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Title
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1971_Sackson_224_July 23.jpg
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Creator
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Sid Sackson
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Date
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1971
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Type
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image
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Format
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.jpg
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Source
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Box 1, Object 9, Sid Sackson collection
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Language
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English
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Coverage
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1971
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Rights
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The Strong, Rochester, New York.
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transcription
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English
7/16
7/11
7/12
7/10
6/6
FRIDAY 23 JULY 1971
204th day - 161 days to come
Rcd. a letter from Michael Dummett. He is sending me under
separate cover the rules of TAOTL and photocopies of
the book THE GAME OF MODERN OMBRE by Hobah.
He'd like to know when I'll be in Europe and is looking
forward to seeing us.
By advertising in a Sicilian newspaper he rcd. 3 replies
with info on the Sicilian form of TAROT.
He lost my address and sent the letter and package thru
Random House.
Rcd. the Staff News letter from S & T.
Rcd. NOST-ALGIA (#135 - July 1971). Has the rules for CRASH
which is a variant of SECRET WORD (JOTTO). It was
originally published in WORD WAYS (Feb. '71) under the
name CORRESPONDENCE CRASH.
Also material on SCOTTISH CHESS.
Rcd. the GENERAL (July - Aug. '71). There is an auction of
some old games that are out of print. The only one
I am interested in is ADVERTISING a private label game
for Westinghouse TV. Only 1000 were published.
Finished the letter on FANTOCCINI. BB typed it.
To Martin Gardner. He told me more about the visit
recently by several mathematicians. They are working on a
book on recreational mathematics. But Martin thinks it
will be too complicated for the layman. He couldn't understand
a lot of what they were explaining to him.
Conway is working on a game called HACKENBUSH. A figure is
drawn in pencil, similar to one shown.
[Diagram of a humanoid doll figure constructed mostly of connected loops. "A" is pointed towards neck. "B" is pointed towards left side of torso. "C" is pointed toward the right side of torso.]
Players in turn erase one line or loop between nodes. When an
upper area is completely isolated it "falls" and is
eliminated. Thus erasing "A" caused the 6 parts
above to "fall". Erasing "B" does not cause a "fall"
since "C" is still considered to hold the figure.
Two play as in NIM. (This can be transformed
into a "free" and then can be completely analyzed
by binary notation.)
[Illegible crossed out.] Martin used some of Conway's material
in writing the booklet on THE TOWER GAME for
Frank Armbruster. He sent $50 to Conway from the
fee Frank sent him, but Conway refused to accept it. He was
happy to have Martin use the material.
Elwyn Berlekamp, of Bell Telephone Labs but
moving to Berkely has been working with
BOXES. He finds the 4 x 4 dot field as
shown the smallest of interest. He uses
the equivelent form shown to the right
[Diagram of a 4 x 4 dot field next to a 4 x 4 box grid.]
(cont. on 7/16)
