TenPinSolitaire

My PalmPilot has this nifty and addictive game called TenPin Solitaire.

It runs like this: you are presented with:

• 10 pins, with numbers 0-9 on them.
• 10 cards numbered 0-9, in three stacks (with 5, 3 and 2 cards in the stacks).

On your first 'bowl', you get the 10 cards. The aim is to select pins (up to three, must be adjacent, may not select from back row on the first selection set) that add up to a card value (mod 10: so 7+7 = 14 = select card 4). The selected pins and card vanish. Repeat. For the second bowl, the top card on each stack is removed, revealing (hopefully) new values beneath to continue.

The pin and card values appear to be chosen randomly. There is no guarantee made that a strike or spare is possible every turn.

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Now, being the happy little hacker wannabe that I am, I found recently that I have a hex editor on my pilot - and of course, the TenPin db is a nice little 240byte memory dump of the current game state and highscore table.

Now if we assume that the aim of the game is to get the highest possible score, then is the method really relevant? *grins*

Anyways, here is my analysis of the memory dump...

Notes

• Many values seem to be stored in 16bit segments - given the PalmIIIxe that I have runs on a 16bit dragonball CPU, this makes sense. Word. :)

Bytes 00-19 - 10 words containing 1bit toggles of the visibility of the 10 pins

00 01 00 01 00 01 00 01
00 01 00 01 00 01 00 01
00 01 00 01

Bytes 20-39 - 10 words containing the values on pins - left to right, back row first

            00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

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Links:

• TenPin Solitaire
• FilezZ (hex editor)