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ER123456 · Boot Joined: 01 May 2005 Posts: 15

If I set out the first letters of thew names as follows

A S B
A C N
A S N

What is missing?

**Posted:** Sun May 01, 2005 12:35 am

Delian · Greenhorn Joined: 26 Aug 2004 Posts: 3

A S B
A C N
A S N

If each row is to have all the same elements, then the new table is:

A S B N
A C N B
A S N C

NBC

Not ACB. But you got the puzzle down, man!
I think we have an answer!

Edit: Alas, screwed up on thinking I solved something. It was late, I was excited, etc. Sorry. Thanks, Nogwater, for pointing it out.

Nogwater · Veteran Joined: 01 Aug 2004 Posts: 111

Maybe I'm missing something, but what's your method here?
Start with:
a b c
1) A S B
2) A C N
3) A S N

If our alphabet has A,S,C,B,N, then...
by rows we are missing:
1) C, N
2) B, S
3) C, B

By columns:
a) S,C,B,N
b) A,B,N
c) A,S,C

Delian says:

**Posted:** Sun May 01, 2005 1:13 am

johnny5

just for the sake of completeness:
Maybe you're looking for the "father" of these systems

e.g.
Jay Miner/Nolan Bushnell (Atari)
Clive Marle Sinclaire (Sir Clive) (Sinclaire)
Roger Wilson (BBC Micro)
Edward Roberts (Altair)
Jack Tramiel (Commodore)
Steve Wozniak/Steve Jobs (Apple)
Steve Jobs (Next)

**Posted:** Sun May 01, 2005 1:50 am

POTUS

Sorry Openfly & Dopefiend - I got my info fromt he wiki - and there are 6 fronts but only 5 backs - I misaligned them! I thought I was helping - honest!!! Sad

**Posted:** Sun May 01, 2005 3:46 am

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buff · Veteran Joined: 23 Sep 2003 Posts: 106

I think the years are the wrong way to go about it, since the card specifies that you should put a name to machines...

Has anyone tried just put the different names in different order and see if a word is spelled out downwards, or diagonal or some other way? Can't do it myself since I'm at work...

On the other hand, that might be the wrong way as well since it probably is way to simple for a Blue card...

**Posted:** Sun May 01, 2005 8:46 am

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James Lyon · Veteran Joined: 22 Mar 2005 Posts: 92 Location: Edinburgh

OK, I've discovered something else. If you look closely at the space above the joystick in box #1 can you can make out what likes '26 27' written backwards.

This could probably just be bleeding off another card in printing - it's definitely not coming through from the back. I don't know. Maybe a result under a certain kind of light might illuminate something more positive.

**Posted:** Mon May 02, 2005 10:49 am

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www.20six.co.uk/james_lyon
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Sep7imus · Veteran Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 149

Re: website?

**Posted:** Mon May 02, 2005 1:01 pm

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johnny5

Well, the NES is also known as a Famicom, but the others appear correct.

**Posted:** Mon May 02, 2005 1:34 pm

Falken · Kilroy Joined: 02 May 2005 Posts: 2

Hi, NOOB here (I don't even know what NOOB stands for).

I guess if you perform enough operations on enough permutations then you'll see something significant eventually. So this is probably nothing (and certainly doesn't feel satisfactory as an answer) but...

**Posted:** Mon May 02, 2005 6:44 pm

JebJoya · Unfettered Joined: 13 Apr 2005 Posts: 679 Location: UK

IMHO Falken, i think that's kind of like looking for hidden messages in the bible, if you stick a decent number of letters into a load of cyphers and then study the outcome, you're fairly likely to find a 4 or 5 letter word somewhere in there - for example where did ROT12ing come from, why 12?

I honestly don't know how you're meant to answer this one, I've got a feeling it's just going to be entering the names of the machines into a form on the website...

Just my thoughts there

Jeb

**Posted:** Mon May 02, 2005 7:46 pm

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Last FM Smile

POTUS

How about

_________________
Now that you've found another key ~ what are you going to play?

Scott

**Posted:** Mon May 02, 2005 11:01 pm

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DogsHead · Veteran Joined: 11 Apr 2005 Posts: 142 Location: Sydney

[SPEC] Posting this quickly from work - no time to track down relevance. Is it possible some facet of the Difference Engine/Charles Babbage is a missing piece of the puzzle? Just thinking about the text..."try as I might I haven't been able to get my hands on a difference engine..." I.e it is the thing missing - the cypher?
Sorry for the ill-considered post

**Posted:** Tue May 03, 2005 3:27 am

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hamatoyoshi · Veteran Joined: 02 Aug 2004 Posts: 127

Just about everything you would need to know (London Science Museum) about the Difference Engine, supplemented by the Wikipedia.

Since the machine tabulates polynomial functions, it's not immediately clear to me what input we would use from the data we have. I personally think using the initial letters is a bit of a dead end; nevertheless, since we are dealing with computers, maybe this would have more significance in ASCII or binary or something of the like.

Finally, I think it's interesting that Babbage himself never actually produced a difference engine (of which there are 2 versions). It seems that the London Science Museum created the first complete working model. More info at the first link above.

**Posted:** Tue May 03, 2005 9:47 am