Date: 15 July 1980 01:41-EDT From: Jef Poskanzer Subject: Complaints about :CUBE program. To: CUBE-HACKERS at MIT-MC This is a real-neat program, BUT: In solving the cube, the description it gives for the action it is about to perform can be ambiguous, I think. For example, can't "Turn TOP center to BOTTOM" be performed in two non-equivalent ways? I don't know what the display format is on color LISP machines, but on my terminal is sucks. How about something like this: +--------+ / YL YL YL \ / \ / YL YL YL \ / \ / YL YL YL \ ,-+------------------+-. ,-' | | `-. ,-' GR | RD RD RD | BL `-. +-' GR | | BL `-+----------+ | GR | | BL | OR OR OR | | | | | | | GR GR GR | RD RD RD | BL BL BL | OR OR OR | | | | | | | GR | | BL | OR OR OR | +-. GR | | BL ,-+----------+ `-. GR | RD RD RD | BL ,-' `-. | | ,-' `-+------------------+-' \ WH WH WH / \ / \ WH WH WH / \ / \ WH WH WH / +--------+ Maybe add FRONT, BACK, LEFT, RIGHT, TOP, BOTTOM labels; maybe compress it vertically so it fits on 24-line screens; maybe three-char abbrevs instead of two; maybe the back face should be shown reversed (i.e. from the inside of the cube looking out) to facilitate mental manipulations; the basic format is better, though, don't you agree? --- Jef