuitive GTK-based GUI interface and should compile and run on any Linux box. Joshua is Free Software released under the GNU GPL. For photos of the completed chess playing robot, visit the Joshua website. The robot has been released as open hardware, so you'll find schematics and other construction info on the site as well. The text isn't in English but the schematics tell you what you need to know.