A Letter from the Past

...oh

I thought you just edited the part 5 in

Wait, a hint saying "you might need Deusovi"? Ooh, I can do a thing maybe!

I had, but it had been uncovered in chat yesterday... see above

Ah, I haven't been keeping up with this puzzle.

Apparently that's to do with overlaying the card again

3:50 AM

Oh!

Has nobody tried that yet? I'll try it out.

I haven't had any luck (or too much time to try) in that regard... I imagine it will line up somehow with the arrows or something, but it doesn't seem to in any obvious way (same size in any corner, flipped, rotated, mirrored or scaled up/down to width/height)...

It's a different dimension and aspect ratio, so it's not immediately straight forward

Do we know that the hint was referring to the card?

24 hours ago, by Sleafar

@ArbitraryKangaroo Your idea to reuse the punched card is correct (that's what the phrase is supposed to mean). There are hints in the image how to use it.

...Oh.

So, yeah. I think all we know for sure at the moment is that the quote in morse was a hint (plus the actual hint on the Q) that we were to reuse the punch card ...somehow.

Still unused is the corner images, presumably they'll give some help on how to use the punch card

Morse on them is U R U D - clockwise from top left BTW (assuming they're all read right way up and squares are dashes)

4:02 AM

I was interpreting them as an order.

"First rightwards, then downwards, then... corners[?]".

Yeah, I wondered about the arrows too... it's also weird that the arrows have D & R on them, so possibly indicating that the D > is pointing down and the R > is pointing right... but they contradict each other

(unless it's a sequence)

other corners could just be indicating "eyes looking" (i.e. looking through the punch card holes)

Oh, true.

But I tried lining the punch card up in various orientations/flips with and without the border and couldn't see any obviously "correct" alignment...

Maybe you'll have more luck

Yeah, I'm trying that too.

No luck so far.

And it doesn't work with the lower text either. (Didn't think it would because it'd be breaking the fourth wall, but it was worth a shot.)

Not sure if the arrows should align with the holes, or if the arrows indicate where corners sit, and then the holes give colours to be converted into morse (a la the borders)

we also still haven't made use of "today", which has been confirmed simply as the year 859

4:09 AM

There's no alignment that lets the holes all be filled with arrows.

Wait... maybe it's tilted?

Possible. That's one thing I didn't really try at all

Nah, nothing good. Those two really close to each other constrain it a lot.

Yeah, because of those, I have to think that most of the arrows are noise, and that there's a couple that are important (8, 5 & 9 maybe?) that create a bounding box...

The two holes close to each other constrain it too.

Because, with three, you'd end up with enough points to provide a clear rectangle, which would allow holes to be colours as I said above...

as i said though, I'm thinking that the arrows indicate where the corners of the card should go. then the wholes just show coloured squares to convert to morse.

pick the "right" three arrows. Scale and align the card. Read the colours. Convert to morse. done.

4:18 AM

Align the card how?

At the three rounded corners?

The dots and squares in the corner images are not Morse code.

Okay, so they're probably an ordering.

Image scaling is not required.

Well don't you just love to ruin all my plans :P

I thought that's the whole point in making a puzzle. ;)

4:23 AM

maybe there is a place we can put it without scaling :P

looks like we need to understand those corners, but I have no idea where the right arrow came from

yeah

orientation maybe?

You correctly found out that the grid doesn't align with the card holes, but it has a purpose.

Maybe something to do with the numbers on the card?

Nope.

But there are other numbers.

Those arrows are misaligned for some reason. I still think we need to use the arrows with the card, but...

The only numbers are the ordering ones and the date.

4:32 AM

Unless you count something

Is there something in the image that corresponds to the date?

True. We could count the squares in each region.

Nope.

It's way simpler.

...The 859th square?

No.

4:34 AM

I was trying to align it with the (8, 59)th square

24 hours ago, by Sleafar

13 hours ago, by Sleafar

When you find out what to do with the year, the last digit should be obvious anyway.

Don't you hate it when people don't take your hints?

Maybe nest it one more deeper :P

1 min ago, by Sleafar

24 hours ago, by Sleafar

13 hours ago, by Sleafar

When you find out what to do with the year, the last digit should be obvious anyway.

2

i had to :P

star for extra importance

How many digits does the year have? Is there something similar in the image?

4:36 AM

Oh!

ok, so after getting something to be 8 & 5, then there'll be no other option that something is 9....

Yeah, I just saw that

there's 9 segments to the fan

V = 5?

8 squares right, five squares down, nine squares... corner.

Three squares are the year's digits.

Not nine squares.

4:38 AM

Nine sectors.

(Oh, it's even in the image!)

So you have right and down and the last digit.

I'm still not getting anything... What've you got Deusovi/ffao?

Nothing useful.

Can one of you post an image?

I've got a square in that L region and the number 9...

Not sure how I'm supposed to be aligning it.

4:46 AM

The number 9 has also to do with the placement.

Maybe if we turn it in angles of 10 degrees, an arrow will appear every time?

Oh. Hm.

But neither down nor right.

what deusovi described is what I was trying to do, but nothing useful yet either

So, orientation?

Yep.

4:48 AM

But... I don't see how that indicates a direction.

It doesn't. (Easter Egg)

...Easter Egg?

Just choose one direction.

I also don't get how we're supposed to align the card (which has rounded and cut corners) to the square.

Use the borders.

4:51 AM

That's what I'm trying... :S

Yeah, no luck here either.

user189275

@Alconja: What's the date that OP confirmed?

:S

Can you post an image?

4:53 AM

I'm sure I'm missing something obvious.

user189275

I have found something, but don't know how to upload this. You have to cut the border and paste alongside or use the borderless actual card.

!!!

Mine's just the digit bounding box, not the whole card (otherwise the same by the looks)

could 9 be the number on the card?

4:54 AM

That's not the whole card.

Deusovi's is.. was trying just the frame...

(given we didn't have hard corners to align)

user189275

@Sleafar: What's the date ? 843 ?

@Alconja Do the same what you did, but with the whole card.

859

o_O I'm sure i tried that... ok, now some arrows align

and every square is whole colours

Ooh, picture?

4:57 AM

ah

it was one square right and down from where I was trying

these off-by-one errors :/

think i must've done that the first time and then not the second (when I was using the wrong card) :P

Now to figure out what those arrows could mean.

user189275

I am sure, the arrows could spell out the year details.

4:59 AM

"There are two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors."

:)

Alternate reading up and down, perhaps?

user189275

35323

well, I found a black hole

?

5:00 AM

I wanted to send the link: i.stack.imgur.com/LCUoV.jpg

@ffao Congratulations, you found the alternative ending.

Ooh, two endings. Fancy.

I'm awesome at finding the incorrect solutions

How'd you get that?

but I still think indexing the letters from 0 and the squares from 1 is evil

5:01 AM

That's the easter egg I was talking about.

morse code is lcuov

and arrows are ^^^v^

ah

turn the card upside down maybe?

and here's part 6

: i.stack.imgur.com/RxNYb.jpg

Nice work.

"[unit of money], twenty, fifty"

5:07 AM

alrighty.. i gotta bow out for a bit. good luck with the next section (ffao, you should go right up the 5th bit and get some well deserved rep)

for the date: probably 75 BCE, when Caesar was captured by pirates

they demanded 20 units for him, he said they should ask for at least fifty

for the puzzle, probably a magic square

extract coins, convert alphanumerically, capitalize if necessary

user189275

books.google.co.in/…

user189275

Seems to have talenta + viginti + quinquaginta

user189275

5:30 AM

user189275

Babylonian number system, perhaps.

part 7: i.stack.imgur.com/lPZuS.jpg

or, now that I read it, maybe the end

Nice work! Definitely looks like the end (pity you died in the black hole already)

the bottom part is indeed the babylonian system

the top part I presume was meant to clue us to the fact that we wanted a magic square

which Deusovi magically inferred without it

user189275

5:49 AM

@ffao: There might be something more. Can you overlay the card ?

the letter is too small for the card this time, it seems

user189275

Atleast it should spell "THE END" or something like that.

user189275

I'm surprised that "White, Green, and Brown" is used nowhere.

user189275

@ffao: Beastly may know if this is the end or not, as he proofread the parts.

user189275

@Sleafar: The end ?

5:56 AM

Not yet, you didn't thought Mr. Smith would let you away without an explanation what happened?

user189275

@Sleafar: Yeah, I was thinking about that.

I think by this point you should be just happy to be away from viking invasions

but that's why I said "maybe" the end :P

user189275

@ffao: Hehe. Also from being safe from black hole. You overlapped ?

I'll edit the question and add some more info. In the meantime, the Cipher in Part 6 is a hint for the final solution.

oh, the cipher we didn't crack? xP

5:58 AM

Yep.

user189275

@ffao: Which one ?

user189275

@Sleafar: Which one ? The beach ? The viking ?

54 mins ago, by ffao

user189275

@ffao: There are 5x5 grid, but your answer is 4x4. Which one you choosed ?

the bottom grid is 4x4

I ignored the top grid

sleafar is saying there is a hint in it

user189275

6:02 AM

@ffao: Bottom means the ._XX, XX._, X_.X, .XX. ?

Yes, this part is solved

user189275

I am hundred percent sure, this is a magic square, and we have to reverse engineer.

6:18 AM

@ArbitraryKangaroo The magic square was already solved: puzzling.stackexchange.com/a/43899/15632

@ffao I have added two specific questions you need to answer for part 7.

Got to go now.

user189275

@Sleafar: That's the bottom magic square. I'm asking about the top square.

That's not a magic square.

user189275

@Sleafar: Any hints for it ?

user189275

Just one.

user189275

Are you gone ?

6:22 AM

Added a hint to the question.

And definitely gone now. :)

user189275

Okay, hope it's solved.

6:41 AM

I'm going for the day too

1:30 PM

I think "White, Green, and Brown" might refer to resistor color codes - they convert to 951.

3:50 PM

@Deusovi This is just a company name that apparently doesn't exist. I tried "Smith, Smith and Smith LLP" but this does really exist.