Message #13

From: David Vanderschel <DvdS@Austin.RR.com>
Subject: Fwd: Re: The Log File
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2003 19:41:01 -0000

Date: Mon Apr 22, 2002 11:51 am

— In MC4D@yahoogroups.com, "D_Funny007" <d_funny007@y…> wrote:
Thanks. I currently reside in Michigan, USA. I am a student. I play
competitive tennis, am on a state level math team, crunch
differential equations, write programs, CAD, and write a bit of
HTML. When there’s not much to do, I just solve the (physical)
Rubik’s cube in about 30 seconds->employing about 60 algorithms, not
counting mirrors and inverses. On the HyperCube only 1 algorithm was
truly used. I will be attempting to determine the appropriate 4D
analogs to my library of 3D sequences. This will greatly reduce the
solving time, or least the number of moves. Oh, and too the
programmers: if you arn’t planning to already, I think you should
demonstrate the HyperCube at the next World Competition at the
Ontario Science Center in Augest of 2003. I’ll probably be there,
I’m unofficially ranked about 19th globally. I started a new 3^4 not
long after I finished my first 4^3 and I can consistantly do one in
about 3 days now. I personally think that the program should be best
left in C++. BTW, I modified the colors (w/ and black bg) by
recompling the code, not editing the RGB file. (face_colors array in
MagicCubeObj.cpp) The cube looks great with a black back ground.
Since I changed that I had to change the icon also. Just my personal
version that I don’t give out, post, or take credit for. Ugg…
another look and I think I should change it back to a grey, a
lighter shade though. Cool looking white on the bottom cube though.
(I use the term "cube" for what the solution calls "face," to avoid
the awkward phrases like: top-face face-pieces.) I also knocked out
the "Save As…" command, seeing as that it doesn’t work. The
toolbar and caplock indicator were also unnecessary so I took them
out. I’ve been trying to add the extra rows and columns to the
internal matrixes and processing to create the 4^4 with no success
however. It returns an error message around line 351 of flexible.cpp
(same for 2^4). I am curious as to why this happened and what
difficulties the programmers had with making the Win version x^4. I
have enough C++ knowledge to understand a very specific responds.
I’m simply having fun with the program, hope I havn’t crossed the
line. Much of the edits I put in a year ago after getting frustrated
with the my runtime failures (not being able to solve it at that
time).

-Doug

— In MC4D@y…, dgreen@s… wrote:
> douglas,
>
> congratulations again on solving the 4d cube! your accomplishment
is now properly
> listed on the hall-of-fame page. and yes, i’m fairly sure that
you’re the youngest
> solver ever. from your facility at the 3d speed solving, perhaps
we should add a
> "speed solving" category. we’ve talked about it a bit in the past
but never came up
> with a perfect set of rules for it.
>
> it’s great to know that roice’s instructions are clear and
complete. i’ve been
> meaning to work through them myself but haven’t yet made the time.
>
> it’s also great that you got into the code and played with
modifications. jay who is
> our code master and librarian will be happy to know that you were
able to figure
> this out. suggestions and improvements are welcome, tough i
suspect we’ll move to a
> pure java implementation in the next major release so it might not
be worth any
> large efforts on the c++ versions, especially to the platform-
dependant parts.
> regarding the colors though, you should have been able to just
modify the
> MagicCube4D.rgb data file to specify your favorite face colors.
>
> regarding the 4^4 and 5^4, these versions as well as macros are
currently only
> available in the linux version.
>
> so how about telling us where you live, what you do for fun, etc.?
>
> congratulations again on your rare and impressive accomplishment!
> -daniel
— End forwarded message —