[ExI] Wizard Calculating Device

[spike]

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Darren Greer
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2011 8:21 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] Wizard Calculating Device

 

 

2011/2/28 spike <spike66 at att.net>:

 

>An original Rubik's cube if in it's unopened original package is a valuable
collector's item.  spike<

 

Yeah, it's not original. It's a "cube puzzle" knock off, and though the box
is in great shape it has been opened though the instructions are still
folded up inside it. .D

 

 

Ja I have a couple of those.  The original Rubik's cube was about 7 bucks,
but almost immediately the Chinese were making cheapy knock offs, which my
college roommate brought back from Singapore as an early lesson to all of us
engineering students in intellectual property and how difficult it is to
defend.  The Chinese version was about 2 bucks.  We compared the original
with the Chinese version, and found the manufacturing tolerances in the
original were better, but that the Chinese version was in some ways easier
to disassemble to modify for racing purposes.  A racing cube had ground and
polished catch tracks and corners.

 

That was in 1981.  I wrote a routine for a TI59 programmable calculator.  It
would make the same series of moves repeatedly on a simulated cube and note
the number of moves required to cycle back to a solved cube.  Then I
repeated the task on a counterfeit Apple II, which ran at a blazing 0.0028
GHz, which finished the task about 100 times faster than the calculator.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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