Hi Friends,

I just started to wonder if there is a mass produced version of 1x2x3 or no?
I saw some designs on SW and also found some casted and custom ones, but no mass produced. Why?

Who is the original inventor of it?

Olivér

The first proportional 1x2x3 was invented by Javier Sans - see http://www.twistypuzzles.com/cgi-bin/puzzle.cgi?pkey=1905. Perhaps it's not in mass production because it is so trivial?

RedKB made a nice tutorial on how to make one from spare 3x3 parts. Or you can get a shapeways one. But no it's not mass produced. I don't think a lot of people would spend money on it.

I would!

I would buy one! Since it would be so small and simple, I would think it would be made as a keychain puzzle, like the mini-3x3's.

I don't know if anyone else made something like this earlier, but in 1999 and 2000 I made a few models with different slice designs (straight, curved, and "wavy"). See this entry in the museum, and this post.

Let me remind you the 1x2x2 is mass produced:

God's number for the 1x2x2: 3 moves
Number of different positions: 5

The 1x2x3 is considerably more difficult:

God's number for the 1x2x3: 7 moves
Number of different positions: 15

Nice try, but the number of positions for the 1x2x2 is 6 (5 scrambled states + 1 solved state)

Also God's number for the 1x2x3 is only 6 moves and
the number of positions is significantly more than you said at 48 (=4! x 2)

Just saying...

Peace,
Matt Galla

Thanks for the infor.
But I have one, I have made 4 or 5 years ago Made from 3x3x3 parts.
It is the question WHY it is not in mass production?
It would be cheaper than any other mass produced puzzles, because it only need 3 or 4 (maybe 5) different parts to make.

Other question:
What would happen If some of us start to sell a mass produced version? For example MF8?
Will it considered as KO or not?

Like it depends, if they give credit, to the inventor, or ... Depends of certain factor ?

I would think that numerous people have come up with something very similar independently, so it would probably be fair game. It's such a simple mechanism. But what do I know.

-d

Honestly, the Okimoto floppy and super floppy were far more satisfying puzzles to play with. I have the TomZ 1x2x3 from Shapeways. It was the first puzzle I bought on Spaypeways, because it was cheap and I wanted to experience the material firsthand before I started ordering larger complicated puzzles. Honestly, the 1x2x3 feels somewhat unbalanced and trivial compared to the 2x3x4 and 3x4x5 (It has only 1 layer, duh!). There is also a seemingly illegal position in which one edge is flipped: With the 2x3 as the top "U" face, do R2 F2 R2 F2 R2 F2 and you will flip one edge. The 1x3x3 feels more balanced to me, and the 1x2x2 is almost worthless as far as solving goes, but either way, the 1x2x3 is a neat puzzle for completionists sake, if you have to have every cuboid that exists. Trivial and overly simple puzzles can still be entertaining, though. I once removed the center layer of a QJ Pyraminx
http://twistypuzzles.com/cgi-bin/puzzle.cgi?pkey=2647


Also, like most other odd*odd*even cuboids, the 1x2x3 can be checkerboarded: