I've come across a very old Chess program for Microsoft Windows, where you can only play face-to-face or via modem. You can't even play the computer! What's the point of that? Are there any other Chess programs where you can't play against the computer?

I've uploaded it to chess.com so you can try it out in all its glory .

I've got a bunch of old DOS chess games that you can play the computer against, but I've never seen anything like this where you could play over a modem connection (unless some of those DOS programs can do that, never really checked for that function).  Maybe it's a very old predecessor to chess.com that allowed people to play each other over long distances before the internet became ubiquitous. 

Unless Design Track, Inc or Jack Lerner had anything to do with chess.com, I doubt it .

the most useless chess program is probably Chess Mentor, lol!

Why is Chess Mentor useless?

Possibly they tried to put a program to play against, but the result were so ridiculous that they didn't keep it.

Most of the game programming progress of the last 20 years have been done trying to beat humans at chess. Retrospectively, the algorithms before that were poor, and the computing power too, so...

"Chessmaster "    program done by GM Josh Watkins, it's a great program. You set your rating against avatr players or play against computer whatever you want. You'll like it.

It is, for basic members as myself. No seriously, I was just kiddin around ...

My real answer is gonna be game-in-game of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et212PUojhc

This game is sooooo broken in the first place, and this just shows how lazy the programmers were.

Sega Chess for the Master System can be a real challenge to beat, and it was released only 2 years after this. I've never beaten it above Novice difficulty. It even has a 3D board!

Microsoft Chess for Windows calculates positions forever unless you have time control.

Heck, even Video Chess for the Atari 2600 (1978!!!) allows you to play against the CPU. (I have no idea how good it is; I've never had an Atari 2600 or 7800, or even a Sega Master System, and I don't use emulators).

I can't believe 176 people downloaded this .

if you're going to play chess, just stick with the good sites,

ICC Chess Club

Chess.com

ChessTempo.com

You have everything one would need all tied up in these 3 sites, you really don't need anything else.