CubingHistory.com: Recording the history of the puzzle community

[Athefre]

cubinghistory.com​

Introducing cubinghistory.com!

In 2022 I created the Method Library, a site that describes the history of solving methods. That site has grown a lot since it was first presented and is no longer just about methods. It now includes notation, virtual cube history, and much more was planned. So I decided that it was time to expand it beyond method history and give it a custom domain and a better UI. There are some major new features:

- New narrative presentation. Instead of presenting the history through single line headers, history is described in paragraphs to accompany images.
- Proper references and citations are included on every page. In text citations correspond to a reference at the bottom of the page. The references provide the author's name, where the discussion occurred, dates, and links.
- Pages are now organized with a detailed sidebar. Every topic and sub-topic can be directly jumped to.
- Applets. Many pages include an interactive cube depicting what is being described.

My projects have become voluminous in nature. This one has been a lot of work. It is the result of four years of research and development, along with my own 18 years of knowledge and experience in the community. Please let me know if you have any ideas or have noticed any errors big or small. Let me know what you would like to see from cubinghistory.com. Some of the plans include:

- Significant competitions.
- World records.
- Interesting older videos.
- Software.
- Hardware.
- New interviews with community members.
- Profiles of significant contributors to the community.
- Archive websites and information that can no longer be maintained.
- Methods for all puzzles.
- Solving robots.

I have put a lot of effort into this website. I'm hoping that the entire community will become aware of this resource. Though I wonder if the historical information that was unknown before the existence of the site will become so commonly known that it will be assumed that the site was just a collection of information taken from others and not the original source of the research. This isn't just a collection of well known facts. It is research uncovering the origins that are currently unknown or unrecorded.

Thanks to err0rcuber for helping me get the site set up and for other technical things such as adding AnimCubeJS to the site so that applets can be included. The site wouldn't look as good as it does without err0r's help. Also thanks to bcube and all developers involved with AnimCube. Finally, I wouldn't have been able to obtain some of the information without the help of others such as Georges Helm, Ron van Bruchem, Guus Razoux Schultz, and Gilles Roux. Each person who has provided substantial information is credited on the site.

 

[Curunír]

cubinghistory.com​

Introducing cubinghistory.com!

In 2022 I created the Method Library, a site that describes the history of solving methods. That site has grown a lot since it was first presented and is no longer just about methods. It now includes notation, virtual cube history, and much more was planned. So I decided that it was time to expand it beyond method history and give it a custom domain and a better UI. There are some major new features:

- New narrative presentation. Instead of presenting the history through single line headers, history is described in paragraphs to accompany images.
- Proper references and citations are included on every page. In text citations correspond to a reference at the bottom of the page. The references provide the author's name, where the discussion occurred, dates, and links.
- Pages are now organized with a detailed sidebar. Every topic and sub-topic can be directly jumped to.
- Applets. Many pages include an interactive cube depicting what is being described.

My projects have become voluminous in nature. This one has been a lot of work. It is the result of four years of research and development, along with my own 18 years of knowledge and experience in the community. Please let me know if you have any ideas or have noticed any errors big or small. Let me know what you would like to see from cubinghistory.com. Some of the plans include:

- Significant competitions.
- World records.
- Interesting older videos.
- Software.
- Hardware.
- New interviews with community members.
- Profiles of significant contributors to the community.
- Archive websites and information that can no longer be maintained.
- Methods for all puzzles.
- Solving robots.

I have put a lot of effort into this website. I'm hoping that the entire community will become aware of this resource. Though I wonder if the historical information that was unknown before the existence of the site will become so commonly known that it will be assumed that the site was just a collection of information taken from others and not the original source of the research. This isn't just a collection of well known facts. It is research uncovering the origins that are currently unknown or unrecorded.

Thanks to err0rcuber for helping me get the site set up and for other technical things such as adding AnimCubeJS to the site so that applets can be included. The site wouldn't look as good as it does without err0r's help. Also thanks to bcube and all developers involved with AnimCube. Finally, I wouldn't have been able to obtain some of the information without the help of others such as Georges Helm, Ron van Bruchem, Guus Razoux Schultz, and Gilles Roux. Each person who has provided substantial information is credited on the site.

great website It is very informative.
just one question will you be adding Blind methods like Old Pochman, TuRBo, Orozco and 3-style just to name a few to 3x3 methods or will they be in a separate section

 

[abunickabhi]

I learnt a lot from the research you presented on this site.

I really liked the outline and interactive interface to present snippets of info.

Good work yo! I hope many cubers see this site and appreciate and learn new historical information.

I love the contributions you have done for the community especially with the method development and method dev competitions.

 

[Athefre]

great website It is very informative.
just one question will you be adding Blind methods like Old Pochman, TuRBo, Orozco and 3-style just to name a few to 3x3 methods or will they be in a separate section

Blind methods will likely go in their own section under 3x3. It is a separate style of solving, so it's probably best to have them separated. I think it would also be easier for viewers of the site, who would probably prefer the simplicity of a separate section.

 

[abunickabhi]

great website It is very informative.
just one question will you be adding Blind methods like Old Pochman, TuRBo, Orozco and 3-style just to name a few to 3x3 methods or will they be in a separate section

Yes I would love if blind is included as well, with all the future algsets currently in development,

like full LTCT, LTEF, floating 2e2e, 2e4c parity, T2C, UF5.

The technical knowledge in the blind community has grown a lot recently.

 

[Athefre]

Yes I would love if blind is included as well, with all the future algsets currently in development,

like full LTCT, LTEF, floating 2e2e, 2e4c parity, T2C, UF5.

The technical knowledge in the blind community has grown a lot recently.

Send me all resources that you can in a private message. Links, documents, communities, etc. This will help cut down on the amount of research. I will then credit you for providing resources.

 

[bldcuber314]

cubinghistory.com​

Introducing cubinghistory.com!

In 2022 I created the Method Library, a site that describes the history of solving methods. That site has grown a lot since it was first presented and is no longer just about methods. It now includes notation, virtual cube history, and much more was planned. So I decided that it was time to expand it beyond method history and give it a custom domain and a better UI. There are some major new features:

- New narrative presentation. Instead of presenting the history through single line headers, history is described in paragraphs to accompany images.
- Proper references and citations are included on every page. In text citations correspond to a reference at the bottom of the page. The references provide the author's name, where the discussion occurred, dates, and links.
- Pages are now organized with a detailed sidebar. Every topic and sub-topic can be directly jumped to.
- Applets. Many pages include an interactive cube depicting what is being described.

My projects have become voluminous in nature. This one has been a lot of work. It is the result of four years of research and development, along with my own 18 years of knowledge and experience in the community. Please let me know if you have any ideas or have noticed any errors big or small. Let me know what you would like to see from cubinghistory.com. Some of the plans include:

- Significant competitions.
- World records.
- Interesting older videos.
- Software.
- Hardware.
- New interviews with community members.
- Profiles of significant contributors to the community.
- Archive websites and information that can no longer be maintained.
- Methods for all puzzles.
- Solving robots.

I have put a lot of effort into this website. I'm hoping that the entire community will become aware of this resource. Though I wonder if the historical information that was unknown before the existence of the site will become so commonly known that it will be assumed that the site was just a collection of information taken from others and not the original source of the research. This isn't just a collection of well known facts. It is research uncovering the origins that are currently unknown or unrecorded.

Thanks to err0rcuber for helping me get the site set up and for other technical things such as adding AnimCubeJS to the site so that applets can be included. The site wouldn't look as good as it does without err0r's help. Also thanks to bcube and all developers involved with AnimCube. Finally, I wouldn't have been able to obtain some of the information without the help of others such as Georges Helm, Ron van Bruchem, Guus Razoux Schultz, and Gilles Roux. Each person who has provided substantial information is credited on the site.

Great website! I'm assuming you'll add more on different puzzles?

 

[HK-Speedcube]

Great site, the UI is cool!

 

[Athefre]

Great website! I'm assuming you'll add more on different puzzles?

Yes. Methods, notation, hardware, and other categories for other puzzles are planned.

 

[Misdrop]

Awesome website! I love looking at snapshots of cubing history, I feel like it is underappreciated. Looking through websites like this and ones like the cube lover's archive (which I saw referenced a few times) are so cool to get a sense of how we got here.

 

[Athefre]

I wrote a page on the history of the Rubik's Cube itself. It covers some puzzles and 3D twisty puzzle patents before Rubik's Cube and the idea, design, and patent of Rubik's Cube.

Rubik's Cube History | Cubing History

Pre Rubik's Cube

www.cubinghistory.com

 

[Athefre]

Pages on world records have been added. This includes the history of 3x3 2H single solve world records and 3x3 2H average world records. A page on the history of the WCA has also been added.

These pages were probably the most requested. Let me know of any errors or relevant additions. Additional videos and reconstructions for some records would also be nice to eventually find if they exist.

World Record Singles (2H)
World Record Averages (2H)
World Cube Association

 

[OtaMota]

"The length that the world record stood might can be attributed largely to the impact of COVID on the number of competitions held. "

 

[Athefre]

"The length that the world record stood might can be attributed largely to the impact of COVID on the number of competitions held. "

This could be the Southern American in me, but that sounds like normal language. I'll update if it looks bad to others.

 

[Fred]

This could be the Southern American in me, but that sounds like normal language. I'll update if it looks bad to others.

I'm Southern American too, and that's fixing to be getting ready to be too many helping verbs at once. (Translation: My vote is to change it.)

 

[Athefre]

I'm Southern American too, and that's fixing to be getting ready to be too many helping verbs at once. (Translation: My vote is to change it.)

lol. Updated.

 

[bcube]

Let me know of any errors or relevant additions.

If you are taking tips for improvement, here are mines. Feel free to disregard all of them if you don´t like them as those are just my personal preferences.

1. for mobile users, tapping on buttons might be a bit difficult - use the buttonheight parameter to increase the height of buttons for more comfortable tappings. Feel free to increase text size (the textsize parameter) as well.
2. for users not familiarized with the simulator, use the butbgcolor to let them know (by a distinct color) buttons are clickable - although the default color of buttons is also fine in my opinion
3. use the same color scheme as the solver (maybe you already checked this? I think some especially Asian cubers were known for using white opposite blue)
4. provide scrambles - they could be written as text on your page, linked to WCA page from your page or written as text comment directly in the simulator
5. similar to the previous step, use text comment to indicate at which step the solver is (like Inspection, Xcross, EOLine, OLLCP, CMLL or ZBLL). Some users could be interested in the cube being used or some statistics like TPS
6. I don´t really know what is the preffered metric for speedcubers - if it is STM, switch to STM
7. if you are showing hint stickers, why not to show them all in 1 look?
8. aside from "viewers", some users might be "players" - they might want to play with a scramble, try a different algorithm than the solver one´s etc. For "players", unless you want to simulate lock ups, consider the snap=1 setting - "viewers" won´t see the difference, for "players" the simulator will be more user friendly I would say
9. although not mandatory for you at all, if you are going to have tens, hundreads or thousands ACJS simulators on your website, I would highly recommend using the config parameter for easier maintainance (see e.g. how Josef was using 3 configuration files on his site containing 250+ simulators)

An extreme/speedsolving idea I actually don´t like (listing it here as an concept):

• use roughly the same animation speed as the solver - would be too fast to follow for non-cubers, plus text comments would not be easily readable unless single-stepping forward

Example for Erik´s 7.08 (watch till the end to see text comments):

 

[Christopher Mowla]

Not sure how this can be fit in, but one of the main reasons the 4x4x4 parity algorithms speedsolving wiki page exists (doesn't just consist of a short list of algorithms like Lucas' Parity, 2 PLL parity algs, etc.) is to preserve that part of cubing history (roughly the time period from 2004 - 2012 . . . what I call "The Golden Era" of 4x4x4 parity algorithm exploration.)

For example,

• I provided external links the right-most cell of some of the "algorithm bars"/rows which brings up a post where the algorithm was first published on the web (which also gives the context / reason for the algorithm, what methods it can be used in, etc.)
• In the External links section, I have some web-captured some Yahoo Groups cubing pages that have now been deleted from the web. (Lost forever, should I have not captured the pages before Yahoo Groups was taken down by Yahoo.)

(This project of yours is a noble one, but if you didn't back up other Yahoo Groups pages before they were deleted, there is a big chunk of that cubing generation's history that has been lost. Some of the pages which began what we now know as the online cubing community have been lost forever!)

 

[Spencer131]

very cool site!

one thing I would question is saying that Iuri Grangeiro invented EOLR for Roux. I don't think anyone really "invented" it. many rouxers were doing it intuitively before there was a name for it

to give a cfop analogy, it's like saying that one person invented the concept of influencing EO during last slot

maybe a certain person coined the term, but not the concept

 

[Christopher Mowla]

virtual cube history​

Rubix may be one that most people don't know of. (Gabbasoft and ultimate magic cube were the popular ones.)

This is a neat little program called Rubix, designed and programmed by Ken Silverman in 2007, which simulates and, with a custom solver written by Ben Jos Walbeehm, solves Rubik's Cubes from size 2x2x2 to 64x64x64.