Piranha Fish

Have you ever come home from a hard day at the ‘Grunge Foundry’, had dinner, thrown the Radio and TV Times on the floor in disgust, walked into the other room, switched on the computer, and then like the organist in the ‘Lost Chord’ typed idly at the keys. Then had this brilliant idea for a program to write, only, within a twinkling the inspiration has vanished. No? Oh well, forget it. How about those of you who are quite capable programmers, but can never think of anything to program? May be it’s Sunday afternoon, and having mowed the kittens, you’ve nothing better to do. Either way, I was looking through a manual for ‘Tiny-C’ when I found the following demonstration example, and thought, “There’s a marvellous program for the INMC80, given someone with the time to write it, and a sufficiently warped imagination.” Well for all of you with warped minds and nothing better to fill the time, here are the rules, they make hilarious reading in themselves.

You are on safari, and your party consists of the following unlikely people.

You have arrived at a river 100 yards wide, filled with hungry piranha fish. There is a leaky canoe by the shore, and as you must cross the river, that is the only transport available. Worse, it will hold at the most only four people. The canibals paddle the best, followed by the hunters, the doctor, the nurse, and lastly, the missionaries who are notoriously weak. You have to decide who will take the canoe each trip back and forth, thereby getting the whole party across with the minimum of carnage.

The doctor can attend major and minor wounds, unless he himself is wounded. The nurse can attend minor wounds, or if the doctor is wounded but on the same shore as the nurse, the nurse can attend to major wounds under the guidance of the doctor.

The speed of the canoe is the average of the paddling strengths of the people in the canoe. A speed of 100 units is required to paddle to opposite shore just as the canoe sinks. The initial paddling strengths are:

Strengths should be multiplied by the following factors for unhealthy paddlers:

During the trip across the river, certain events will happen with the following probabilites:

The Canoe fills with water at a predetermined rate.
During each yard (speed divided by 4) of the trip a single piranha fish will jump into the boat with a probability of 0.25. The fish will always select a random toe. Cannibals will always spear the fish, but half the time they will make a hole in the canoe by doing so. Hunters always panic and capsize the boat. The Doctor is quick half the time avoiding