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Puzzler v1.0
Puzzler Solution Helper
Copyright 1992, Acropolis Software
Robert Bequette
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. You are
encouraged to give copies to your friends and upload it to
bulletin boards. However, sale of the program for profit by
anyone except Acropolis Software is strictly prohibited, except
for a small fee for duplication. That fee does not register
you as a user of Puzzler. If you like Puzzler and find
it useful you are asked to register as a users with Acropolis
Software. (See "REGISTRATION" at the bottom of this document
for information on how to register).
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
Questions or Comments ....................................... 6
Registration ....................................... 7
Page 1
INTRODUCTION
Puzzler version 1.0 is a program to help you solve word puzzles
that you have 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
of all words that match a pattern of letter where you do not know
what some of the letters are such as in a crossword puzzle where
you only know some of the letter for a word, but can't seem to
guess what the word is.
Puzzler knows a little over 112,000 words and abbreviations.
Puzzler is a shareware product. It is not "freeware" or public
domain. If you use Puzzler, you are expected to pay for it just
like any other program. In return for the $10 registration fee, you
will receive the latest version of the program and the newest
dictionary on either a 5 1/4" or 3 1/2" disk (whichever you prefer).
FILE LIST
Puzzler comes with the following files:
PUZZLER.EXE The Puzzler Program.
PUZZLER.DOC This manual.
ACROP.DIC The dictionary containing all the words.
REGISTER.DOC A file with just the registration form.
It you give copies of this program away you MUST include all four
files in their original form. Distribution with one or more of
the files missing or altered in anyway is strictly prohibited.
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.
Page 2
INSTALLATION
Floppy Disk Drive System Installation
Setting up Puzzler on a floppy disk drive system is easy. Start
up you 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 steps
above. 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
in to it.
To run Puzzler just change to the subdirectory containing the
Puzzler program and the dictionary and type PUZZLER at the
DOS prompt.
Page 3
RUNNING PUZZLER
You start Puzzler by typing PUZZLER at the DOS prompt and pressing
the RETURN key.
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 it 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 local 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. Using selecting the [P]attern
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 nasty 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 pattern it will display the
list and way for you to press the RETURN key (to do 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 RETURN or
the ESC key at the prompt for the pattern.
Page 4
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 there are to be tested. With two letters there are only
two combinations, with three letters there are six combinations,
but at you increase the number letters the number of combinations
possible grows at a fantastic rate. For example fourteen letters
can be arranged in 87,178,291,200 combinations. The following
is a table showing the number of combinations possible with
one to twenty letters.
Combinations Letters Combinations Letters
------------ ------- ------------------------- --------
1 1 39,916,800 11
2 2 479,001,600 12
6 3 6,227,020,800 13
24 4 87,178,291,200 14
120 5 1,307,674,378,000 15
720 6 20,922,790,048,000 16
5,040 7 355,687,430,816,000 17
40,320 8 3,402,373,754,688,000 18
362,880 9 65,045,101,339,072,000 19
3,628,800 10 1,300,902,026,781,440,000 20
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 do so. 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" is 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 figure out 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 rather
quick at finding all the valid combinations. On a 386 computer
the unscrambling of even 20 letter words typically takes less
than 15 or 20 seconds. With the normal use of it being with
four to seven letter words that are really quick.
Page 5
USE THE SCRAMBLER
Now that the explanation of what Puzzler is doing when it
unscrambles a group of letters for you let's see how to make
it do it for you.
After selecting the [S]crambler option from the main menu you
will be prompted for the group of letters to find valid word
combinations from. After entering the words 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 for the group you gave it, it will display
them for you and then wait for you to press the RETURN or ESC
key.
You will then be prompted to once again enter the group of
letters to search try. You can return to the main menu by
pressing either the RETURN or ESC key.
Page 6
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
Page 7
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 : ______
TOTAL : ______
Disk Format: 5 1/4" ___ 3 1/2" ___
(360K) (720K)
Forgien checks MUST be payable in U.S. funds drawn on a U.S. bank.
The product being registered is Puzzler v1.0.
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