What's New -  January, 2008

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January 28, 2008: We're still playing catch up from the holidays.  Here's an update for our Roll Call Solitaire simulation program.  Roll Call is a simple solitaire card game where you pass through the deck  counting from 1 to 13 repeatedly as you turn each card and removing cards that match your count.  Passing through the deck without removing a card counts as a "strike" You lose with 2 or 3 consecutive strikes, Today's update answers some (but not all) questions about zero-strike games and the distribution of strike counts for winning games. 

January 26, 2008:  The Turbo Delphi investigation study continues with the posting today of a Spinedit Replacement Demo   program which defines (and tests) a TDFFSpinEdit class which replaces TSpinEdit.  (TSpinEdit is not available in Turbo Delphi.)   

January 24, 2008:  I updated the Delphi Version Testing page today to include the conditional defines for recent version numbers.   This is to allow some compatibility when compiling the program used for testing a new replacement class for TSpinEdit.  I have used TSpinedit in many programs on DFF but it is not included in Turbo Delphi Explorer L.  But I'll be posting a replacement soon J.   

January 23. 2008:  I've stayed  busy this week playing with Turbo Delphi Explorer, a free version of Delphi 2006 (Delphi 10 if the numbering system hadn't been revised).  See  the Turbo Delphi site for more information.   I'm looking at what problems and advantages would follow from making it the standard compiler for DFF to finally replace Delphi Version 5.  More on that topic in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, a user question about right aligning text in our TPrintPreview class led me to today's update for programmers which adds some margin control.  PrintPreviewDemo illustrates the changes.  There's lots more that could be dome here,  but today's posting is a definite improvement over last year's version. 

January 16, 2008:  Version 3 of our Age Problem Solver can now handle the latest twist from our 2008 Mensa Brain Puzzlers Page-A-Day Puzzle Calendar about Nick and his unnamed grandfather.   Since we need names as the variables for age in the equations we build, "grandfather" is now recognized and named "Grandfather".  The logic applies to some other relatives as well, so we can now solve problems involving "father", "mother" and "grandma" as well.   

January 11, 2008: A new version of the game of Go (Version 3)  was posted today.  It corrects an error in diagnosing "Ko", a situation in which a board position is would be repeated if player B were to to replace a stone removed by player A.   Go is a 3000 year-old simple but complex game with its origins in the orient and still most popular there.

January 6, 2008:  Happy new year!  Except for the stock market and the 5 pounds I have to lose again due to all of the holiday goodies, things are going well.   I have a few program fixes, suggestions, and enhancements emailed by viewers over the holidays that I'll get to review in the coming days. 

The one that caught my interest enough to jump to the top of the list was this:

My local bar has a game. 5 dice in a cup. You have to roll 5 Two's in two shakes and you can "farm". i.e. Roll the first time, save any two's, pick up the remaining dice and roll them.  What are the odds that five two's will be rolled this way? The bet is $2 and the pot is currently over $2,800.00.  Just curious. Thanks.

Dice Chance of 5 Twos answers the question in a few different ways.  I didn't put it in the Math Topics section of DFF, but probably should have.   I told Cliff that I would split the winnings with him when he hits!