From cube-lovers-errors@mc.lcs.mit.edu Sat Nov 15 23:21:58 1997 Return-Path: Received: from sun30.aic.nrl.navy.mil by mc.lcs.mit.edu (8.8.1/mc) with SMTP id XAA21060; Sat, 15 Nov 1997 23:21:57 -0500 (EST) Precedence: bulk Errors-To: cube-lovers-errors@mc.lcs.mit.edu Mail-from: From roger.broadie@iclweb.com Thu Nov 13 19:09:04 1997 From: roger.broadie@iclweb.com (Roger Broadie) To: "Geoffroy Van Lerberghe" , "Cube-Lovers" Subject: Re: Cubes in London, plus OddzOn, clones and colours Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 00:07:33 -0000 Message-Id: <19971114000519.AAA4398@home> London's most famous toy-shop is Hamley's in Regent St. On the fourth floor they have a wall of OddzOn cubes at 39.00 pounds each, together with snakes and magics. I say OddzOn because that is the name given in the copyright notice at the back of the instruction booklet, although in this country that name appears nowhere else. The packaging (a rectangular cardboard casing with a clear central panel holding the cube at an angle) gives the distributors as Toybrokers Ltd. This cube sometimes appears in the British Toys 'R' Us, and my family bought one in Jenners, the big Edinburgh department store, this summer. I wouldn't rate it as highly as the Ideal cubes. I had a quick look for clones in the sort of shop in London that I have seen them in in the past, but found none. I bought a couple of Taiwanese clones in Dublin a few weeks ago - they came in a cube-sized cardboard box with a picture of a cube on the front with two yellow centre pieces, five green edge pieces and five red corner pieces. I did not complain that the cube inside did not match this picture. I tried both the sample on display and one of the cubes which I later bought. They turned quite well. I did not try the other one until I got it home, when to my annoyance I found it much stiffer. The colours are rather dull, but yellow and white are opposite, which I prefer, because then the colours of the opposite faces seem to have a sensible connection helping recognition of a piece that is in the opposite face to its home face. They cost 35.00 Irish pounds each . Among various other puzzle, Hamleys also has those from Meffert, including the skewb and an annoying dodecahedron - the colours are duplicated at opposite poles. So does Toys 'R' Us. What I have not been able to find is the 5x5x5 that is shown on the Meffert packaging. The OddzOn cube is the one that is associated with the www.rubiks.com site, which reproduces the instruction booklet and uses the same logo in chubby capitals. Rubik himself is clearly involved - he is quoted on the site. I had concluded that Ideal Toys (the US company) had gone out of business, having failed to find any reference to it currently. There is a British company Ideal Toys (UK) Limited, but that is a subsidiary of Triumph Adler AG. There was a company The Ideal Toy Company Limited, but that was dissolved, as was CBS Toys Limited, which may have been connected. OddzOn Products Inc appears to be a subsidiary of Hasbro Inc. I have a suspicion that Ideal may have deliberately adopted the yellow-opposite-green configuration to create a new colour arrangement that would help them expunge clones by relying on their trade dress. Roger Broadie