I have taken a liberty to shorten "The shopkeeper's puzzle" created by H.E. Dudeney about 125 years ago:
If you decode the alphametics gaunt+oiler=rguoei the sequence 1234567890 will represent a valid English word.
What word?

DECLARE SUB permute (a$)
CLS
a$ = "gauntoiler": h$ = a$
DO
  g = INSTR(a$, "g") - 1
  a = INSTR(a$, "a") - 1
  u = INSTR(a$, "u") - 1
  n = INSTR(a$, "n") - 1
  t = INSTR(a$, "t") - 1
  o = INSTR(a$, "o") - 1
  i = INSTR(a$, "i") - 1
  l = INSTR(a$, "l") - 1
  e = INSTR(a$, "e") - 1
  r = INSTR(a$, "r") - 1
  gaunt = g * 10000 + a * 1000 + u * 100 + n * 10 + t
  oiler = o * 10000 + i * 1000 + l * 100 + e * 10 + r
  rguoei = r * 100000 + g * 10000 + u * 1000 + o * 100 + e * 10 + i
  IF gaunt + oiler = rguoei THEN
     PRINT MID$(a$, 2) + LEFT$(a$, 1)
  END IF
  permute a$
LOOP UNTIL a$ = h$

finds the possible solutions to the alphametic, for 1234567890, as one of:

reglutiaon
regulation
reugaltion
reutilgaon
rgelutiaon
rgeulation
rguealtion
rgutileaon
rutieglaon
rutigelaon

Only regulation is a valid English word.

Edited on November 20, 2010, 8:32 pm

Posted by Charlie on 2010-11-20 20:31:25