Technique pushed in 1981?

[Batjac]

Old guy returning here. I picked up a cube off of Amazon last week to get back into cubing after a 40 absence. Mostly to work on my dexterity. I realized that I can't solve the darn thing after 40 years away, so I looked online for tutorials. Seems like the 'daisy' method is the most popular one. Sorry, I don't know the actual name for this method.

I bought a cube back in 1981 as a young sailor visiting SeaWorld. Since Rubik's Cubes were the new 'thing' back then, the gift shop had a bunch of them so I grabbed one. It also either came with a booklet or I bought a booklet on how to solve the cube. I don't know what the method the booklet taught was called, but it was not the 'daisy' method. Looking around, the closest thing that I can find to what I remember is the Petrus method. Does anyone know what the prevailing method back in '81 that would have been in my booklet might have been?

Mark

 

[Thom S.]

Have you checked for Corners-First?
It was popular in the sense that many booklets taught a variant of it.

 

[abunickabhi]

Checkout Waterman method. It was popular corners first method before Fridrich and Petrus methods became mainstream.

 

[UnknownCorrespondent]

Welcome to the forum. I first learned in 1982, then forgot about it for 35 years before starting over.

The "Daisy" is one of many beginners' methods. These can act as stepping stones into CFOP, the most common modern speed method. If you want to get fast, you should probably start out that way. I found that I would never be fast, so I gravitated back to Corner's First. This is a good site for it. It also has an extensive section on Waterman, but that was too involved for me. My preferred method is a simplification of the Ortega method on Jelinek's site. I solve all 8 of the outer layer edges by keyholing (the method described for the first six edges, although I solve to L&R instead of U&D, and solve them two at a time). This removes the need for the a) and b) alg sets, leaving only the 3 algs of c). This is not a fast method, but I find it very satisfying.

 

[efattah]

Waterman didn't exist in 1981. In '81, there were only 3 methods in general publications. The first solved the entire top slice, then the bottom corners, then all the edges at random. The next solved all the corners, then the edges. The final method in 'Simple Solution to the Rubik's Cube' solved the top layer, then the middle layer, then the bottom corners, and finally the bottom edges.

 

[artless1der]

Waterman didn't exist in 1981. In '81, there were only 3 methods in general publications. The first solved the entire top slice, then the bottom corners, then all the edges at random. The next solved all the corners, then the edges. The final method in 'Simple Solution to the Rubik's Cube' solved the top layer, then the middle layer, then the bottom corners, and finally the bottom edges.

that sounds like Upside-Down Roux

 

[Athefre]

Waterman didn't exist in 1981. In '81, there were only 3 methods in general publications. The first solved the entire top slice, then the bottom corners, then all the edges at random. The next solved all the corners, then the edges. The final method in 'Simple Solution to the Rubik's Cube' solved the top layer, then the middle layer, then the bottom corners, and finally the bottom edges.

Waterman is from 1981 and there were more methods than that during that year. Corners First, Layer By Layer, Edges First, Petrus, etc.

Method Library - Method Timeline

3x3x3 Method Timeline

sites.google.com

 

[efattah]

While an extremely simplistic version of Waterman might have existed in 1981, the real method was not published until later in the 1980's and there is no possible way any person in North America could have generally known about Waterman in 1981.
Besides, the method that I 'invented' to solve the cube in 1981 was the same as Waterman exactly, but I also did not 'publish' it, so it is possible that others invented it at the same time, but I never saw it published in any open form and I was aware of all the cubing publications in North America in the early 1980's.

 

[efattah]

Just to be clear today when people say 'Waterman' they are talking about the method that has 300+ algorithms. Solving one face minus one edge, then the corners, then using keyhole to solve L/R edges, then solving the M-slice; many of us 'invented' that method, that requires only around 20 algorithms. Where Waterman destroyed everyone was algorithms that performed more in one step, or solved several things per alg, hence the 300+ algorithms. And no Waterman with 300 algorithms existed in 1981.