Twisty Puzzles... Then vs. Now...?

unirox13

unirox13

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How old were you when Erno Rubik's amazing 3x3 product was first placed on store shelves in 1977? How old were you when the first 3x3 Rubik's Cube World's Record time of 22.95 seconds was set in 1982? How old were you when someone (Péter Sebestény) said, "Hey! We can add a layer to this and make it even more confusing!" What do you know the 4x4 was created!

All I'm saying, my friends, both young and old, this little toy that we all take for granted now, seemed to be a magic trick about 45 years ago! If someone could pick this Grandma's countertop decoration up and put it back together... They were a wizard! Now, we can all solve it, quite well.

The twisty puzzle community has grown, everything about that original puzzle has grown and it's pretty amazing. Also, let's face it, most of you reading this weren't even born yet during those two things that I mentioned.

Post your favorite puzzle memories... new unique puzzles... or just answer my questions for the fun of it lol. Mod's please prevent the stupid 1x1 and I was a s***m type of comments that prevent this post from being entertaining and fun to add to.
 
I was 12 in '77! I remember very well the 'cube' coming out. I could do first two layers on my own, but needed to be shown the last layer.
The person who showed me a last layer method was one of what must be a very small number of people that actually figured out the solution moves, without any instruction. Thanks Bob.
After a long break from cubing, I got back into cubing 2015 and have been regularly practicing/solving since.
I'm not that fast, but still really enjoy cubing.
 
I guess I should answer my own questions lol. I was born in 1989, so the puzzle fad had kind of passed. I knew of the puzzle as I was growing up, but had never had my hands on one. When I was around 16 or 17 years old a week long trip to the beach got rained out by a hurricane moving up the coast. Because we were stuck in the hotel room without much to do, we made a trip to Barnes and Noble. I'm not much of a reader, so I was browsing the puzzle section of the store and came across a Rubik's 3x3 that came with a tutorial for beginners. I figured I'd learn something new while stuck in the hotel. After learning to solve that puzzle, I was hooked, even more so once I did a little bit of research and discovered how big the puzzle community was. After focusing on speedsolving for a few years I started to explore the non-WCA puzzles. Since then, collecting and learning to solve unique puzzles has been my main focus.
 
When I was in elementary or middle school I used to have "cube club" with my cousin. I knew about the ss forums then but wasn't involved with the community. We had no name Chinese brand cubes, pyraminx, Rubik's Icon, Rubik's ice cube, and so on. Both of us averaged about a minute or two with some mix of beginner's method and CFOP on Cubemania. He stopped cubing afterwards but one time I asked him if he remembered any old cubes and he told me Ghost Hand which really dates him to a specific era of hardware :D I stopped cubing as well in about 2012 and rediscovered it in I think 2017. My member intro probably has a more accurate retelling.
 
It was somewhere around '78-'79 when I first learned of the Rubik's cube...
we get *everything* yeeears late here in upper east TN 😜*sigh*
I still have (*somewhere*) a cube put out by CHEX brand cereal with little Chex pieces on one side and various fruit on the stickers of the other sides that we had to send in like 6 boxtops and $2.99 s/h to get... circa 1983-84 Ö
 
Last edited:
unirox13 said:
How old were you when Erno Rubik's amazing 3x3 product was first placed on store shelves in 1977? How old were you when the first 3x3 Rubik's Cube World's Record time of 22.95 seconds was set in 1982? How old were you when someone (Péter Sebestény) said, "Hey! We can add a layer to this and make it even more confusing!" What do you know the 4x4 was created!

All I'm saying, my friends, both young and old, this little toy that we all take for granted now, seemed to be a magic trick about 45 years ago! If someone could pick this Grandma's countertop decoration up and put it back together... They were a wizard! Now, we can all solve it, quite well.

The twisty puzzle community has grown, everything about that original puzzle has grown and it's pretty amazing. Also, let's face it, most of you reading this weren't even born yet during those two things that I mentioned.

Post your favorite puzzle memories... new unique puzzles... or just answer my questions for the fun of it lol. Mod's please prevent the stupid 1x1 and I was a s***m type of comments that prevent this post from being entertaining and fun to add to.
Click to expand...
Back in that day, I was erm, “dead” my mom wasn’t even alive lol
 
artless1der said:
haha the term for that is deceased and you can't cease until after you start... thats why we got so many horrror movies 😲🤔😉 "these dang whippersnappers" lol
speaking uv, thx for the tip on Terra Nova, really looks pretty good, gonna hafta watch it now ha
Click to expand...

Yeah terra nova is a great series! I highly recommend it
 
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