JCSM Shareware Collection 1993 November/JCSM Shareware Collection - 1993-11.iso/cl460/pzzlr11j.lzh/PUZZLER.DOC

Text File | 1992-07-30 | 13KB | 346 lines

                               Puzzler v1.1
                          Puzzle Solution Helper

                    Copyright 1992, Acropolis Software
                            Acropolis Software
                              P.O. Box 5037
                           Fair Oaks, CA 95628




      THE LEGAL STUFF

      Puzzler is provided on an as is basis without warranty of any kind
      expressed or implied. In no event will Acropolis Software be liable
      to you for any damages, including any lost profits, lost savings or
      other incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use of
      or inability to use the program, even if Acropolis Software has been
      advised of the possibility of such damages, or for any claim by any
      other party.

      Puzzler is copyrighted by Acropolis Software.

      MSDOS is a registered trademark of the Microsoft Corporation
      PCDOS is a registered trademark of the International Business
      Machines Corp.





      INDEX
         Introduction           ................................. 1

         File list              ................................. 1

         Requirements           ................................. 1

         Installation
            Floppy Drive System ................................. 2
            Hard Drive System   ................................. 2

         Running Puzzler        ................................. 3

         Pattern Searches       ................................. 3

         Anagram Unscrambling   ................................. 4

         Using the Scrambler    ................................. 5

         Questions or Comments  ................................. 6

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      INTRODUCTION

      Puzzler is a program to help you solve those word puzzles that you've
      found yourself stuck on. It is designed mainly to help with anagrams
      and crossword puzzles, but I am sure there are other uses for it, such
      as cheating at hangman.  With Puzzler you can find all the combination
      of a anagram that make proper words and abbreviations. Or you can have
      is search for all words that match a pattern of letters where you do
      not know what some of the letters are such as in a crossword puzzle
      where you only know a few of the letters in a word, but can't seem to
      guess what the word is.

      Puzzler knows a little over 112,000 words and abbreviations.



      FILE LIST

      Puzzler comes with the following files:

      PUZZLER.EXE         The Puzzler Program.
      PUZZLER.DOC         This manual
      REGISTER.DOC        Registration form for Puzzler
      ACROP.DIC           The dictionary containing all the words.



      REQUIREMENTS

      The minimum system requirements to run Puzzler are:
        256K of RAM
        1 Floppy disk drive
        MSDOS/PCDOS version 2.1 or higher

        A hard drive is recommended, but not required. Puzzler will just
        run a little slower from a floppy disk.

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      INSTALLATION

      Floppy Disk Drive System Installation

       Setting up Puzzler on a floppy disk drive system is easy. Start up
       your computer with a DOS disk in drive A:. Now place a blank disk
       in drive B: and type:

         FORMAT B:

       When the formatting is finished, replace the DOS disk in drive A:
       with your Puzzler master disk and type the following commands:

         COPY PUZZLER.EXE B:
         COPY ACROP.DIC B:

       You now have a Puzzler disk in drive B:. Put your master Puzzler
       disk away in a safe place so that if something happens to your
       working disk you can make a new copy by repeating the above steps.

       To run Puzzler, place the Puzzler working disk in drive A: and
       type PUZZLER at the DOS prompt.



      Hard Drive System Installation

       To install Puzzler on your hard drive you first make a subdirectory to
       place it in and then copy the files PUZZLER.EXE and ACROP.DIC to it.

       To run Puzzler change to the subdirectory containing the Puzzler
       program and the dictionary and type PUZZLER at the DOS prompt.

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      RUNNING PUZZLER

      You start Puzzler by typing puzzler at the DOS prompt and pressing
      [ENTER].  There is one command line option when starting Puzzler you
      can include the option "-m" to force Puzzler into the monochrome mode
      on color monitors.  If for some reason Puzzler cannot find its
      dictionary it will tell you so and quit immediately. If everything
      goes well you will be presented with the Puzzler main screen and a
      menu that lets you select which function you want to perform. The
      three options are [S]crambled, [P]attern Search, and [ESC] to exit.
      One other option at any time is to press the [F1] key and get some
      help explaining where you currently are in the program.


      Pattern searches

       You use the [p]attern Search option to help with solving crosswords
       and hangman type puzzles. With it you can locate words when you only
       know some of the letters that comprise them.

       Say you are doing a crossword puzzle and you have a four letter word
       you can't figure out, but you know all but the second letter in the
       word.  An example would be "C*AT". This is the type of thing pattern
       searches are good for. Selecting the Pattern Search option from the
       main menu and giving it the pattern "C*AT" Puzzler will come back
       with the words "CHAT" and "COAT".

       Puzzler isn't limited to just one missing letter. You could give it
       a pattern like "*GA*" and it will return the words "AGAR" (a gelatin
       extracted from algae) and "EGAD". In fact you can use the wild card
       character "*" for any number of the letters in the word, even all of
       them. But be warned if you make the pattern too general such as
       "*****" (all five letter words) you may not have enough memory for
       Puzzler to keep a list of them all. Nothing bad will happen, but it
       will tell you that it cannot display all of them for you.

       Additionally there isn't anything magic about the "*" character.
       Puzzler will automatically replace any character that isn't a letter
       or the apostrophe "'" with the wild card asterisk.

       Once Puzzler has found any matches to the pattern it will display
       the list and wait for you to press the [ENTER] key (to go on to the
       next page of words if there are more) or the [ESC] key to return to
       the pattern prompt.

       You can return to the main menu by pressing either the [ENTER] or
       the [ESC] key at the prompt for the pattern.

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      Anagram Unscrambling

      The anagram descrambler operation of Puzzler is the most powerful
      function it performs. With it you can give it a group of letters and
      it will find all the words that can be made from those letters.

      The reason it is so powerful is the shear number of combinations that
      have to be tested. With two letters there are only two combinations,
      with three letters there are six combinations, but as you increase
      the number of letters the number of possible combinations grows at a
      fantastic rate.  For example fourteen letters can be arranged in
      87,178,291,200 different combinations. The following is a table
      showing the number of combinations possible with from one to twenty
      letters.


         Letters   Combinations    Letters   Combinations
         1         1               11        39,916,800
         2         2               12        479,001,600
         3         6               13        6,227,020,800
         4         24              14        87,178,291,200
         5         120             15        1,307,674,378,000
         6         720             16        20,922,790,048,000
         7         5,040           17        355,687,430,816,000
         8         40,320          18        3,402,373,754,688,000
         9         362,880         19        65,045,101,339,072,000
         10        3,628,800       20        1,300,902,026,781,440,000


      Fortunately, Puzzler is bright enough that it won╒t take until the
      end of the universe to test all the combinations for a 20 letter word.
      Puzzler will stop searching some pointless chains of combinations when
      there is no reason to continue. An example would be a 20 character
      string of letters that has the letters "Z" and "X" in it. Since it
      cannot find any words that start with the letter combination "ZX" it
      can drop 3,402,373,754,688,000 combinations that start with that
      arrangement of letters (also the same amount again because there are
      not any words that start with the combination "XZ"). That and other
      tricks allows Puzzler to return an answer in a reasonable amount of
      time.

      Also, those numbers are assuming that all the letters in the group
      are different. When some of the letters are repeated the number of
      combinations is reduced, but the math used to calculate the actual
      number of different combinations when some of the letters are repeated
      is even scarier then the above numbers.

      Don't let the big numbers scare you. Puzzler really is very quick at
      finding all the valid combinations. On a 386 computer the unscrambling
      of even 20 letter words typically takes less than 45 or 50 seconds.
      In normal use of four to seven letter words, it is amazingly swift.

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      Using the Scrambler

      Having explained what Puzzler is doing when it unscrambles a group
      of letters for you let's see how to make it do it for you.

      Selecting the [S]crambler option from the main menu will prompt you
      for the group of letters to find valid word combinations from.
      After entering the letters it will display the number of combinations
      possible and start the search for valid words.

      Once it has tried all the combinations if there where any words that
      it could make from the group you gave it, it will display them for
      you and then wait for you to press the [ENTER] or [ESC] key.

      You will then be prompted to once again enter a group of letters
      to search. You can return to the main menu by pressing either the
      [ENTER] or [ESC] key.


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      QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS

      If you have any questions or comments I can be reached through the
      U.S. Mail at:

         Acropolis Software
         P.O. Box 5037
         Fair Oaks, CA  95628


      Or electronically:

         On CompuServe by sending EasyPlex mail to 75146.3471
         On America On-Line by sending mail to RobertB377





      REGISTRATION

      Puzzler is a shareware product.  This is not a demo or  crippled
      version, but a full working copy.  If you use Puzzler, I ask you
      to send $10 to Acropolis Software to register your copy in return
      you will receive a disk containing the latest version of both the
      program and the dictionary.  When you register your copy of Puzzler
      please use the order form below. If you do not use the form, please
      specify that you are registering Puzzler and indicate your preferred
      disk format (5 1/4" or 3 1/2").



    _______________________________________________________________________

                               Registration / Order Form


     Name       : __________________________
     Company    : __________________________
     Address    : __________________________
                  __________________________
     City/State : __________________________
     Zip Code   : __________________________

     (Optional)
     Phone      : __________________________


                           Registration :  $ 10.00
     California residents add sales tax :   ______
                    Shipping & Handling :     2.50
                                  TOTAL :   ______

     Disk Format:    5 1/4" ___    3 1/2"  ___
                     (360K)        (720K)


     Foreign checks MUST be payable in U.S. funds drawn on a U.S. bank.

     The product being registered is Puzzler v1.1.
     You will receive a registered copy of the latest version of Puzzler
     without the shareware screen at the end, and the latest dictionary.

     Send check or money order to:

         Acropolis Software
         P.O. Box 5037
         Fair Oaks, CA  95628