On 17 Jun 2008 12:41:46 +0200, Fredrik Ekman
wrote, in part:

I looked up the url you provided. I have not checked your conversions
(I assume that you did your maths correctly), but you quote Burroughs
incorrectly. The unit of measure that should be used here is "sofad,"
not "safad" (which does not exist, as far as I know).

I do mention the sofad - about 11.69 inches. But one web site I've
visited claims that the safad is the "Martian inch", which might even
derive from John Carter and the Giant of Mars, and so I added that as a
unit equal to one-tenth of a sofad. This may not be accurate, it's true.

John Savard
http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html

On 17 Jun 2008 12:48:49 +0200, Fredrik Ekman
wrote, in part:

writes:

Burroughs
probably did not care much about such details, and in fact in "The
Chessmen of Mars" he was a bit careless, giving two slightly different
versions of the rules, leaving many rule ambiguities unresolved, and
giving a very unclear account of the one game that is described in any
detail.

If you are interested in an attempt to resolve the ambiguities, then
I humbly recommend my own articles on the subject in ERB-APA #92 and
#94. Back issues are still available. Have a look here if interested:

http://www.geocities.com/erbapa/

Also, it might be noted that the issues involved are cited on

http://www.chessvariants.com/other.dir/jetanrules.html

John Savard
http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html

On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:41:01 GMT, lid
(John Savard) wrote, in part:

On 17 Jun 2008 12:41:46 +0200, Fredrik Ekman
wrote, in part:

I looked up the url you provided. I have not checked your conversions
(I assume that you did your maths correctly), but you quote Burroughs
incorrectly. The unit of measure that should be used here is "sofad,"
not "safad" (which does not exist, as far as I know).

I do mention the sofad - about 11.69 inches. But one web site I've
visited claims that the safad is the "Martian inch", which might even
derive from John Carter and the Giant of Mars,

Actually, the safad is defined as the "Martian inch" in the Martian
Glossary at the end of Thuvia, Maid of Mars.

John Savard
http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html

lid (John Savard) writes:

Actually, the safad is defined as the "Martian inch" in the Martian
Glossary at the end of Thuvia, Maid of Mars.

Oh, so that was your source. Actually, that glossary is so full of errors
that it is just a Martian inch short of being ridiculous. You will notice
that there is no "sofad" in the dictionary, even though sofad has been
mentioned previously in the series, while safad has not (and is not in
the rest of the series, either). My guess is that "safad" is just a typo
for "sofad", just as "od" in the same glossary must be a typo for "ad".
Several similar errors in the glossary beg the assumption that some
typist could not read Burroughs' handwritten notes.

In a later book (Llana of Gathol, IIRC), Burroughs mentions that one
tenth of the sofad is one sof. So there is your Martian inch proper.

Fredrik

lid (John Savard) writes:

http://www.geocities.com/erbapa/

Also, it might be noted that the issues involved are cited on

http://www.chessvariants.com/other.dir/jetanrules.html

Huh? Did I miss something here? That page is by Larry Smith, and is
an edited version of his excellent web site. Nowhere does he appear
to cite my articles from ERB-APA #92 and #94, although I cite him
extensively. My articles complement Smith's site. I do what he chose
not to, namely try to establish just what Burroughs actually meant.
In #94 I suggest an edited and clarified set of rules for jetan.

Fredrik

On Jun 17, 11:58*am, Fredrik Ekman wrote:
(John Savard) writes:

Also, it might be noted that the issues involved are cited on

http://www.chessvariants.com/other.dir/jetanrules.html

Huh? Did I miss something here?

No; I didn't claim that his web pages did what your articles did,
merely that they discussed the issues for those who might not know
about them.

Some of the people reading this thread will only have a casual
interest in the matter, and will not be prepared to order printed
copies of issues 92 and 94 of the publication in question, the
_covers_ of which are displayed on the web site you linked to.

For myself, I admit to being strongly tempted, but first I'm going to
dig out my copy of "The Chessmen of Mars" and see if there _is_ any
evidence present that might help in such a quest. I'm suspicious that
even the strict and chained rules give the pieces so much freedom of
movement as to make the game unplayable.

In at least one case, though, I agree that what you've done is
plausible. When it comes to the Panthan, while I would be inclined to
eliminate the diagonal backwards moves, I now realize that doing so
would assume an oversight on the part of ERB, while including them is
consistent with accepting that he meant what he said. Perhaps
elsewhere in Chessmen is information that would allow the remaining
ambiguities to be addressed as well.

John Savard

On Jun 17, 12:33*pm, Quadibloc wrote:

For myself, I admit to being strongly tempted, but first I'm going to
dig out my copy of "The Chessmen of Mars" and see if there _is_ any
evidence present that might help in such a quest.

Upon returning to the site, I see that I had better not take too long
in doing so. Back issues may still be available, as you've said, but
if so, there are at most 11 of them in existence.

John Savard

On Jun 17, 1:50*pm, Fredrik Ekman wrote:
(John Savard) writes:
Actually, the safad is defined as the "Martian inch" in the Martian
Glossary at the end of Thuvia, Maid of Mars.

Oh, so that was your source. Actually, that glossary is so full of errors
that it is just a Martian inch short of being ridiculous. You will notice
that there is no "sofad" in the dictionary, even though sofad has been
mentioned previously in the series, while safad has not (and is not in
the rest of the series, either). My guess is that "safad" is just a typo
for "sofad", just as "od" in the same glossary must be a typo for "ad".
Several similar errors in the glossary beg the assumption that some
typist could not read Burroughs' handwritten notes.

In a later book (Llana of Gathol, IIRC), Burroughs mentions that one
tenth of the sofad is one sof. So there is your Martian inch proper.

* Fredrik

It's been decades since I read much ERB, but as I recall,
inconsistency was not uncommon in the Barsoom series. IIRC, the
aforementioned glossary named the dead city of Aaanthor as the Martian
equivalent of Greenwich, i.e. zero longitude, but in another novel
some place named Exum was so described. The Martian rat, the ulsio,
was described as 6- or 8-legged (don't remember which) in the first 8
or 10 novels, then in the dreadful 11th novel it was suddenly 3-
legged. Burroughs was not nearly so conscientious as, say, Tolkien in
ensuring consistency in his imaginary worlds.
As far as the panthan's move is concerned, I would think a backwards
diagonal move was not to be allowed. The panthan could move sideways
or forward, but never back either diagonally or orthogonally. This
means of course that a panthan on the 10th rank can only shuffle back
and forth; no promotion is envisaged. Another thing ERB probably did
not spend much thought on. He was, after all, an imaginative hack just
churning out pulp for profit, not a serious artist.

On Jun 17, 11:50 am, Fredrik Ekman wrote:
(John Savard) writes:
Actually, the safad is defined as the "Martian inch" in the Martian
Glossary at the end of Thuvia, Maid of Mars.

Oh, so that was your source. Actually, that glossary is so full of errors
that it is just a Martian inch short of being ridiculous. You will notice
that there is no "sofad" in the dictionary, even though sofad has been
mentioned previously in the series, while safad has not (and is not in
the rest of the series, either). My guess is that "safad" is just a typo
for "sofad", just as "od" in the same glossary must be a typo for "ad".
Several similar errors in the glossary beg the assumption that some
typist could not read Burroughs' handwritten notes.

In a later book (Llana of Gathol, IIRC), Burroughs mentions that one
tenth of the sofad is one sof. So there is your Martian inch proper.

Ah! I am somewhat surprised, though; given karad, haad, ad, and sofad,
one would have expected that sof- is a prefix meaning "one-hundredth",
and so safad sounds more reasonable. As it happens, in the text of
Thuvia, Maid of Mars, the sofad is referred to as 1.17 inches instead
of 11.69 inches... so having "sofad" as a typo for "safad" would have
made wonderful sense.

Still, something _explicitly_ mentioned - that a tenth of a sofad is a
sof - does have to take precedence over speculation.

John Savard

On Jun 17, 4:34 pm, wrote:
then in the dreadful 11th novel it was suddenly 3-
legged.

Since the dreadful 11th novel was adapted from a Big Little Book by
one of Burroughs' sons, that can't be taken as evidence of
inconsistency by Burroughs - although, yes, even in the good novels,
sadly, there was plenty of inconsistency too.

John Savard