fr#f#f

h i ss t o r yb e g i n s i n t h e s u m m eo rf A s l u c kw o u l dh a v e i t , s u m m eirst h e 1989 I wasin a quandary . y timefor the annuac M l o n v e n t i oo nf t h e w i f e , P e g ,a n d l h a d r e c e n t l y National Puzzlers' League. As I sat in the decided to have a childa , n dt h a t I w o u l d lobbyof a Cleveland hotelchattinq with -H enry s t a y h o m e a f t e r t h e b i r t h . I t h e r e f o r e n o t e d p u z z l ec o n s t r u c t o rls ike needed a n e w j o b , o n e I c o u l dp r a c t r c e Hook and ScottMarley, I beganto conf r o m o u r h o u s ew h i l e s i m u l t a n e o u s l sider y puzzling as a profession. I couldsit feeding a n de n t e r t a i n i n agb a b y . in my den,I thought,and dashoff cross'l O resnuanv r ggz GAMEs

w o r d st o r m a g a z i n e d i t o r s lalready knew throughthe League. Evenbetter,I w o u l d f i n a l l yh a v ea w a y t o r a t i o n a l i z e p u r c h a s i ne gv e r yr e f e r e n c b eook in the world,tax-deductibly, no less. I toldmy puzzle colleague se p l a n . th T h e i rr e s p o n sw e a s i m m e d i a t e":G i v ei t u p n o w ." A p p a r e n t l y t ,hese same

thoughts h a d c o m et o m i l l i o n s of other ,,buyers p e o p l er , e s u l t i n ig n the dreaded market"and its inevitable corollary-low fees As one person so aptlyput ri, ,,lt rs a mrstake to compete i n a m a r k e tw i t h people w h o a r ew i l l i n g t o w o r kf o r f r e e . , , Afterfinding out the pittance paidfor s$ 1 5t o $ 7 5 f o r a 1 5 x 1 5 _ m o s tp u z z l e(

square c r o s s w o r d$ ,50 to $250for a S u n d a y - s i2 z1 e x 2 1 ) ,I h a dt o a q r e eF . ew people c o u l dg r i n dt h e m o u i o u r c k l v e n o u g ht o b e a b l et o a f f o r db o t h f o o d a n d s h e l t e rB . u t c o u l da c o m p u t e r fill crosswords grids,I wondered, and do so at a professional qualitv level? I l o o k e da r o u n dt o s e e w h a t w a s

c o m m e r c i a la ly vailable . o t m u c h .i t N t u r n e do u t . T h e f e w p r o g r a m s that clarmed to construct crosswords actuallv j u s t b u i l ta l o o s e l y - i n t e r l o c k ce r id sscross puzzre trom a user-supplied list of theme words.No symmetry, no complete cross_ c n e c k t no gt l e t t e r sn ,o prospec otf s e l l i n g t n er e s u l t s .

I L L U S T R A T IB OY N J OTTO SEIBOTD GAMEs F E B R U A R y1 9 9 2 ll

I alsopurchased a copyof ,,The Overthe next few daysI held long The rankings aredesigned to capture the Crossword Puzzler," a proqrjm for the talkswith my bossMike Albert(no rela- distinctions required to fill gridsat a qual_ I B M P C w r i t t e n b y M e l { o s e n ,w e l l - tion)and my friendAlan Frank. Mike has ity level indistinguishable from that of the known constructor and editor.Thispro- decades of softwareengineering experi- best human constructors. lt had better; g r a m w a s d e s i g n e da s a n a i d f o r enceand Alan is a brilliant develooer of a n y r a t t n gs y s t e mc h a n g en o w w o u l d professional crossworders and helps with c o m p u t e a r lgorithms .ombining C t h e i r torce me to rerankthe 257,837database makinga grid; finding.words that match s u g g e s t i o nw s i t h m o r e w e e k e n dw o r k entries l'vealready done. a specttted pattern; entering. storing, and gavedramatic results, and a few weeks Ranking requires t h i n g st o r a n k . retrieving c l u e s ;a n d o u t p u t t i n ga g r i d l a t e r m y p r o g r a mc o u l d f i n i s ht h e t e s t Originally, I collected the unabridged and and cluesto a printer. The program per- grrd in 19 minutes. Stillnothingto write collegiate dictionaries that were alailable f o r m e dw e l l , a n d i t c e r t a i n l y m a d et h e home about,but good enoughto make In computer-readable form and mushed constructors But I didn't want m e t u r n m y a t t e n t i o nt o t h e d a t a b a s e t h e m a l l 1obeasier. together. T h i sg a v e m e g o o d to makethe 1obeasier; I wantedto make problem. basiccoverage of English words; inlact, the job go away. So far, the programhad beenfind- it was overkill. More than half of these Since therewas nothingI couldbuy, ing all possible fillsfor a qivenqrid frao- entrieshad to be giventhe lowest rankmaybe therewas something I couldbuild. ment.But therewereoften thoJsands 5f i n g b e c a u s e o f t h e i r o b s c u r i t yA . mong A stackof quarters and a few eveninos w a y s t o f i l l e v e n a s m a l ls e c t i o n .a n d these words ,,cross-to avoid were ill spentin MlTsengineering library resultdd l o o k i n gt h r o u g ha l l o f t h e m f e l t s u s p i - wordese," thoseancient weights, heraldin a pileof photocopies of academic arti- ciously likework. In addition, mostof the i c t e r m s ,a n d v a r i a n t s p e l l i n go sf m i n o r c l e sa b o u t c r o s s w o r da s n d c o m p u t e r s . fills contained junky wordsthat severely Hindudeities that longtime solvers have Severa l a y sa n d m u c h t e d i o u s d r e a d i n o l i m i t e da n y c o m m e r c i ap l otential. T h e grownall too familiar with. later,I concluded that all research so fai program hadto acquire sometaste. I addedcomputercopiesof several hadfocused solely on findingthe quickest Pegand I rankedall the three-and phrasedictionaries, a thesaurus or two. way to fill a grid,with zeroattention oaid four-letter database entries usinqthe fol- a n d s o m e l o n g l i s t so f p r o p e rn a m e s . to the quality of the result. lowingsophisticated scheme: 0-= great, N o w I l u s t e da f t e r a s o u r c ef o r t h o s e T h i sa p p r o a c h c a n b e s tb e s u m m a - 1 = average, 2 = bleah.t modifiedthe p o p - c u l t u r e references that toonotch r i z e dw i t h a s i n g l es e n t e n c e f r o m t h e program accordingly and the results were co-nstructors " S e a r c h use to spiceup their grids. paper Lessons Learned f r o m markedly better.Thiswas excitinq stuff. M i k e A l b e r tc a m et h r o u g ho n c e a g a i n , Crossword Puzzles" by Ginsberg, Frank, No one I knewof had previously demon- collecting for me a passel "Whv of enteriainHalpin, and Torrance: use a word strated that a program couldtell the dif- m e n t p r o g r a m s from various comouter w i t h a e w h e n o n e w r t h j n S c o u l db e terencebetweena good and a bad way networks.Theseproductswere intended u s e di n s t e a d ? " T h e a u t h o r sm e a n tt h i s to ltll a crossword orid. to test the user5knowledge of movies or questron rhetorically b,u t i t h a s a r e a l sports or rock 'n' roll. But they alsopro_ "Because world answer: a puzzle with a l l t h e n h a s v i d e d d a t a b a s ets , ,rrrtJtime srnce hat, once'decoded. Q is more interesting and more likelyto n b e e n s p e n t i n t h r e e w a y s : 1 ) couldbe raided for my own purposes. s e l lt h a n o n e w i t h a n s . " N o t e do u i z l e ? t l l improving t h e p r o g r a m ,Z ) Alas,some crossword puzzleentries c o n s t r u c t o r ls ike Merl Reagle and Trip improving t h e d a t a b a s ea , n d 3 ) c o n - c a n n o tb e f o u n d i n a n y a v a i l a b l c eo m pridethemselves Payne on theirabilitv to structing and marketing crosswords. Until p u t e r f i l e , e n t r i e sl i k e R L s ("Treasure w o r k c o l o ru f l w o r d sa n d p h r a s e s i n t o March1991,when babyGusentered the / s / a n d author's monogram") and nsnru their grids,and editorsuse suchentries wodd and I quit my computer job, puzzle ("Strong ox"). The thousands _ of such to distinguish b e t w e e nt h e o b v i o u s l v time was veryhardto comeby.Neverthe- itemsin my database have been laboriexcellent and the merely mediocre. I had l e s s ,t h i s m o n t h ' s" C r a z yE i g h t s , g , r i d ouslycollected from actualpuzzles and known from the start that my program shows that l'vemadesomeprogress. e n t e r e db y h a n d . M y h a n d . W h e n e v e r w o u l d h a v et o s h o w a s i m i l a r s k l l ll n Most of my programmodifications somewtse guy saysdoing crosswords by word choice; now I realized t h a t I w a s havebeenspeedimprovements. The best c o m p u t e r i s n ' t " r e a l l y "w o r k I t h i n k t o gorngto get no help from my academic fill for my original "You've test grid can now be myself, obviouslynever spent a colleagues. I would haveto qo it alone. Iound rn tour seconds. Speed-up on big_ daytypingin 4,000Roman numerals.,, ger grid fragments has beenat leastas ne Saturday i n m i d - A u g u so t f dramaticw , i t h s o m e t r i c k vc a s e sn o w ow I use the computerto conf I 1 9 8 9 ,I l o c k e dm y s e l f r n m y a i r - filled100,000 timesfaster. struct a crossword changes from II conditioned o f f i c ea t w o r k a n d The database work has beenthe t I week to week as I aritomate spent13 straight h o u r sc r a n k i n g o u t a mostttme-consuming. Thechallenge was moretasksand take on new challenoes. crudecrossword program on my comput- to emulatean expert's abilityto choose Here's a snapshot for Auqust 'l991. e r . F o ri t s f i r s t t e s t ,I g a v ei t a t i n y g r i d w o r d s .M y o r i g i n a l solution was to go First,I come up wit6 a set of theme with 12 emptysquares. R few tenseriin- t h r o u g h t h e d a t a b a s eo , ne word af a entriesT . h i si s a c r e a t l v e e n d e a v o rs .o utes later,the programdumpedits first time, and type in an appropriate ,,goodtherebno singlecorrectapproach. I often trll onto the screen. I let out a whooo of ness" rating for each entry.Two vears ask a friend for an idea,or think of one exhilaration. Leaving the program to con- later, thats stillmy solution-andl,rirstill myself, but the computer canalsobe surt i n u e f i n d i n go t h e r p o s s i b l e combina- Iyprng. prisingly helpful. Sayl'vedecided to comtions,I headed for home. I rank 1,000wordsa day,comerain memorate Vincentvan Gogh by creating into my o1 In two weeks(from'this .. Mondaymorning,I bustled writing) a p u z z l ei n w h i c h e a c h o f t h e l o n o officeand found my programstillchug- l'll 9hi1e finishoff the nine-letter entries, takel entries has had the word EAR removed.l ging away.My spirits sankto my sneak- briefsabbatical, and then startin on the Instructa searchprogramto show me ers.Crossword constructors had nothino tens.Word-ranking is a hobbyI can rec- t h e a p p r o p r i a t e database entries, and, to fear from a competitor that failedt6 ommendonly to thosewho get overstim- five seconds later,I can paw through a exhaust the possibilities for 12 lettersin ulated watching paintdry. l i s t c o n t a i n i n gi t e m s l i k e " A m l l i a 3 6 h o u r s .I p u t t h e p r o g r a m out of its rating q6temnow has13 categor- Earhart,""b6arnaise sauce,"and ,,rear_The misery and decided to callin the cavalrv. ies,from 0 to i2 (seesidebar, next pa-ge). vrewmirror."
t2 FEBRUAnv 1992 GAMEs

UlfHan a Wonp's WoRru

Categorizing entries issubjective andsomewhat arbitrarv. Since I puzzles construct for mainstream publications, myrating system attempts to reflect theaverage solver's tastes andstillretain enough preludices of my personal to givethepuzzles a unique flavor. In myscheme, multiple-word phrases andfull names rankvery high.Hipness, vividness, and quirkiness interesting raise an entry3 value. Sodo rareletters like J,K,Q,X,andZ.Prefixes and -ED. -ATION) (PRE-, suffixes lowera (ouo;, rating. Crossword clich6s (N|KON), tradenames abbreviations (STD.). andwords thatareforeiqn (orur)or difficult to cluein fres-h get marked ways(HER) down. Fill(like in-the-blank entries oFLA for Man_ Mancha) poor receive ratings. 5o do words thatseem to require more thana high-school (HAUBERK). education (withexamples) Descriptions of my categories: O - FABULOUS KuuQunT
FtX) QUTCK 7 - GREAT (NEWY)RK,ALHIRI) 2 . VERY GOOD AUUON, tAwE0NE)

f i l l a n e n t i r ep u z z l e a t o n c e .T h e s i z eo f these sections hasgottenIarger and larg. h i sm o n t h s O r n e r y , e r o v e rt h e y e a r s T for example , a s c o n s t r u c t efd w rom oniy 'l pieces. 1 Thenmy program doesitsthingwith e a c h g r i d p i e c e .I c a n s p e c i f y lotsof requirements like "this square must be a v o w e l " o r " d o n ' t u s et h i s w o r d , " b u t mostlyI just let it run. The program will usually display t h e f i r s tf i l l i n a f e w s e c o n d s ,b u t t h e t i m e i t t a k e st o f i n d t h e b e s tf i l l v a r i e s c o n s i d e r a b lO y .n a 3 3 m e g a h e r tI zB M - P C 4 8 6 c l o n ew i t h 1 6 megabytes of memory, the program can exhaustively examine all possible waysto f i l lt h e 3 6 n o n - t h e me en t r i e s inthemaior d i a g o n ao l I a 2 1 x 2 1 g r i d ,a n d c h o o s e thebest o n e ,i n 5 t o 1 2 h o u r s . T h i sm a y n o t s t r i k ey o u a s s u p e r speedy a n d , i n f a c t , G A M E So 's wn Mike yo t h e s a m e Shenk c o u l dp r o b a b ld thing in 20 minutes. Thereare three pointsto consider , o u g h .F i r s t l, ' m n o t M i k e th Shenk. L i k em u c h a u t o m a t i o nm , y program putsthe skills of an expertinto the hands of a noviceSecond, giventhe curr e n t t r e n d si n c o m p u t e h r a r d w a r eI, a m q u i t e c o n f i d e n t h a t s e v e r ay lears from nowtheprogram w i l l a l s ob e a b l et o f i n i s ht h i sf i l l r n 2 0 m i n u t e s ,hirdn T , oteven M i k eS h e n k c a n f i l l g r i d si n h i s s l e e p I.
LOt t.

(TUue 3 - COLORFUL BABooN) 4 . ABOVEAVERAGE

(ASPARAGUS, MAC,AO)

5 - AVERAGE(tNN, EcoNoMy) 6 - BELOW AVERAGE fiPS. KNOCKED) 7 - BOR,WG(LATEMLLV ELLS) 8 - FIAWED (You'LL ocr.) 9 - STRETCHING(cowy, affEns) 10 . YUCKY (coWER, AN2A) 1I - SPECIALIZED(ucALEGoN, <obscene>) 12 - VERYYUCKY (BERTL., sHILfA) I usually fill gridsusing onlyentries with a ratingof 9 or better.Foran extremelytough corner,I have occasionally turned on the 10s.I hope neverto be so desperate that I consider usingthe 12s. _E.A.

O v e r t h e y e a r s ,s o m e c r o s s w o r d experts havespeculated that computergrrds filled w o u l db e l i f e l e sa sn d m e c h a n i c a l .I d i s a g r e e d p,o i n t i n g out that my t a s t e r n w o r d sw a s e x q u i s i t e lw velldefrned by the hundreds of thousinds of r a n k i n gd e c i s i o n c so n t a i n e d in my database T. h e c o m p u t e f r i l l sg r i d st h e way that I would if I had the patience (andthe longevity) to examine posevery s i b i l i t yl r o n i c a l l y , e results th aremore "Eric A l b e r t - i s ht" h a n I c o u l de v e rc o m e u p w i t ho n m yo w n . W h e nt h e c o m p u t e h r a sf i l l e da l l o f the sections . y hand. I ,c l u et h e p u z z l eB Someday a computer maybe ableto toss o f f h i p , p u n n y ,h u m a nc l u e s .B u t n o t today,and not tomorrow.For the foreseeable f u t u r e ,H e n r yH o o kw i l l r e m a i n inimitable A.n d t h a t ,a s H e n r y w o u l dp u t i t , i s p r o b a b lly u s ta sw e l l . a n q u i t sj o b t o r a i s e c h i l da n d construct crosswords by comp u t e r . "l t c e r t a i n l s yo u n d s like a great human-interest story.But what's t h e b o t t o m l i n e ?C a n s u c h a c r a z y scheme succeed? So far, l'm happyto say,I havesold e v e r yc o m p u t e r - g e n e r a t e do s s w o r d cr I h a v ec o n s t r u c t e d a. n d t o t h e m o s t respectea dnd highest-payin ga r k e t s . m E a c hm o n t h b r i n g sm o r e r e q u e s t f so r more puzzles. And solvers seempleased w r t hm y w o r k .

W h a t d o e st h e f u t u r eh o l d ?W e l l , y o u c a n b e t t h a t i n t w o w e e k sl ' l l b e starting w o r k o n a n O r n e r yC r o s s w o r d "Crazy called Nines." And,in the long run, I believe computers will playan ever bigger rolein the crossword world. Official Publications, a majorpublisher of newsstanp d u z z l em a g a z i n e s h,a s automated the majority o f t h e i ro p e r a t i o n s ,f r o m g r i d c h e c k i n g t h r o u g ht y p e s e t t i n ga n d p a g el a y o u t T . h e yc a n n o w put someissues together in hoursinstead of days, at a considerably reduced cost. N e w s p a p eE r n t e r p r i sA essocration, one of the nationS largest feature syndicates,distributes a computer-oenerated crossword to hundreds of newsoaoers every day.Forcleverness, theirpuzzle will never setthe world on fire,but the companyhashad few complaints from solvers. And NEA's approach of creating a database of stockclues for the comouter to choose from hasalready beenemulated by at least one largecrossword magazrne company. M o r e c o n s t r u c t o ra sr e a l s og e t t i n g pC on board.Somenow useMel Rosen's p r o g r a m .O t h e r sm a y b e i n t e r e s t e d in CCS("Crossword Construction Set") for the Macintosh, a recent offerinqbv Brran Sheppard. lt has manyof the f6atures of productand can usea 250,000Rosen's entrydatabase to fill grid sections of up to 25 words.Because thisdatabase is not r a n k e df o r q u a l i t y t , h e f i l l r n gp r o c e s s requires the userto make many interact i v ed e c i s i o n s S.t i l l ,C C Ss i g n i f i c a n t l y reduces a constructor5 burden. W i l l c o m p u t e rr puzzle se p l a c e people?Yesand no. Theworkaday construct o r s ,t h o s ew h o g r i n do u t g r i d sp a c k e d with crosswordese, are doomed.My prog r a mc a n a l r e a d f yi l l a g r i d m o r eq u i c k l y a n d m o r es k i l l f u l lty h a nt h e yc a n ,a n df o r pennies a puzzle. Competitive forces will eventually forcethe majority of the newsstandpublishers and syndicates to follow t h e l e a do f O f f i c i a P l ublication as nd Newspaper Enterprise Association. B u ti n t h e u p p e r echelon w , h e r et h e e m p h a s i iss o n a t r i c k yt h e m ea n d a clever c l u e ,m a c h i n e w s i l l h a v ea m u c h s m a l l eirm p a c tC . reativit yi l l k e e pc l a s s y w constructor as h e a do f t h e c o m p u t e f ro r years t o c o m e .M i k eS h e n kM , e r lR e a g l e , yourdayjobs. r Henry Hook:Keep Eric Albert is a frequent contributor to GAMES. PROGRAM NOTES t Mel Rosen's CrosswordPuzzlercosts from Rosen, $150 and is available 11718 Nicklaus C i r c l e ,T a m p a ,F L 3 3 6 2 4 . A demo disk can be purchasedfor gl0. o CCScosts $495 and is availablefrom Alan Richter, 340 Riverside Drive, Apartment3-D,NeW?ork, NY 10025.

Oncel'vechosen the themeentries, I copythem into a blankgrid of the appropriatesize. ThenI add the blacksquares. T h i si sa n e m i n e n t lc yo m p u t e r i z a b le fu nct i o n ,a n d o n e t h a t I h o p et o g e t t o s o o n . N e x t ,I b r e a kt h e g r i d i n t o p i e c e s , since the program i s n o t f a s te n o u g h to

cAMEs

FEBRUAny 1992 l3