Rubiks Cube

[AWB]

So, how many of you had one of these fad toys in the 80's? If you did, did you ever solve it? Or is it still sitting scrambled in some forgotted junk drawer?

[UncleBeer]

I was only ever able to complete that bastard by disassmebling it. I think I finally threw mine out the last time I moved.

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"The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind." - Humphrey Bogart

[divemaster]

I had one, but never figured it out. A friend of mine was the "designated cube fixer" for the entire eighth grade class. He had read the book, and could solve a Rubik's in a matter of minutes.

We all thought he was rather geeky.

[CanadianSue]

I tried and tried and never could figure that thing out.. i still have one in my junk drawer in the kitchen.. anyone one wanna give it a go?

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We are, each of us angels with only one wing;
and we can only fly by
embracing one another

[metroshane]

never once figured it out.
i even have one of those similar games (2 demisional) where you slide the tiles around to make a picture. i can never get it, but the 7 yr old girl that lives beneath solves it about once a day

[Sealemon88]

I solved two of the sides once.

After that, I found that taking a screwdriver to it was [i]much[i/]more fun.

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You say "cheesy" like that's a BAD thing.

[Satan]

Well, it's unanimous so far. I could never solve it either, unless I unstuck the colored labels and put them back on correctly!

Mine dissappeared sometime in 1987 (when I graduated HS) and I have yet to care about it one way or another.

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Yer pal,
Satan

[Mr Thin Skin]

My fastest times:

2x2x2: 9 seconds
3x3x3: 2 minutes 42 seconds (standard Rubik's Cube)
4x4x4: 15 minutes


This was all back in 7th grade. I even got into cube with pictures on the faces. I've forgotten my bottom row moves, so I can solve the top face, and one row down.

[Chief Crunch]

When I was little I used to peel of the stickers and place them in the correct parts. For Christmas one year I got the ill fated "Rubiks Rings". It was like six or so tiles held together with what appeared to be fishing line. Somehow you were supposed to flip the tiles so the three rings on the puzzle's face were joined together or something like that. I broke that thing in a matter of hours.

[Pixoid]

I can do the 2-D sliding tiles puzzle well, but Rubik's is beyond me. We have one at home, and it's perfect...because we've peeled off all the stickers and restuck them.

My brother had a Rubik's Rings, too...he never let me touch it, and then he broke it. And of course, he blamed me... :)

[Mr Thin Skin]

You know, you don't have to peel the stickers off to put them back together correctly. If you rotate one side 45 degrees, you can pry out one of the non-corner pieces. Once one comes out, the cube falls apart. I had many cubes, and needed to fix worn out ones a lot. To clarify, you pry on a non-corner piece on the rotated part. You can use the exposed black part of the unrotated section as a fulcrum for prying.

[Satan]

I barely have the patients to take a crap

Oh, so you're a proctologist? Not a very busy one, apparently...

[StrTrkr777]

In junior high (around 7th grade or so) my father bought the book. I memorized the various moves as Mr. Thin Skin and could solve them fairly quickly (not as quick as MTS). Our principle banned them from school so I got out of practice. I have downloaded the moves off the internet and I have them in a folder in case I ever need them.

The Pyramid was so easy I did not even need a book. Can still solve it.

Jeffery

p.s. you do not solve it one side at a time but one layer at a time.

[voguevixen]

Never could get the cube (I, too, was a dismantler) but was able to do most of the other stuff that came out around that time, Missing link, etc. There was a really good one I loved called (I think) Drive 'Ya Nuts which was made up of a bunch of plastic "nuts" (the hexagonal kind, like would go on a bolt?) that were numbered on each side and you had to fit them back into the frame with the numbers corresponding and there was only ONE way they would fit, supposedly. Seemed like I was always receiving people's cast-off puzzles. DOn't know why I could never get the cube, though. I couldn't follow the books at all, they would cross my eyes trying to read them, haha.

[MrKnowItAll]

Weird. I hadn't even thought about it for years, and last week I happened to stumble across mine. I was able to solve it, but it took a lot longer than I used to. Yep, I cheated. Read and memorized the book. I used to be able to solve it in under 3 minutes pretty consistantly.

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"I'm not conceited. Conceit is a fault, and I don't have any faults."

[Gr8Kat]

My mom used to be fairly proficient at solving them (using the book, natch), but I couldn't ever do it. I liked making some of the patterns (using a freshly solved cube, of course) like the shooting star and the king's X or whatever they were called.

I got the Rubik's links for Christmas once and I think I broke it that evening. We had a couple other puzzle games, like Missing Link and Orb, but I don't remember if anyone ever solved them or where they're at.

It's funny how people used to try to exercise their minds before the Web :)

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"I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it," Jack Handy

The Kat House (http://members.aol.com/gr8kat1/KatGen/home.htm)

[GuanoLad]

My brother managed to figure it out, no books no cheating. He got so good at it (he was about 12 years old) that his best time was 1 minute 27 seconds. That's getting close to those 'That's Incredible!' dorks. You know, the same ones that had a PacMan / Defender competition on the show.

Lordy lordy...



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"Well, roll me in eggs and flour and bake me for forty minutes!"

The Legend Of PigeonMan (http://www.hotkey.net.au/~guanolad/pigeonman/main.htm)

[Daniel]

My calculus teacher once loaned me the book and I was able to solve it pretty easily after that :)

Before owning the book, I would always buy a cube, after a few weeks decide it was a waste of money, lose it, and then a year or two later buy another one, decide it was a waste of money, lose it. . .

Well I've since lost the cube, but having solved it through the aid of the book, I no longer have the desire to waste my money on another one :)

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"I'm just too much for human existence -- I should be animated."
--Wayne Knight

[elelle]

Rubik's Cube: Dismantle
Sliding Tiles: Dismantle
I can do the little golf tee puzzle you see in truckstops, though.

[Powers106]

Funny you mention the Rubik's cube because I saw one on sale the other day - used to be that you could not only buy the "original" but all the Taiwanese and Korean knock-offs too. Do kids still buy them? Or is the concept of a "non-video" game too bizarre?

I read the book and used to solve it pretty quickly. The Pyramid was much easier though, and I didn't need the book for that one.

For those of you that read the book - do you agree that the worst part was "trying to mix it up again" enough so it wouldn't be too easy to solve again?

[Sylence]

I solved mine once. It took about three months. . .

But then, I knew a kid at school (don't we all?) that could make the center square in each face a different color. Show-off.


-- Sylence

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And now, for my next trick, I will talk in spooky half-references.

[meredith]

Oh, so you're a proctologist? Not a very busy one, apparently...

Thanks, Satan! You made me snarf my popcorn!

[Markxxx]

I did solve it. But I read the book. Once you memorize the moves you barely even have to look at the cube.
Is that cheating?

[timmar68]

I was the first in my class to have one. I could solve 2 sides at once but that was enough to make my classmates in awe of me.

My teacher, on the other hand, could solve it in less than 2 minutes. When I would give up trying to solve it I handed it over to him. I asked him how did did that, and he said, "I just analyzed it". Oh.

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MaryAnn
More woman than you'll ever inflate!

[Demo]

Geez, and I thought I was the only sticker-peeler. Hated it! What about that stupid blue and white snake thingy? It wasn't really a puzzle, I think you were just supposed to make designs and stuff with it. Once again....hated it!

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"The world is not five hours old and evil has already entered it" - Aslan
_The Magician's Nephew_

[Doctor Jackson]

Nope. Not even once. Ever. Stupid cube. Stupid Rubik. But I'm not bitter...

Geez, I haven't even thought about a Rubik's Cube in years. I had one, but was never able to figure it out. I never took mine apart or removed the stickers either. I have no idea what happened to my Cube.

[UncleBeer]

Yup, that's how how I did mine Mr. Thin Skin.

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"The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind." - Humphrey Bogart

[DarkDragon]

I read some where that the smartest women in the world solved in in 7 minutes. As for me, I barely have the patients to take a crap yet along solve that thing!

[Cabbage]

Anybody else remember Rubik's Clock, where you had a bunch of clocks that all had to be set to 12? That was the only one I solved without a book--I had the book for Rubik's Cube and Link (or whatever it was called).

[Kat]

What about that stupid blue and white snake thingy? It wasn't really a puzzle, I think you were just supposed to make designs and stuff with it. Once again....hated it!

You mean the Snake? It came in different colors (I have a light green/dark green one somewhere). I can still make: the ball, a cobra, a dog, a cross, I don't remember what else we used to make out of them.

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Your Official Cat Goddess since 10/20/99.

[OpalCat]

I had one, and solved it with the book.... then in 4th grade we had a "secret santa" thing at my school.. we had to bring in a present worth around $5-10 and put them under the tree, then the teacher numbered them and we drew numbers to see who got what.

I didn't have $5 and my mom wouldn't fork over money for a gift, so I decided to wrap one of my own toys. I really liked my Rubik's cube... (this was in their heyday) and figured that most kids would really love having one... so I wrapped it and took it to school. I didn't know where the book was, so I couldn't solve it first, so it was messed up.

Well David drew my number, and when he opened it, I held my breath. Instead of being happy, he started ranting to the whole class about what a lousy gift it was, how it wasn't even new, etc. It was everything I could do to not cry.

The gift I got was a cheap address book.

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>^,,^<
"Cluemobile? You've got a pickup..."
OpalCat's site: http://opalcat.com
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[ZenBeam]

OK, I'll gloat...

I solved it on my own, not reading any books. It took several months the first time, but eventually I could do it in under 3 minutes.

I eventually looked at a solution book, but I like my method better. I solve the corners first, then the top and bottom sides, then finally the middle ring. Not the fastest in time, because you have to think a bit, but I bet the number of moves is a lot less (just over a hundred, IIRC.

I was also the first in our school (high school) to get one. I had seen it in OMNI magazine a couple months before it came out, and when it showed up in a store ad, I raced out and bought it.


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It is too clear, and so it is hard to see.

[krish]

I was taught how to solve it over the summer and now do it whenever I'm bored. I have no life. ;)

[Lumpy]

I too managed to solve the cube without a cheat book. For those of you wondering how the heck it's even possible, it works like this:
If you play with a cube long enough, eventually you figure out that there are patterns of moves that will move or rotate in place two pieces while leaving the rest of cube the way it was. Once you have a "collection" of memorized moves, you can shuffle the various pieces into place.

Now to be able to look at a completely scrambled cube, think a minute, and then go "clickity-click", and do a time-reverse of scrambling the cube, THAT would require the hypothetical God's Algorithm. To the best of my knowledge, no one's come up with that yet; nor confirmed if the cube has a single "anti-state" that's the maximum possible number of moves away from the start.