I wrote a chess program in 1994 for an assignment in college.


I guess if you want to sharpen programming skills, then there is some use for tackling the problem of chess for that very purpose. However, if the idea is to tackle chess as the problem (and not writing a chess program to get better at programming), then one's approach to programming for chess differs greatly.
You need to learn to edit your posts and not multi-post. This is a forum, not Skype.
I would like to play against your engine! Let us know if you implement human vs CPU play. Recognizing checkmate/stalemate is pretty important, too, heh.
Also, you can give it a simple opening book for variety and to avoid non-sensical moves.