Scrabble Challenge News

27 April 2004

The 50 point bonus for using all the letters (a 'bingo' in the US) has been fixed.

16 April 2004

I'm forcing few turns quickly so I can test the end-of-game code. Hopefully the game will go back on an automatic timer next week.

12 April 2004

I've completed the initial stages of the rewrite to make the code more portable and maintainable. Basic functionality is now available. There are probably bugs. The roll-of-honour is rudimentary. Currently there is no new game code. However, I will try and restore the missing functionality (not necessarily in the same form) over the next 3 months.

18 June 2003

The games have been moved to a new server which should hopefully improve reliability. Unfortunately I've had to reset the board at the same time.

05 December 2002

The games are working again. I don't know what went wrong, but I've worked around it.

24 July 2002

The site is back up at a temporary address of 'http://www.kualo.com/~braunsto/kevin'. I hope everything should work, except for the links on the turn response screen, which will be fixed when I get my domain name back.

23 November 2000

Domain name services for `www.braunston.com' are giving trouble, resulting in many people being unable to access the pages. Users with problems can try changing the host section of the URL to `braunston.com' or `64.177.73.10'.

Alternatively, try this link. Some internal links may be broken.

1 November 2000

The Scrabble challenge has been down for a few days as a result of moving servers at NoMonthly, which unhappily coincided with a total failure of my work server, preventing me from restarting it sooner. I have to iron out a few problems. If you are still getting problems after a week, mail me.

12th June 2000

The duration of registration cookies has been increased to 3 months, so it should not be necessary to re-register so frequently.

15th February 2000

New best game of 1024 points. The word `STONABLE' was placed across two triple words for 140 points. There were 4 bonus words in total, and the big letters scored as follows: Zx4, Qx4, Xx6, Jx6, Kx5.

21st December 1999

The server which triggers the board updates will be offline between Christmas and new year. I will be triggering board updates by hand during this period, however the timing my be a little erratic.

Please don't blame me if the network collapses on December 31st. Have a happy Christmas and new year!

6th December 1999

It looks as though the `busy' problems were freak events (a turn being submitted as the server was being rebooted). I have however rewritten the word entry code so that the game no longer hangs, and some debugging info is logged.

The update timer has also been moved from the main page onto the word entry page. This means I can ensure that the time is correct, rather than being dependent on every player having a correctly configured machine and a working web browser.

25th November 1999

Welcome to the new site! I'll keep a close eye on the game for a couple of days to try and spot any major problems, after that if you have any problems, email me. Remember, connections to the new site will be slow until all the routers find out about it.

18th November 1999

The Scrabble Challenge will moving to a new commercial server next week, thus relieving the academic server on which it is currently running. The scrabble board will only be available as a PNG image, so I'm afraid anyone who cannot use an up-to-date web browser will be limited to the text version of the game.

Windows 3.1 users can use Opera 3.51+.
Mac users can use Netscape 4.05+ or Mozilla M11.
Anyone else can use any major modern browser.

On the positive side, this will provide more room for expansion. Initially this will take the form of my forthcoming `Ricochet Robot Challenge' (a very different board game), although in the long term I hope to expand the Scrabble Challenge as well.

There may be some disruption during the changeover. Last turn the board was updated twice.

23rd September 1999

In response to the UNISYS action to recover royalties from websites using `GIF' images I have started to convert this website to use the more modern `PNG' image format. One advantage of this is that the board image is much smaller, and so will load more quickly. The disadvantage is that old browsers will not display `PNG' images. The old page is still available using the links at the top of the page. If your browser cannot display the new board, and you cannot upgrade to a browser which can (Netscape 4.04+, IE 4+/Windows only, Opera 3.51+, WebTV Jan 1999, W3C browsers etc.), please email me so I can get some idea of the size of the problem.

22nd January 1999

By analysis of the archived performance of a range of players (including international tournament players) over a few games, I have identified realistic estimates for the reliability of the best human players. Previous scores are now cross-referenced with internet domain and web-client profile in order to identify sites where crossword-solvers may be in use. Words from such sites are ignored.

25th June 1998

The dictionary has been updated. Words are now checked against a dictionary made up using the Enhanced North American Benchmark LExicon (ENABLE) and OSW extensions. ENABLE is based on the Merriam-Webster 10th Edition dictionary, but contains a number of words which were missed in the compilation of the OSPD. The OSW extensions contain the additional words appearing in the OSW but not in ENABLE. The resulting list is a slight superset of the SOWPODS (OSPD+OSW) combined list. For more details see the ENABLE home page.

(Thanks to GIJoel for pointing me to this word list).

11th February 1998

Users whose browsers support JavaScript and cookies may now register their name as a `cookie'. This has two advantages:

Your name is entered automatically when you visit the page.
You will no longer suffer lock-outs due to other players at the same site.

Registration is optional. It lasts for 2 weeks, during which you may only play under your registered name. To register simply click the `register' button on the response screen.

Lock-out times will be increased for all players.

20th October 1997

New record game: 1018 points, including 6 bonus words and 2 other words over 50 points! The big letters were scored as follows: Z x9, Q x4, X x2, J x3, K x5.

16th January 1996

The updates are now performed at 15 hour intervals, at the following times (GMT). Please make up your own local timetable:

       Mon    Tue    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat
      00.00  06.00  12.00  03.00  09.00  00.00
      15.00  21.00         18.00         15.00

On Sundays, the Scrabble Challenge has a rest.

Back to the Scrabble Challenge.