A BRIEF HISTORY OF SCRABBLE ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ i The Scrabble (tm) Word Game The Scrabble (tm) word game has its origins in the depths of the Great Depression. Alfred Butts, an unemployed architect in upstate New York, had time on his hands. It was 1931, and his career prospects were understandably dim. What better thing to do than to try to invent a new board game? Butts attempted to combine the elements of anagramming and crossword puzzle solving in his new game. Skill would predominate, but random chance would also play a part. He called it Criss Cross. Butts made Criss Cross sets by hand for friends, who received it with enthusiasm, and sent samples to game manufacturers, who ignored it. By then architects were again in demand, and he returned to the practice of his profession. By 1948, Butts was willing to give up manufacturing rights to family friends, James Brunot and his wife. The Brunots revised the game and changed its name to the now familiar Scrabble (tm). The game's popularity grew steadily over the next few years, but it was still not a money maker. Finally, Brunot managed to consign some sets to the Macy's department store in 1952. Macy's featured the game and the orders began to pour in. Brunot's small company could no longer keep up with the demand and he assigned marketing and distribution rights to the Selchow and Righter Company. During the 1950's, Scrabble (tm) became a national mania, being featured in the media and becoming the family game of choice. Its popularity continued on a gradual upward curve into the '60's and '70's. The last decade has seen something of a decline in Scrabble's (tm) fortunes as the younger generation has taken to video and computer games. Scrabble (tm) remains, however, the premier board game, a synergistic blend of letter pattern combinations and geometric abstraction. It is about building words from random letter combinations, bringing forth order from chaos, and it is about conquering time and space. It is one of those rare games that allows its players to take part in a magic ritual for just a little while. If all the conditions are right, it can be a mystic experience. A few years ago, Selchow and Righter sold all rights to Scrabble (tm) and derivative products to Coleco. Coleco went bankrupt shortly afterwards (though not as a result of Scrabble (tm), which continued to sell steadily). Milton Bradley, a subsidiary of Hasbro, acquired the rights and still owns them to this day. Milton Bradley is making some efforts to revive the popularity of the game, and is attempting to introduce it into schools as an educational device. The large cash prizes at national tournaments ($50,000 at the Las Vegas nationals) that generated notice in the news media were put up by Milton Bradley. There are a few tens of thousands of "serious" players, that is, NSA members and tournament participants. The popular base of Scrabble (tm) is the several million occasional and casual players. It remains to be seen whether a) the number of casual players will increase, and b) the migration of casual players to serious players can be encouraged. The 3rd edition of the OSPD (tm) is valid for play as of the beginning of February, 1996. There has also been an expurgated edition released, missing all those nasty words and insults, but all the expurgated words will still be valid in competitive tournament play. The file OSPD.NEW contains the words newly added to the 3rd edition. ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ ii Computer Versions of Scrabble (tm) The first generation of personal computers was scarcely powerful enough to support as complex a game as Scrabble (tm). The Commodore Pet, TRS-80 Model I, OSI Challenger, and early Apple II typically had between 4K and 16K of memory, cassette tape storage, and limited graphics. The main programming language available, BASIC, was hardly suitable for anything but fairly simple games. This was to change quickly. In its April 1980 issue, CREATIVE COMPUTING magazine published a listing of "Perquackey" written in DISK BASIC for the TRS-80 Model I, by David E. Powers. The game had much of the feel of Scrabble (tm) and hinted at greater possibilities. This version of computer Perquackey was very playable and did not produce boredom unless played to excess (more than 5 hours at a time). In its December 1981 issue, BYTE Magazine featured a version of Scrabble (tm) written by Joseph Roehrig in generic MBASIC in the annual games award issue. After spending many hours typing in the long listing into my 16K "Trash 80", I was rewarded with a very crude and slow simulation of what I barely recognized as Scrabble (tm). Disappointing. The big breakthrough came in May of 1981. Personal Software Inc. released Monty Plays Scrabble (r) for the disk-based 48K Apple II. The graphics were low resolution (it did *not* use the Apple's hires mode and it was actually necessary to keep track of play on a game board), the game played s-l-o-w at the higher levels, and that little disk drive kept grinding away as "Monty" looked up words to play. All the same, "Monty" played a remarkably strong game, averaging about 350 points per game at the top level and scoring about a Bingo per game. This was an astonishing achievement for that generation of computer hardware. Sadly, the handheld electronic version of "Monty" was a disappointing failure. The advent of the more powerful IBM PC brought more sophistication to games. Virgin Games brought out its version of Scrabble (tm) in the late '80's. It played almost as strong a game as "Monty", and the graphics were somewhat better. Around 1990, Virgin Games released Deluxe Scrabble (tm), for PC compatibles with hard drive, mouse, and a VGA monitor. The graphics were greatly improved, the game play was strong, averaging maybe 380 points per game, and the game playing interface the best so far. After 10 years, Monty was finally beaten. Virgin Games Deluxe Scrabble (tm), was issued on CD ROM, and cost in the neighborhood of $35 (discounted considerably at computer flea markets, if you can still find it). It provides good practice for game play against humans, especially in its timed mode. It has many extra options and features as a bonus. The word list is only OSPD1 compatible with about 200 errors in it. No longer available at retail. In late 1987, Vic Rice wrote a freeware Scrabble (tm) program using EGA graphics. It is difficult to set it up to run on newer computers with extended memory, but it plays an interesting game. No current address for him is available (his Seabrook, Texas address is no longer valid). In early 1988, Chris Hall, now of Irving, Texas programmed a simple version of Scrabble (tm) and released it as freeware. It allows human players to use the computer as a surrogate for the game board and pieces when competing against each other. There is *no* computer opponent. This is an interesting and useful program. It may still be available for download from some BBS's. Chris also has produced a Scrabble (tm) door for BBS's. Chris Hall's address is: PO Box 165507 Irving, TX 75016-5507 e-mail: chall@computek.net There is a very good shareware version of Scrabble (tm) available, called Scramble. It can be downloaded from many BBS's and is offered by some shareware distributors. Scramble has a very intuitive player interface, superior even to that of Virgin Games' commercial version. The graphics are only adequate, its dictionary is very limited, and important features such as a save-game option and a game timer are missing. Still, at $15 to register it is a bargain and highly recommended. Scramble may be ordered directly from: Diana Gruber Ted Gruber Software PO Box 13408 Las Vegas, NV 89112. Scrabell is a simple but elegant freeware version of Scrabble (tm). No computer opponent is provided, though there is a word check against the supplied 35,000 word dictionary. The VGA graphics are adequate, actually very similar to Scramble, above, as is the mouse interface. The entire game requires only 400K of drive space so it is eminently suitable for older systems or laptops. The author will accept, but does not require, a $5.00 contribution. An enhanced, Windows compatible version is reportedly forthcoming. John M. Sharpe 9502 N. 15th Ave., #224 Phoenix, AZ 85021 E-mail: jmsharpe@aol.com An excellent shareware Scrabble (tm) game, for Windows users, is Scrabout, by Lance Frohman. It carries a low $10 registration, and Lance will supply extra dictionaries, including foreign language ones, to registered users. You can download the beta-test version 2 of Scrabout from his Web page. Version 2 now allows play by modem over the Internet. Lance Frohman 2035 Filbert St., #2 San Francisco, CA 94123-3539 E-mail: lfrohman@sirius.com Web: http://www.sirius.com/~lfrohman/sharware.html Tim & Glo's Scrabble (tm) Parlor offers IRC and chat support for Scrabout at the website http://www.concentric.net/~tjdavis. For all you UNIX devotees and programmers, there is James Cherry's freeware UNIX SCRABBLE. It is supplied as a half meg "tarred" file at the ftp site ftp.doe.carleton.ca in the /pub/scrabble directory. This one is not for the faint of heart. The source code in C is supplied, and it compiles without problems using gcc under Linux. Plays a quick and very strong game using a supplied OSPD2-compatible 87,995 word dictionary (substituting your own dictionary is not too difficult, and an OSPD3-compatible dictionary for this game is available from M\Cooper, see below). If only it had graphics and a nicer user interface (running under X maybe), it would be s-l-i-c-k. Then there is Wordsworth. This shareware game is a mind-blowing new approach to computer Scrabble (tm). It eliminates the some of the limitations in classic Scrabble (tm) by allowing the player to configure the shape of the board and even to choose the letter distribution. The graphics in the highest resolution mode are a bit hard on the eyes and the dictionary could be larger (15,000 words in the unregistered version, only 65,000 in the registered), but all the same this is a noble attempt to breathe some life back into this venerable game. Also has a number of subsidiary anagram and pattern matching utilities. Highly recommended, even if a bit pricey. Costs $25 U.S. (75 Rand South African) to register. May be ordered directly from: Graham Wheeler P.O. Box 6680 Roggebaai Capetown 8012 South Africa ============== Email: gram@oms.co.za The strongest commercial version of Scrabble (tm) is reputed to be CrossWise. It costs $35 + shipping and is available from Cygnus Cybernetics, 2013 Weathertop, Ft. Collins, CO 80526. Runs on PC Compatibles only and is copy protected (boo). ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ Scrabble and OSPD are trademarks of the Milton Bradley Co., Inc. Monty Plays Scrabble was trademarked and copyrighted by Personal Software. ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ Comments: M\Cooper PO Box 237 St. David, AZ 85630-0237 ------------------------------------------------ E-mail: thegrendel@theriver.com Web: http://personal.riverusers.com/~thegrendel/