Bulls and cows - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Bulls and Cows -- also known as Cows and Bulls or Pigs and Bulls or Bulls and Cleots -- is an old code

Code

A code is a rule for converting a piece of information into another form or representation , not necessarily of the same type....

-breaking paper and pencil game

Paper and pencil game

Paper-and-pencil games are games that can be played solely with paper and pencil .In some board games, including some abstract strategy games like Gomoku, a piece once played will not be moved on the board or removed from the board...

for two players, predating the similar commercially-marketed board game Master Mind

Mastermind (board game)

Mastermind or Master Mind is a code-breaking game for two players. The modern game with pegs was invented in 1970 by Mordecai Meirowitz, an Israeli postmaster and telecommunications expert, but the game resembles an earlier pencil and paper game called bulls and cows that may date back a century or...

.

It is a game with numbers that may date back a century or more. It is played by two opponents. The game can also be played with 3 digits instead of 4.

On a sheet of paper, the players each write a 4-digit secret number. The digits must be all different. Then, in turn, the players try to guess their opponent's number who gives the number of matches. If the matching digits are on their right positions, they are "bulls", if on different positions, they are "cows". Example:

Secret number: 4271
Opponent's try: 1234
Answer: 1 bull and 2 cows. (The bull is "2", the cows are "4" and "1".)

The first one to reveal the other's secret number wins the game. As the "first one to try" has a logical advantage, on every game the "first" player changes. In some places, the winner of the previous game will play "second". Sometimes, if the "first" player finds the number, the "second" has one more move to make and if he also succeeds, the result is even.

The secret numbers for bulls and cows are usually 4-digit-numbers, but the game can be played with 3 to 6 digit numbers (in every case it is more difficult than with 4).

The game may also be played by two teams of 2-3 players. The players of every team discuss before making their move, much like in chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

.

A computer program moo, written in 1970 by J. M. Grochow at MIT

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

in the PL/I

PL/I

PL/I is a procedural, imperative computer programming language designed for scientific, engineering, business and systems programming applications...

computer language for the Multics

Multics

Multics was an influential early time-sharing operating system. The project was started in 1964 in Cambridge, Massachusetts...

operating system, was amongst the first Bulls and Cows computer implementations, inspired by a similar program written by Frank King in 1968 and running on the Cambridge University mainframe.
Because the game has simple rules, while it is difficult and entertaining, there are many computer variants; it is often included in telephones and PDAs.

External links

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See also

External links