Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!udel!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!o.gp.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!rq02+ From: rq02+@andrew.cmu.edu (Richard Quadrel) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games Subject: 3 in 3: Brute Force Method Message-ID: Date: 3 Mar 91 22:13:26 GMT Organization: Architecture, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 20 Not that I don't have better things to do, but... For anyone who's stuck with 3 in Three, the puzzle "Outside In", you will be horrified to learn that there are 479,001,600 possible combinations of button presses that can be attempted to close the "security doors." Below is a program that will generate all of these combinations and print feasible solutions (i.e., combinations that successfully close all of the doors) to a file called "solutions." OK, so I'm nerd. The good news is that there appear to be many thousands of combinations that work. The bad news is that with 12 levels of recursion, this program takes about 48 hours to run to completion on a Sun3/60. So, for whatever its worth... If you can't wait that long, send me some mail, and I'll be happy to tell you a combination that does work. If you have any comments about the code, especially how to make it faster, I'd be happy to hear that too. Have fun! Rich Quadrel rquadrel@cs.cmu.edu