In which decade did you first start cubing?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Owen
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Which decade?

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    213
The lack of 90s cubers is interesting. I guess those years were the "dark ages" between the 80s cube fad, and the 2000s resurgence.
 
Um, I think like 1 and a half to 2 years ago or something like that. I don't keep track of that kind of stuff. I'm just one of those people. ;)
 
Gee wizz I'm part of an exclusive club apparently.

cmhardw said:
There are many more of us 90s cubers, but I guess not many are active on this forum anymore :(

--edit--
Dene I didn't know you started in the 90s! Very cool!
Click to expand...

I took the title of the thread to mean when one learnt to solve the cube (I guess that includes continuing to solve it, rather than doing it once and never again). In this case, I learnt to solve the cube when I was quite young, somewhere around the 8-12 year old mark. It was definitely while I was in primary school, which I finished in 1999. Although it would be a stretch to call me a speedcuber, I did time myself, and try to get faster, although I was taking 3 minutes or more.

I never forgot how to solve the cube, but I did go for long periods without touching one. I didn't start properly speedcubing until 2007.
 
i started in 2012.
i have a question for any of the cubers who started in the 90s, 80s, or even 70s. what was speed cubing like? specifically, how were competitions run, how were they organized, what were the rules, and how often they were held? Also what was the comunity like? was it anything like what we have now, or was it just the sort of thing where you could solve it but didnt have much contact with other cubers?
 
Ross The Boss said:
i started in 2012.
i have a question for any of the cubers who started in the 90s, 80s, or even 70s. what was speed cubing like? specifically, how were competitions run, how were they organized, what were the rules, and how often they were held? Also what was the comunity like? was it anything like what we have now, or was it just the sort of thing where you could solve it but didnt have much contact with other cubers?
Click to expand...

I started in the 80's when it was just coming out and everyone was doing it for fun. It was a fad.

I can't speak about competitions because there were none where I grew up. And there also was no Internet to speak of. At least not to the general public.

That said I don't really know of any communities where everyone sat around talking about methods, algorithms, and any other common interests associated with twisty puzzles.
 
Ross The Boss said:
i started in 2012.
i have a question for any of the cubers who started in the 90s, 80s, or even 70s. what was speed cubing like? specifically, how were competitions run, how were they organized, what were the rules, and how often they were held? Also what was the comunity like? was it anything like what we have now, or was it just the sort of thing where you could solve it but didnt have much contact with other cubers?
Click to expand...

I never knew about the competitions. I now know from reading Fridrich's descriptions that there were a number of local competitions before the world championship, but that was in Europe. I have no idea whether such happened in the USA or not.

When I started solving in 1981, a friend of mine in our college dorm got interested at the same time - Tom Fariss. We were originally both racing to be the first to figure out how to solve it. I think I remember that I was the first of us to get there, although I'm not positive about that - I think he figured out how shortly afterwards. We talked about our strategies some, but we didn't really work together to figure it out - we both wanted to figure it out independently. Once I got it solved, I immediately wanted to solve it faster. 3 minutes seemed impossibly fast, though, so I guess I was satisfied when I got there.

A year or two after that, people started "publishing" booklets on the cube (with Xerox machines), giving method ideas and algorithms. I remember I bought one such booklet that had a good couple hundred algorithms in it; I wish I knew where that book was. I used that to replace some of my algorithms and I think I remember getting down to about 2:30 with that change (still solving corners first). I don't remember how I found the book - maybe Omni magazine or something?

Interesting story: I was at WC this year wearing my Team USA jacket with "Hughey" on the back, and a guy walked up to me from behind and put his hand on my shoulder and asked, "Excuse me, but do you have a dad named Mike who went to William and Mary for college?" I turned around and was shocked to discover that the guy looked a lot like my friend from college, Tom Fariss. (Especially in that I was looking up at him - he's well over 6 feet tall.) Sure enough - it was him! I haven't seen him since probably 1983. He had brought his son, Mitchell Fariss, who had a 16.45 average in the first round. Now that was an extreme "small world" moment!
 
Stefan said:
Was he serious about the "dad" part?
Click to expand...

Actually, yes he was! I felt really good about it, but I realized that he saw me from behind and that everyone else wearing a jacket like that was more than 20 years younger, so I suspect he made the assumption without thinking about it very much. So I probably shouldn't feel quite as good about it as I did. :)
 
Mike Hughey said:
Interesting story: I was at WC this year wearing my Team USA jacket with "Hughey" on the back, and a guy walked up to me from behind and put his hand on my shoulder and asked, "Excuse me, but do you have a dad named Mike who went to William and Mary for college?" I turned around and was shocked to discover that the guy looked a lot like my friend from college, Tom Fariss. (Especially in that I was looking up at him - he's well over 6 feet tall.) Sure enough - it was him! I haven't seen him since probably 1983. He had brought his son, Mitchell Fariss, who had a 16.45 average in the first round. Now that was an extreme "small world" moment!
Click to expand...
I love it! Thanks for sharing this account. Very interesting indeed.

I started in the 80's and still have several books I bought to learn how. Notes on Rubik's Magic Cube by David Singmaster, The Simple Solution to Rubik's Cube by James G. Nourse, and Solve that Crazy Mixed-up Cube Puzzle by Don Frederick.

I also lost interest in the 80's and did not get back in until 2007. With all the different shapes and sizes of twisty puzzles now I think I am hooked for life.
 
Stefan said:
There's a bit of history on Ton's page here, particularly check the PDFs at the bottom:
http://www.speedcubing.com/ton/ArtofSpeedcubing.html

Also, CFF/NKC have existed for a long time:
http://cff.helm.lu/

As well as Cube Lovers:
http://www.math.rwth-aachen.de/~Martin.Schoenert/Cube-Lovers/

And Cubic Circular in the early 80s:
http://www.jaapsch.net/puzzles/cubic1.htm
Click to expand...
Of these 4 links 3 seem to be working, but the speedcubing.com link keeps giving me the message "The server at www.speedcubing.com is taking too long to respond." Anyone know why, and if it will be back in operation any time soon?
 
I have been buying old early 1980's how to solve the Rubik's cube books on Ebay since 2009.

Here is the book I've got:

The Simple Solution To Rubik's Cube - James G. Nourse

You Can Do The Cube - Patrick Bossert

Uses alot of two and three cycle algorithms.

Cube Games (92 Puzzles & Solurtions) - Don Taylor & Leanne Rylands

Here is a rare case of a female cuber who co-authored a book.

Mastering Rubik's cube - Don Taylor

This is one of the two books my parents brought me in 1981. I brought this on on Ebay in May 2009 to finally solve a 3x3x3 cube.
I still use most of the algorithms in that book when solving NxNXN cubes and cuboids. Has a H-Perm that is slow on a 3x3x3 but
is really good on big cubes as it does not need slice moves and only has 90 degree turns on the U and D layers.

R2 L2 D R2 L2 U2 R2 L2 D R2 L2

Conquer The Cube In 45 Seconds - Jeffrey Varasano

Conquer That Cube - Czes Kosniowski

The method used in this book is almost CFOP, but more like Dan Brown's method.

And one printed in 2008:

Speedsolving The Cube - Dan Harris

And another one from the early 1980's that my parents brought me which I can't find anywhere:

The Dick Smith Method - Dick Smith (Yes, that Dick Smith in Australia who did aviation exploits!)
 
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