I'm amazed with myself...

[RichCsigs]

I tend to start in the top left hand corner and go down, clicking every third box until I either get a nice clear field or a bomb.

 

[Psionicist]

1 second.

http://psionicist.online.fr/mineplay.exe (6 kb, written in C in an hour or so).

 

[Heretic Apostate]

That's cheating!

 

[Zappo]

Bugger, it either doesn't work with the XP version (the politically correct one with the flowers) or it doesn't work with the Italian version. Psionicist, would you mind if I took a look at the code? I'm learning Windows programming and interacting with another program is something I can't do, I could use a cool example like this. My email is filpolo@tin.it.

 

[der_kluge]

Psionicist, that's truly impressive, although it has replaced my 10 second beginner time with 2 seconds now!!

How does that work? When I watch it, it just uncovers non-bomb squares. What keeps it from hitting a square that has a bomb in it in the first move?

 

[Psionicist]

To tell you the truth, the program is pretty dumb. Why, it cheats! The program reads winmine.exe's memory and therefore, it knows where all the mines are even before it does something with the grid. (A way for me to learn how to disassemble programs and do some real time debugging. screenshot)

Zappo: I will email you source tomorrow. It probably doesn't work because the program looks for "Minesweeper" or "Röj" (swedish name).

 

[Zappo]

Got it, thanks.

It would be interesting to make a program that actually solves minefield. Pity I already have many more projects than free time. I can't even say that I'll do it when I'm retired, since by that time we'll probably have toasters that can solve minefield.

 

[der_kluge]

Psionicist, I attempted to befuddle it, so I created a custom grid of 20x20, with 200 bombs. The map was more bombs than clear spaces, and after the grid was clear, there'd be like a handful of 1's, but mostly 3, 4, 5, and 6s. There were even some 8's! At first I thought it was actually attempting to solve the puzzle, but there is no way you can find an "8" without getting really lucky. So, I knew something had to be up.

 

[diaglo]

That's cheating!

1 second aussi. i wrote a program and let the computer do it for me....

does it still count as cheating?

 

[hong]

I am so out of practice.