From cube-lovers-errors@curry.epilogue.com Wed May 29 20:41:19 1996 Return-Path: cube-lovers-errors@curry.epilogue.com Received: from curry.epilogue.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by curry.epilogue.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id UAA03160 for ; Wed, 29 May 1996 20:41:18 -0400 Precedence: bulk Errors-To: cube-lovers-errors@curry.epilogue.com Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 17:08:37 -0400 (EDT) From: Nicholas Bodley To: cube-lovers@ai.mit.edu Subject: Another subscriber Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thanks to Alta Vista and Rubik as a keyword, I did an all-nighter over the holiday weekend, and discovered you folks. I haven't yet downloaded the archives, but will do my best to be a good Netizen before posting "real" queries. The first Cube I saw must have been pre-Ideal; I was riding home on the West Side IRT local in NYC, and noticed someone sitting at the other end of the car manipulating a puzzle that looked so unbelievable (mechanically) that I really wondered whether my perceptions had gone haywire from too many consecutive late bedtimes and regular mornings. It was *some* sleep debt! I have little doubt that it was a Cube. When I got mine, I came quite close to solving it by sheer persistence and brute force (probably about 4 cubies out of position); beginner's luck! When Meffert was mentioned in (Martin Gardner's col.?) in Sci. Am., I wrote away for his catalog, which I'm just about sure I still have. I bought a "5" from him, and sent another check for more items; never received them. He said Customs must have confiscated them; Customs never notified me. At the time, I could afford $112 or so. I consider it lost; I hope Meffert used it to good advantage. (This would have been around 1987.) It was fascinating to see that he apparently is active once more. I've seen "5"s for sale again within the past year or so, I think at The Compleat Gamester (?) in Waltham, and also The Games People Play in Cambridge, which has moved (not too far) about a year ago. Does *everybody* know there's a ball inside Rubik's Revenge? I'm at least as much of a gadget-hound as a puzzle-solver; I have a decent collection. I get a real bang out of dismantling group-theory puzzles to see how they're built; almost all can be disassembled, although (as most people probably know) the "2" (Pocket Cube) is quite hard both to disassemble and to reassemble. I have the Hungarian Globe, which is truly impossible to dismantle, IMO. (I haven't dared to scramble it!) This one has printed metal surfaces attached to a plastic structure; the "tiles" take paths like the grooves in the ball inside the "4" (R.R.). I hope I might be forgiven for posting one question that has been paining me-- I'd dearly love to know the answer! Is it true that a physical prototype of the "6" (6 X 6 X 6) has been constructed; if so, could anyone tell me the approximate date(s) of messages that discuss it? I would not want anyone to do lots of searching on my behalf, but just a recollection would be welcome. I'm also very curious about the mechanism for a "7"; it seems to me that locking pins (or the equivalent) would be necessary. I really wonder whether the mechanical design can be practical. I'm also a mechanical calculator (See Erez Kaplan's pages on the Web, in particular) and also mechanical analog computer enthusiast. Paradise was being a Navy fire control tech. who correctly diagnosed a loose screw inside the Mk. 1A main battery computer on a destroyer; it took three weeks to repair. The Master Technician scheduled things well; it happened just before the ship went in for its every-3-year yard overhaul. I expect to be enjoying this List! NB Nicholas Bodley Autodidact & Polymath |*| Keep smiling! It makes | Waltham, Mass. Electronic Technician |*| people wonder what | nbodley@tiac.net Amateur musician |*| you have been up to. | -------------------------------------------------------------------------*