Acknowledgements

It gives me great pleasure to thank everyone involved in the development and testing of Fathom It!. Without their help and feedback, Fathom It! would not have had the polished finish it does.

· Shmuel Siegel, for the most thorough testing any developer could hope for from a single person. He never ceased to amaze me by the genius and originality displayed in solving the toughest Fathom It! boards. Whether solving Fathom It! boards or discussing the inner workings of the automatic board solver, Shmuel consistently provided original ideas and suggestions.

· Steve Gale, for his creative suggestions and testing feedback. Together with Shmuel, Steve was the perfect sounding board for discussing board solving or program design.

· David Baron, for enjoying Fathom It! enough to play it daily for over two years. I couldn't have asked for a better market survey.

· Rafi Goldrich, for his excellent user interface suggestions, for helping solve some sticky technical problems, and for goading me to get Fathom It! out.

· Phil Chernofsky, for providing his typically high standard of beta tester feedback.

· Yehudah Warshaw, an accomplished shareware author himself, for gladly sharing his remarkable store of shareware lore and knowledge.

· My colleagues at Accent Software, for their suggestions and encouragement: Naama Bamberger, David Goldstein, Hannah Groumi, Yehudit Halle, Abby Kehat, Dan Ostroff, Adina Rabinowitz, Meir Schreiber, Michael Taub and Randy Wohl.

· Yitzchak Gale, for testing Fathom It! and providing insightful feedback.

· Four excellent CompuServe beta testers, who provided first-rate feedback while testing version 0.8I: Ben Herring, Dave Lamoureaux, Gerald Rhodes and Franziska Tinner.

· Jaime Poniachik, creator of Solitaire Battleship, editor and co-owner of Juegos & Co. (Buenos Aires), a publisher of quality puzzle magazines popular in Argentina and elsewhere in South America. Jaime gave his kind permission to implement Solitaire Battleship as a shareware program.

· Peter Gordon and Mike Shenk, for editing the Battleships column in Games Magazine, the column that initially "hooked" me on Solitaire Battleship and inspired Fathom It!.

· Bob Rosenschein of Accent Software, for permission to use company computers after hours, enabling me to generate Fathom It! boards in a matter of days rather than weeks.

· Fran Schnall, for her high quality proof-reading and editing of the final product.

· My nephews (and game aficionados) Akiva Felt, Yoel Rubin and Binyamin Rubin, for excellent ideas and suggestions, and for giving me the "younger generation" view of things.

· My wife Rochelle and our children Nachum, Chani, Dvora, Tzivya and Shoshana, for putting up with me during the development of Fathom It!. Without Rochelle's constant encouragement throughout, Fathom It! might never have seen the light of day.