>                                                                  I
 > regret not having a videotape of Bernie solving the cube in, say, 1978.
 > (I hope I've got the year right.)
I think it must be later.  The cube was put on the market in Hungary in 1977
and first exported in 1980.  Although earlier examples were privately
exported I presume.

> While I'm reminiscing, I should confess that my standard corner operator
> is still the same as it was then: (FUR)^5, which exchanges two corners,
> leaves the rest of the corners alone, and fucks the edges completely.
Happens to me also. I still use operators I found myself in favour of
(shorter) processes found later in books. I remember them better!

> I'm interested in hearing other reminiscences from people who actually
> solved the cube -- you're disqualified if you learned how to solve it
> from somebody else, or from a book.
I got one for my birthday in 1981 (yes, I was late). By the end of the party
it was completely scrambled. One long night and a long day afterwards had me
solve the cube. Although at that moment I had not completely lined up
procedures to do it. Later I more or less procedurized it.

Much stranger was my first encounter with Square 1. As all puzzles it was
scrambled within minutes after I brought it home. I tried to solve it, but
for some reason I did not yet see how to bring it back in the shape of a cube.
The next day when I came home from work it was in the shape of a cube. It
appears that my 8 year old daughter had done that! Solving the remainder was
fairly simple.

dik
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland
dik@cwi.nl