I'm onto a new kick now - Rubik's Cubes.
I still can't solve the things (not enough patience) but I've always been
more fascinated with the mechanics than the combinatorial puzzle aspects. As
a kid I got my first one in 1980 when the craze hit bit. I had it apart
shortly thereafter to marvel over the structure.
(How'd I fall into this addictive habit? I was reading movie reviews and saw
Hellraiser V had come out as straight-to-video. Searching on Hellraiser, I
ran into the phrase "...puzzle box, a sort of demonic rubik's cube".
Wondering if anyone had ever tried to construct a physical device capable of
such shape changing, I started searching...)
My collection now includes:
2x2x2 Pocket Cube - the internal mechanism is essentially a 3x3x3 cube
burried inside!
3x3x3 Rubik's Cube (the classic)
4x4x4 Rubik's Revenge (www.rubiks.com is selling them again)
5x5x5 Professor's Cube (www.mefferts.com sells these and many others)
Pyraminx - a tetrahedron; had it since I was a kid
Skewb - a cube with tetrahedral cuts - found it at WotC recently!
Square-1 - found at Toys R' Us; 3 slices; top and bottom have 8 pieces,
middle just 2
Skewb Ultimate - a dodecahedron cut like a skewb
Impossiball - an icosahedron where each face has 3 colors and metafaces of 5
turn
And many of the puzzles haven't been made since the early 1980's, so it's
off to online auctions. So far I've won:
Megaminx - a face-cut dodecahedron; each has a center, 5 corners and 5 edges
Alexander's Star - a great dodecahedron - this was popular in the 80's
And there's a customization culture, too. So far I've started simple:
3x3x5 cube (a normal cube with extra cubes glues on 2 edges for show; looks
really nifty scrambled)
Siamese Cube - one 1x1x3 set of cubies is shared between two cubes and is
locked
BiCube - "random" cubies of a 3x3x3 are bandaged together, limiting moves
I did scope out a local plastics store, and may attempt to make some custom
pieces.
Nifty sites about extant puzzles:
http://www.org2.com/jaap/puzzles/
http://www.puzzle-shop.de/
http://www.virtualpuzzlemuseum.com/index.html
And Java simulations
http://www.mud.ca/puzzler/JPuzzler/JPuzzler.html
http://byrden.com/puzzles/
One nifty find was a mailing list called "cube-lovers" which appears to have
run from 1980 through Jan 2000; darn my luck getting hooked 12 months late.
It's cool reading the archives from Multics users at MIT - going from a
desperate "where do you find a cube?" in early 1980 to "the stores are
saturated with unsold 4x4x4; no-one will ever market a 5x5x5" in 1983 to
"where do you find a 4x4x4?" in 1987.
If anyone has such things burried in a basement, unused... well, I wouldn't
be averse to buying 'em (or borrowing them to make molds from once I've made
some attempts).
...
The other nifty thing - http://www.delphion.com/, an online patent
repository with images. It's grand - you can dig through hundreds of
thousands of patents - like these puzzles - and see what makes them tick.
(FWIW, I surprisingly found no record of a Lament Configuration Rubik's
Cube - even just with custom stickers! I can't believe no one has done one!)
Joshua
