SOMA Crystal
Bundgård & McFarren's
SOMA Figure Program
E-Mail

  Running AGAIN after 24 years
It is now 2023-02-20 And I had a wonderfull "Father & Son" day. Chatting and programming. Stuff we both like.
This time however Mikkel showed me how he had taken his Childhood program in QB (DOS Basic) and made it run in a shell, for a small game box he was building.
My mind immediately jumped back in time to 1999 where Courtney McFarren and I finalized
our SOMA solver program. All written in QB Basic - on DOS.
Was it possible, I asked. To get the 24 year old DOS program to run on my modern Windows machine.
No that was a task I tought, but less than an hour later I saw my program running again. Wow. Thank you to Mikkel :-D

So the program is now running in a system called a DOXBox Portable
https://portableapps.com/apps/games/dosbox_portable
This is basically a program that emulate an old DOS machine, but run in a window on your modern machine
The great thing is that it will run without needing to be installed. SO...
Here is a WSOLVE121.zip file holding a folder "SOLVE121" the following:
    DOSBoxPortable Program in a separate folder - no action needed
    RUNSOLVE.bat The Batch commands that will start the emulator and the SOLVE program
    SOLVE121,EXE The last version of our Solve programs
    FIGS1-36.HTM A sample .HTM file with the first 36 figures. You can also copy any figurepage from my SOMAweb
    help.html The open source information page that came with "DOSBox Portable"
So why not take a step 24 years back, and enjoy OLD times. :-D
When it runs, type "FIGS1-36" [Enter] 005 [Enter] then [F2] to solve the figure or [F3] to solve with colors
Use arrow keys to rotate, [F7] to get next figure, F10 to select another .HTM file and figure name.

- I am sorry about the user interface But back then in 1999, this was a very fine interactive interface. - Have fun !

  A better Solver
2018.12.28 The "SOMA Program" described in this text was the brainchild of my friend Courtney McFarren and I (Thorleif Bundgaard)
However since its release in 2001, the many passing years have brought us numerous new operating systems,
and being a DOS program, it is now almost impossible to get it to run.

Therefore I suggest that you check the newest "Windows Solver" made by Bob Nungester.
The DblSoma program. A super way to compute solvability.
For historic reasons the text will stay available below.


NOW IT's HERE
From Thorleif Bundgård & Courtney McFarren
The fantastic SOMA figure program:
This program will read SOMA text files, accept manual figure entry, compute solution to figures, show figures both as text and as graphic, that you may view from 4 sides.
NOW IN VERSION 1.20

Made by: Thorleif Bundgård thorleif@fam-bundgaard.dk Denmark. Europe.
Courtney McFarren abcmcfarren@sbcglobal.net Ohio. U.S.A.
The program described here is being jointly developed by Bundgård and McFarren The newest information will always be in this document.
Bundgård made the User interface program, and McFarren made the solution finder program.
Version: 1.21 Release. - - 7. Jan. 2001
Solve Manual.The manual: ⇐==== OBS: Do read this, much important stuff is waiting here.!
SOLVE121.ZIP.The Program, and a data file:
This version will show unsolved SOMA+plus figures.

To get more figure files, goto the 'All Images' page and download them.

Now it's jan. 2019.Time is changing, languages and compilers vanish.
For future reference, we show the original source description here.
Version: 1.21 Release. - - 7. Jan. 2001
SOLVE121-README.TXTThe file Readme with version numbers.
SOLVE121-BAS.TXTThe Q-BASIC source code. extension must be renamed to .BAS to compile in QBasic.
SOLVE121-BAS(pdf).PDFThe Q-BASIC source code. in PDF for future readability.
The files above are historic. - IF you seek the best solver program, then click here for:
'Bob Nungester's SOMA Solver'

The friendliest wishes
Thorleif Bundgaard.