Hi Everyone,
I'm Jeff Varasano. I'm probably as OLD SCHOOL as anyone on this forum. I wrote "Jeff Conquer the Cube" in May 1981. Wow, that takes me back.
On October 3, 1981, I set the US Record of 24.67 seconds at Six Flag's Great Adventure in New Jersey. I was actually the favorite at the US Championship the next month on That's Incredible. At the time I had an average of about 27 seconds. Minh Thai was a little secretive but rumor was he was averaging about 31-33. But alas he had a great time and I choked and lost. I was always bummed that they did best of 2 rather than best average, which I consider more realistic. But it's TV. Luckily I retained the record. A few months later I was averaging just under 22. That was my peak. I had a few 13's for single times, but I was always looking at average. I would take a sheet of white paper and fold it into 4 columns and 3 rows, making 12 boxes. Then I would fill each box with 10 times which I'd average in my head and put in the corner. Then I'd average the whole sheet. While training I did at least 1 sheet and sometimes 2 a day.
While I can't know for sure, I can probably claim a number of firsts. The other books out at that time were really horrible, long, pattern heavy solutions. So my book was probably the first one that could be described as a speed cube book. Of the 9 people at the first nationals, at least 4 (including me) were using my solution. I'm virtually certain that I was the first person to average under 30 seconds. Aside from Minh Thai, the only person under 35 consistently in those days was Lance Ahrens. He was probably the first person to perfect finger movements. He learned a lot from my book and I definitely got the finger movements from him. I thought he was my main rival, but Minh Thai kind of came out as a surprise. I just found some times here: http://cubeman.org/contest.txt.
I was perhaps the first speedcuber to touch a 4x4x4. It was at the toy show in NYC, I think in May of 1982. I met Erno Rubik there. They had just unveiled the cube and I got to play with it for about 2 hours. I got it down to an adjacent pair of edges. Later I went home and solved it on paper using a very short move that really surprised one of the guys from Ideal toys a week or so later. I didn't show him the move cause I was gonna write another book, but he had a move that was about 19 moves or so and I had one that was 12. (We counted center turns and double turns as one move back then, I'm not sure what the standard is now). I remember letting him hear the move so he could count, but I made him turn his head, LOL... He was really surprised. I don't remember his name but he was the guy that wrote the original 3x3 solution that Ideal Toys published. It wasn't very good but he was a super nice guy though. Here's a bit of trivia. I asked him why the original box said "Over 3 Billion Combinations, just one solution". He straight up told me that when they made the box they had no clue how to figure it out.
In any case the cube furor was dying down and my 4x4 book was never published. I did write it completely though. I think I actually wrote most of it before I ever touched it. I was only a few moves short and I needed that little 2 hours of working with it plus some time on paper to finish it. I submitted it to publishers just a few weeks later. I probably have a hand written copy somewhere. This was before most people had computers.
I don't know that I was the first one to use WD40 or vaseline on a cube, but I certainly was doing it before the cube even became popular and before I'd heard of anyone else doing so. I solved the cube back in June 1980 and developed my core method within 2 months. Then I put it away. The cube was not popular yet. It wasn't until Feb or Mar 1981 that you started seeing it around. Then within 60 days it was totally insane. It was everywhere. I picked it up again and wrote my solution down at the request of my math teacher, to whom my book was dedicated. It was just a 5 page pamphlet handwritten and drawn with colored pencils. But soon it was xeroxed and passed all around my school and quickly became book length.
I also did a bunch of TV shows back then. I was on the John Davidson Show with Ricki Schroeder and Peter Billingsley. I did Merv Griffin. I was on an episode with Marie Osmond. Patti Smythe (Scandal) sang "Goodbye to You".
Ok, is that old school enough?
I'm Jeff Varasano. I'm probably as OLD SCHOOL as anyone on this forum. I wrote "Jeff Conquer the Cube" in May 1981. Wow, that takes me back.
On October 3, 1981, I set the US Record of 24.67 seconds at Six Flag's Great Adventure in New Jersey. I was actually the favorite at the US Championship the next month on That's Incredible. At the time I had an average of about 27 seconds. Minh Thai was a little secretive but rumor was he was averaging about 31-33. But alas he had a great time and I choked and lost. I was always bummed that they did best of 2 rather than best average, which I consider more realistic. But it's TV. Luckily I retained the record. A few months later I was averaging just under 22. That was my peak. I had a few 13's for single times, but I was always looking at average. I would take a sheet of white paper and fold it into 4 columns and 3 rows, making 12 boxes. Then I would fill each box with 10 times which I'd average in my head and put in the corner. Then I'd average the whole sheet. While training I did at least 1 sheet and sometimes 2 a day.
While I can't know for sure, I can probably claim a number of firsts. The other books out at that time were really horrible, long, pattern heavy solutions. So my book was probably the first one that could be described as a speed cube book. Of the 9 people at the first nationals, at least 4 (including me) were using my solution. I'm virtually certain that I was the first person to average under 30 seconds. Aside from Minh Thai, the only person under 35 consistently in those days was Lance Ahrens. He was probably the first person to perfect finger movements. He learned a lot from my book and I definitely got the finger movements from him. I thought he was my main rival, but Minh Thai kind of came out as a surprise. I just found some times here: http://cubeman.org/contest.txt.
I was perhaps the first speedcuber to touch a 4x4x4. It was at the toy show in NYC, I think in May of 1982. I met Erno Rubik there. They had just unveiled the cube and I got to play with it for about 2 hours. I got it down to an adjacent pair of edges. Later I went home and solved it on paper using a very short move that really surprised one of the guys from Ideal toys a week or so later. I didn't show him the move cause I was gonna write another book, but he had a move that was about 19 moves or so and I had one that was 12. (We counted center turns and double turns as one move back then, I'm not sure what the standard is now). I remember letting him hear the move so he could count, but I made him turn his head, LOL... He was really surprised. I don't remember his name but he was the guy that wrote the original 3x3 solution that Ideal Toys published. It wasn't very good but he was a super nice guy though. Here's a bit of trivia. I asked him why the original box said "Over 3 Billion Combinations, just one solution". He straight up told me that when they made the box they had no clue how to figure it out.
In any case the cube furor was dying down and my 4x4 book was never published. I did write it completely though. I think I actually wrote most of it before I ever touched it. I was only a few moves short and I needed that little 2 hours of working with it plus some time on paper to finish it. I submitted it to publishers just a few weeks later. I probably have a hand written copy somewhere. This was before most people had computers.
I don't know that I was the first one to use WD40 or vaseline on a cube, but I certainly was doing it before the cube even became popular and before I'd heard of anyone else doing so. I solved the cube back in June 1980 and developed my core method within 2 months. Then I put it away. The cube was not popular yet. It wasn't until Feb or Mar 1981 that you started seeing it around. Then within 60 days it was totally insane. It was everywhere. I picked it up again and wrote my solution down at the request of my math teacher, to whom my book was dedicated. It was just a 5 page pamphlet handwritten and drawn with colored pencils. But soon it was xeroxed and passed all around my school and quickly became book length.
I also did a bunch of TV shows back then. I was on the John Davidson Show with Ricki Schroeder and Peter Billingsley. I did Merv Griffin. I was on an episode with Marie Osmond. Patti Smythe (Scandal) sang "Goodbye to You".
Ok, is that old school enough?
