Ancient Web: Jaap Scherphuis Kept Puzzles and Psions on One Site
Jaap Scherphuis's Scratch Pad preserves a sprawling personal research library of twisty puzzles, Psion handheld computers, mechanical calculators, and old downloadable tools.
Part of the Ancient Web Collection.
Some personal websites settle on one niche. Jaap Scherphuis appears to have decided that puzzles, pocket computers, and mechanical adding machines were already a sufficiently narrow collection of interests.
The main page calls the website a collection of sub-sites about topics that interest its creator. It points to Jaap's Puzzle Page, a Psion Organiser II reference, a mechanical-calculator catalogue, mathematical tilings, and materials about the Gathering for Gardner. A few small experiments, downloads, and older mobile-phone programs are filed below the larger sections.
The result is a rare example of a continuing personal technical site whose archives have not been merged into a generic blog feed. You can choose a topic and discover a whole independent miniature reference work.
A puzzle is a machine that asks a question
Jaap's Puzzle Page organizes twisty puzzles and other mechanical challenges by their mechanisms. It provides solutions, move sequences, histories, photographs, and information about patents. A separate 15-puzzle essay works through an old sliding-tile problem rather than simply offering a quick solution.
The Psion Organiser II archive has a different purpose: preserving hardware and programming information for a distinctive 1980s pocket computer. The mechanical calculators section follows such machines as the Curta and Comptometer, with pictures and detailed descriptions.
Some files are unmistakably from another software era. The homepage still offers a Java applet Sudoku generator, legacy files for a Nokia 6021, and a recorded voicemail left in 2002. Large downloadable ZIP archives let readers keep copies of the puzzle pages, patent files, or gallery.
Those dates show old material preserved by the site, but the homepage does not establish its exact founding year. That is a reason to avoid inventing one, not a reason to miss what is actually there.
The site is valuable as a collection of original explanations and personal expertise. Its strongest feature is continuity: the same straightforward index can guide you from a Rubik's Cube to a programmable pocket device without an account, a content recommendation, or an apology for being interested in both.
Browse Jaap's Puzzle Page and the Psion Organiser reference.
Part of the Ancient Web Collection.
- Categories: Ancient Web
- Tags: #ancientweb, #personalweb, #calculators, #puzzles, #psion