David Broughton's Puzzles & Programs

This page contains puzzles and diagrams that have been or might be published in the Hot Key magazine when it appears. But whether the magazine appears or not, the current monthly puzzle will be here.

If there are three or more correct answers, there will be a draw for the winner who gets a £5 book token. No prize is awarded if there are less than three entrants. No one is allowed to win the prize in consecutive months; however, they may do the puzzle and send it in for a mention in the list of solvers.

Some utility programs written by me are also described here. All the files are very small and will download in a GIFfy. None of the programs needs to be "installed" or "uninstalled". You just run them (or delete them if you don't want them) and Windows does not need to know they are there.

The August puzzle is called NVWLS (NO VOWELS). A non-mathematical puzzle for a change.

The July puzzle is called "Colouring the Platonic Solids". Have a go! Also in the July Hot Key.

Older puzzles

The following are older puzzles that might be of interest.

Jun 2008: The Divided Cake with answer.
May 2008: Poisoned Wine with answer.
Apr 2008: SQUARES WITHIN SQUARES with answer.
Mar 2008: SECOND HAND PUZZLE with answer.
Feb 2008: SUM NUMBER with answer.
Jan 2008: THE FOLDED SQUARE with answer.
Dec 2007: STAMP PUZZLE with answer.
Nov 2007: DIAGONALS with answer.
Oct 2007: THE BOAT TRIP with answer.
Sep 2007: FIVE CUBES with answer.
Aug 2007: There was no puzzle for August 2007.
Jul 2007: KNOTTED OR NOT with answer.
Jun 2007: PERFECT SQUARES with answer.
May 2007: JANE AND BOB with answer.
Apr 2007: NUMBERS with answers.
Mar 2007: Alice and Brian's Ages.
Feb 2007: All-Play-All, with answer.
Jan 2007: Magic Square, with answer.
Dec 2006: Six Points on a Mobius Strip.
Nov 2006: Prime Example, with answer.
Oct 2006: Four Little Sweets.
Sep 2006: Numerical Anagram with answer.
Aug 2006: There was no puzzle for August 2006.
Jly 2006: Odd Dice Out
Jun 2006: Super Knight Traverse
May 2006: What Day was it? with solution.
Apr 2006: A number sequence puzzle with solution.
Mar 2006: How Many Triangles? with the answer.
Feb 2006: SUDOKU puzzle with solution.
Jan 2006: Prime Journey with answer.
Dec 2005: Hill Climb with answer.
Nov 2005: A Special Number with answer.
Oct 2005: Field Traverse.
Sep 2005: The Magic Hexagon with solution.
Aug 2005: "A4 Paper Length" with answer.
Jly 2005: "Line Cutting" with answer.
Jun 2005: "4 T's" with answer and list of solvers.
May 2005: "Add & Multiply" with answer and list of solvers.
Apr 2005: "ATOB" with the best solution.
Mar 2005: "ABC936333037DEF". The answer to this mysterious name for a puzzle is here.
Feb 2005: "Circular Tour" with detailed interactive method of solution.
Jan 2005: "Shattered Crossword" with solution.
Dec 2004: "Everready Freddy" with solution.
Nov 2004: "Crazy Crossword" with solution
Oct 2004: "The Smart Golf Club" with the answer and method of solution.
Sep 2004: "Ladders Against the Walls" with the answer.
Aug 2004: "Table Top" with a solution.
Jly 2004: "TEN SENTENCES" with a solution.
Jun 2004: "TomDickHarry" with answer.
May 2004: The "CRACK16" puzzle program, with a solution.
Apr 2004: "Eleven Separated Areas"
Mar 2004: "Harry's Fish".
Feb 2004: "Bull's Eye". Answer.
Jan 2004: "Balancing the Equation".
Dec 2003: "The Ways of Coins".
Sep 2003: The "MAZE3" program.
Aug 2003: August 2003 Puzzle.
Jun 2003: June 2003 Puzzle.
Mar 2003: The Blue Square Puzzle program.
Nov 2002: The SNAKE program.
Four-colour puzzle diagram. This was the diagram in one of the Hot Key puzzles where you were asked to fill in the areas using not more than four colours with no two areas of the same colour having a common boundary. It is reproduced here for the fun of doing it using the "Flood Fill" tool of the Windows Paint program (or other graphics programs). The file name is fourcolw.gif.
FCW2 This is version 2 of the Farmer-Chicken-Wife game that was the February 2002 puzzle, reproduced here in a new version that may interest you. Just click the link above for more information.

Some useful Programs

These are a couple of my favourite DOS utilities that are free to anyone to use.

FID, File Fidelity Program. Click the link for more detail.
ENCRYPT and DECRYPT, Encryption programs. Click the link for more detail.

HELP IN DOWNLOADING

When you click on the hyperlink from the list, one of the following should happen:

In the case of a graphics file, the diagram or picture will be displayed on your screen. You should then right click the diagram to get a menu of selections one of which is "Save Picture As...". Select this and navigate to the directory (i.e. folder) where you would like to store it.
In the case of an executable program file or a zip file, you will be asked to choose between saving the program or running it. So that you have a copy to run as many times as you want, I suggest you choose "Save this file to disk". All programs can be run under Windows or DOS and are self-contained i.e. do not need to be "installed" by Windows so you can delete the program file whenever you want.

In case of difficulties or queries, please contact me, David Broughton by e-mail by clicking this symbol: .

OTHER PAGES

HTML Characters A list of special characters for HTML users.

HTML Colours A range of colours for Web developers.

Table of the first 100 Prime Numbers

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