Revision as of 14:01, 7 April 2010

Software plays an increasing role in organized SCRABBLE® activities. NASPA's Web Committee offers web hosting space to software developers, and works with them to develop standards. The Technology Committee evaluates software for use at tournaments and clubs.

Note: the Technology Committee does not evaluate or endorse the various study tools available, but has provided a list here for information purposes only.

Tournament and club software

Word judge (software self lookup)

NASPA recommends that tournaments and clubs use laptops running word adjudication software to process challenges in competitive games. The following Software Self Lookup (SSL) programs were evaluated by the Technology Committee and are approved for use in club and tournament situations as noted below.

Zyzzyva

developed by Michael Thelen, is used at all major events, including the National SCRABBLE Championship, National School SCRABBLE Championship and Canadian National SCRABBLE Championship

Requirements: Windows or MAC

Acceptable for tournament and club play

WHAT

developed by Mike Wolfberg

Requirements: Windows

Acceptable for tournament and club play

WordJudge

developed by John Babina

Requirements: Requires bootable floppy drive

Acceptable for tournament and club play

Lexpert (No longer available but previous versions exist)

developed by M.G. Ravichandran

Requirements: Windows, Windows CE

Acceptable for club play only

Tournament management

Tournament management software assists the director in pairing players, recording game results, generating pairing reports and standings for printing, and generating final tournament data for submission to NASPA for rating of tournaments.

Director!

developed by Marc Levesque, in 2009. Runs on Windows.

TMENU

developed by RA Fontes, is also widely used in the United States but no longer distributed. TMENU requires DOS or Windows.

TourneyMan

developed by Jeff Widergren, formerly used at the National SCRABBLE Championship and still widely used in the United States. It has a limited set of features but is relatively easy to learn. TourneyMan requires Windows.

tsh

developed by John Chew, is used at all major events, including the National SCRABBLE Championship, National School SCRABBLE Championship and Canadian National SCRABBLE Championship. It has a very rich set of features, but most directors need some help at first learning to use it. tsh runs under OS/X, Linux, DOS and Windows.

Study tools

Note: the Technology Committee does not evaluate or endorse the various study tools available, but has provided a list here for information purposes only.

Game analysis

Quackle

developed by Jason Katz-Brown and John O'Laughlin, is the strongest SCRABBLE playing program in the world. It is used by many players for training, and to analyze their games to improve their future play.

Maven

developed by Brian Sheppard, is also a strong program, but was withdrawn from the market when its rights were sold to Hasbro. Sheppard continues to develop the program, a branch of which was available briefly from Hasbro in CD-ROM form.

ACBot

developed by James Cherry, and used to provide game analyses to users of DOoM servers, is no longer available.

Anagramming and word lookup tools

CHECKWORD

app for the iPhone that anagrams letters to find words. Also has a word judge feature (that has not yet been authorized by the Technology Committee for offical use at tournaments or clubs).

System: iPhone

LAMPWords

developed by Paul Sidorsky, runs on Palm devices. No longer actively being developed, it is still an excellent program to search for words for a given rack or set of tiles. Also has a word judge feature (that has not yet been authorized by the Technology Committee for offical use at tournaments or clubs).

System: Palm

Lexpert

developed by M.G. Ravichandran, anagramming and study tools. No longer supported or easily available, but a Windows version is available at www.valuecube.com/lexpert.

Systems: Windows, Windows CE (palm-pc)

WHAT

developed by Mike Wolfberg, Wolfberg's Helpful Anagramming Tool. Also authorized SSL word judge for tournaments and clubs.

System: Windows

Zyzzyva

developed by Michael Thelen, allows a variety of word lookup methods, includes definitions, cardbox studying, quizzes, etc. Also authorized SSL word judge for tournaments and clubs.

Systems supported: Windows, MAC, Linux, etc.

Dictionaries

Franklin Electronic Dictionary

available at Word Gear and other stores for approximately $50, allows lookup and definition of OSPD4 words. Use a password to unlock OWL2 words (no definitions for them). NOT authorized for word judging (no multiple work lookup and wordlist hasn't been verified).

Dictionary: OSPD4/OWL2

System: standalone device.

RoadLingua

application for Palm devices that allows upload of OSPD4 definitions (and OWL2 for words 8-letters or less). Free version interrups with a registration pop-up every few lookups--pay $10 and that goes away.

Dictionary: OSPD4/OWL2 (others available)

System: Palm OS, Windows Mobile

WeDict Pro

app for iPhone devices that allows upload of OSPD4 definitions (and OWL2 for words 8-letters or less). Price $5.99 for app (OSPD4 dictionary available free).

Dictionary: OSPD4/OWL2 (others available)

System: iPhone

Zyzzyva

Includes definitions along with word list and study tools.

Dictionary: OSPD4/OWL2, OSW, ODS4

Systems supported: Windows, MAC, Linux, etc.