Re: Minesweeper solver

Article: 7798 of alt.hackers
From: Anto
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: Minesweeper solver
Date: 11 May 1995 12:54:52 GMT
Organization: Ericsson Systems Expertise Ireland
Lines: 99
Approved: Anto
Message-ID: 3ot1es$t4o@erinews.ericsson.se
Reply-To: eeittn@eei.ericsson.se
NNTP-Posting-Host: eeibhuc100.eei.ericsson.se
Status: RO

Hi All,

(original posting included below)

Sorry - I was a bit misleading in my description.

The program was a little more intelligent than I described.

You started up minesweeper and also the cheat program at
the same time.  Then the cheat program ran in the
background (ha - that is a bit of a joke since MS Windows does
not offer true multitasking so no program runs in the
background).  You played the game and the cheat program played also.

This became a little difficult at times since the cheat program kept
grabbing the cursor.  However you just let it run then.

The result was that you made the initial few guesses.  Then, once
a square existed that could logically be removed, the cheat program
really kicked in.  This was usually after the first guess which even
in advanced level, either kills you or clears enough squares to
logically continue.

There was a configurable option to allow the cheat program to guess
when confronted with no logical choice.  I can't remember if this
applied to the first guess.  I don't think it did but I may be
wrong.  Anyway you were far better off leaving the guessing off
until the very end, at which point you can guess just as well
as the cheat program.

I presume this program still exists somewhere.  If you want it
try one of the windows directories in Simtel as I think that
is where it came from.  If not try the usual binaries search methods
(which we should all know well before we get to this group ;-))

OBHack:  This is always the difficult bit.

Bought a lovely rack for my CDs.  It was a big floor standing unit
shaped like in inverted 7 which holds 66 CDs.  The base on it is
triangular with the apex at the front of the rack (left hand side
of the 7.


Now the shape should work from a stability point of view since the
centre of gravity of the rack was presumably about 1/2 way up (for
a full rack).  This put the C of G almost over the centre of the
triangular base.  However since the CDs stuck out over the front
of the rack the C of G was very slightly forward of centre.

This all looked lovely and I am sure the designers thought it a great
idea.  Put on a nice solid floor it is very stable.

Problem was I wanted to put it on a deep pile carpet.  Now the fact
that the C of G was not dead centre over the triangular base had
an effect.  There was slightly more weight over the front (i.e. one of
the apexes).  Thence the apex sank more into the carpet, the structure
became more vertical and more unstable)

To fix it I needed something of the correct thickness and size to
support the front apex.  I found an old LCD game, one of the
early forerunners of the gameboy.  If I pushed this under the front
on the rack it was just thick enough and occupied sufficient floor
area, to keep the base flat and thence restore stability.

/Tony
In article beb@solutions.solon.com, seebs@solutions.solon.com (Peter Seebach)
writes:
>In article <3odgpn$jch@erinews.ericsson.se>,
<eeittn@eei.ericsson.se> wrote:
>>There already exists a cheat program for minesweeper.
>[snip]
>>choice remained.  Was very good and could do all the
>>levels down to about 2 or 3 remaining without guessing.
>
>I don't believe it.  I think it's safe to say that there is no way
>to even start a minesweeper level without guessing.
>
>-s
>--
>Peter Seebach - seebs@solutions.solon.com  -- seebs@intran.xerox.com
>C/Unix proto-wizard -- C/Unix questions? Send mail for help.
>Moderator - alt.religion.kibology, comp.lang.c.moderated
>Copyright 1995 Peter Seebach.  Not for distribution through Microsoft
Network.




---
        ______________                                       ______________
       / __ \_________)           Tony Tehan                (_________/ __ \
      /   | |___)         eeittn@eeibhus01.ericsson.se            (___| |   \
     /   (\_|__)          Ericsson's Systems Expertise             (__|_/)   \
    /   (_____)                Dublin 4, Ireland                    (_____)   \

and here is a little fortune cookie (last update -
Wed May 10 14:59:34 BST 1995)


Some men are discovered; others are found out.

Back to index