This post corrects an incorrect homework assignment, and announces some changes in Sysudoku due to a switch to a new computer and updated operating system.

Last week was not a good one. On Tuesday I posted an incorrect puzzle for homework on the bypass. When I dragged the given clues of Dave Green’s Saturday 9/3/16 4-Star into my puzzle template, I got one wrong. I must have forgotten my box-by-box check.  In preparing the post,  I somehow “solved” my version with the bypass. Like you, I never check  solutions unless I encounter a problem.  My apology to all readers who spent time on it.  Without access to a solution, you couldn’t know that clue 1r2c3 was out of place. It belongs in r1c3.

But I was amply rewarded for this transgression when my hard drive died the next day. Now I had to switch over to the new laptop I purchased some time ago in anticipation of this sad day.  And I have to rework everything not backed up, including checkpoint for this post.  That’s how I discovered the error.

That leaves us with a plausible looking puzzle that doesn’t have a solution. On which some readers have experience. Let’s consider it an opportunity to see if your bypass would have revealed the contradiction.

Here’s mine, with some accounting below on how unwritten aligned triples and a smidgen of line marking carried the contradiction along: 

N2t =>NW2, N5t => NW5 & E5m => NE5,   N4t => NW4,   NE8 is a 3f: trap.  

It turns out that S8 conflicts with the now forced 4r9c5!

Hold on! This doesn’t look like a Sysudoku grid? You bet it doesn’t.

Unfortunately, the new ©MS Windows is without the Brush Script Font which represented solver input. So I learned that updated solvers can’t duplicate my blog pictures with their newer computers. The solution is to choose a new solver font from among currently available ones. This grid shows Bradley Hand ITC.

I’m not so sure I want this one. The problem is, the 7 and 9 get a bit flamboyant. Here’s a little sample, along the way to the solution, that includes 7 and 9, and pencil marks.

An alternative is Lucinda Handwriting, less extreme and more bold. It’s not as distinguishable from the Calibri font of the given clues. Maybe a little too perfect for handwriting?

A better option, perhaps, is Segoe Script. It is bolder, with more conventional hand lettering. I don’t care for the jumpiness in  vertical registration. Again, it’s harder to distinguish from given clues.

For now I’m sticking with Bradley Hand ICT.

All you have to do, to incorporate any of these fonts into your Sysudoku puzzle template, is to select the font for your script letters on the right. Some font size adjustment in the pencil mark text box may help with placement in the cell.

So consider all this an extension of the earlier basic clinic posts. My amended assignment is to move that 1 clue as shown above, and tackle the bypass on the real Green’s Saturday **** of 9/03/16. To follow up, I’ll interpret  the trace with the role of the unwritten aligned triples and slinks. In the bypass, I’m now including another useful tactic, the mental line marking of the lines as they are reduced to three free cells, the 3f:’s.