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The puzzle seems to have first been published in New York
in the late 1970s by the specialist puzzle publisher Dell
in its magazine Math Puzzles and Logic Problems. Dell referred
to it as Number Place.
The person who devised the first puzzle
is not recorded. The description "number place"
is somewhat misleading as there is nothing unique about the
choice of numbers: the puzzle would still work if each specific
number were to be substituted by another specific number (like
swapping all the 8s and 4s, etc.) or to be replaced by an
arbitrary non-numerical image. Indeed, Penny Press uses letters
in their version called Scramblets.
The puzzle was introduced in Japan by Nikoli in the paper
Monthly Nikolist April 1984 as "Suuji wa dokushin ni
kagiru" named by KAJI Maki the president of Nikoli, which
means 'number is limited only single (unmarried).' At a later
date, the name was abbreviated to sodoku (pronounced sue-doe-koo).
The name is Japanese; in kanji it is written ?? (su - "number"
- and doku - "single"), which implies "multiple
isolations". In 1986, Nikoli introduced two innovations
which guaranteed the popularity of the puzzle: the number
of givens was restricted to no more than 30 and puzzles became
symmetrical. It is now published in mainstream Japanese periodicals,
such as the Asahi Shimbun. It became immensely popular in
British newspapers in 2005. It has gained popularity internationally
being dubbed the "Rubik's cube of the 21st century".
Bringing the process full-circle, Kappa reprints Nikoli sodoku
in GAMES Magazine under the name Squared Away; the New York
Post is now also publishing the puzzle. It is also often included
in puzzle anthologies, such as The Giant 1001 Puzzle Book
(under the title Nine Numbers).
In 1997, retired Hong Kong judge, Wayne Gould, 59, a New
Zealander was enticed by seeing a partly conpleted puzzle
in a Japanese bookshop. He went on to develop a computer program
that produces immediate puzzles. This took six year to perfect.
He promoted the puzzle to The Times in Britain, which launched
it on 12 November 2004. Three days later the Daily Mail began
to publish the puzzle under the name 'Codenumber'.
Taking their lead from their British counterparts, Australian
News Limited newspapers such as The Australian, as well as
the rival broadsheet the Sydney Morning Herald, also regularly
publish sodoku puzzles. Nationwide News Pty Ltd began publishing
the puzzle in the Daily Telegraph on Friday 20th May 2005.
Five puzzles with solutions were printed on this day. The
puzzles by Pappocorn have been printed daily ever since.
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