Nintendo tumbler puzzle Nintendo tumbler puzzle The Nintendo tumbler puzzle, also known as the "Ten Billion Barrel" in English and originally in Japanese, is a mathematical puzzle in the style of Rubik's Cube. It was invented by Gunpei Yokoi of Nintendo in 1980 and was covered by (until the patent expired in March 1995 due to non-payment of a maintenance fee). It consists of a "cylinder" of transparent plastic divided into six levels, together with a black plastic "frame". The frame consists of upper and lower discs that are joined together through the middle of the cylinder. The top and bottom levels of
15 puzzle inversions of the numbered pieces is even. The puzzle was "invented" by Noyes Palmer Chapman, a postmaster in Canastota, New York, who is said to have shown friends, as early as 1874, a precursor puzzle consisting of 16 numbered blocks that were to be put together in rows of four, each summing to 34. Copies of the improved Fifteen Puzzle made their way to Syracuse, New York, by way of Noyes' son, Frank, and from there, via sundry connections, to Watch Hill, Rhode Island, and finally to Hartford (Connecticut), where students in the American School for the Deaf started manufacturing