Description & Features

LAMPWords is an anagramming and word-finding program for Palm-compatible handheld computing devices.

LAMPWords can be used for Scrabble®, Boggle®, crossword puzzles, and other word games/puzzles. It also has other general uses, such as for checking spellings of words when writing.

LAMPWords was modeled after the Word Search feature of LeXpert, a word list generator and study program popular among Scrabble® players. LAMPWords is also designed to replace the old Franklin Electronic OSPD pocket computer. These were very popular devices but they aren't very durable and were discontinued for a long time, though a new version is now available.

Features

The features of LAMPWordsX are listed below. Features that have been added since LAMPWords 1.1 are underlined.

• Straightforward, easy to use interface.
• Pattern, Anagramming, Build, and Fit (combination of Build & Pattern) search modes.
• Fit mode patterns may now contain all wild cards (including *).
• Word Judge Mode for adjudicating Scrabble® plays.
• Wild card matching, including wild cards for consonants, vowels, and Scrabble® tile values.
• The * symbol, which matches 0 or more of any character, is now supported in Pattern and Anagram modes.
• Alphagrams (alphabetical letter arrangements of words) can be optionally displayed.
• Input history for recall of recent search patterns. (Now larger!)
• Dictionaries can be updated.
• Word categories inside dictionaries are supported.
• Program appearance is preserved between runs.
• New display control options for turning off symbols and showing ? and * matches.
• Maximum list size can be adjusted by the user.
• Dictionary can be beamed to other users.
• Program, dictionaries, and source code are all FREE!

Compatibility & Requirements

• Handheld device running Palm OS 2.0 or greater. Please note that for best use, Palm OS 3.0 or better is recommended.
• At least 500KB free memory, with 1MB recommended. (Exact requirements depend on desired dictionary size.)
• A PC with software capable of installing the program and dictionary database on your Palm device (e.g. Palm Desktop for Windows).

Currently, LAMPWords is known to run on Palm Pilot Professional, III, IIIc, IIIe, m100, m105, m125, m505, Vx, Zire, Tungsten W, and Tungsten T devices, as well as Visor Edge, Visor Deluxe, and Sony Clie handhelds and also the Sony Treo cell phone. LAMPWords was also tested on the emulator provided by Palm and should run on any device running Palm OS 2.0 or higher.

If you don't currently own a handheld but think you might be interested in buying one so you can use LAMPWords, see my Handheld Buying Tips page.

Known Bugs & Tips

• Pattern search with the * wildcard at the front is EXTREMELY slow. It will be much faster to search each word length individually using multiple ? wildcards. Note that using * in an Anagram search is also slow, but not nearly as much so. Pattern search with * after one or more character is reasonably fast.
• LAMPWords' on-the-fly key translation (e.g. translating a period to a question mark) does not work on some newer devices. However, although the shortcut characters display, they will be properly translated when Search is pressed.
• The shortcut buttons ?*VC do not work on some newer devices. Use the shortcut keys listed in the manual.

For a full list of bugs that were known at release time, see the BUGS file included with the program. This file can also be viewed separately on the Download page.

Future Improvements

Neither further development of LAMPWords nor dictionary updates are being done by the original author.

Why Free?

With other similar programs selling for $15 or more, you might be wondering why LAMPWords is free. In other words, what's the catch?

There is no catch. I wrote LAMPWords after receiving a Palm m100 for my birthday. I'm an expert-level Scrabble® player, so using my Palm for looking up words was a natural fit. LAMPWords proved itself very useful to me in just a few days, so I released it in the hope it would be useful to others. It was - I've received dozens of emails from satisfied users. So I cleaned up the program, sped things up, shrank the dictionary size, and added some features, and released the first full version for both these users and for my own benefit. (I got tired of waiting a long time for routine searches too.) The newest version adds some features to round out the program.

Let's face it, I'm not likely to make any money on a program like LAMPWords. I don't have the entreprenurial skills, and even if I did the program just doesn't have a large enough market. Given this, I would rather see a bunch of people using LAMPWords and not paying me a dime than I would to sell a few copies.

Even if that doesn't happen, I've already received my compensation. Not only do I have a handy word-search program to use on my own Palm, but I got to learn how develop for the Palm. I'm a programmer by trade, and the experience will prove far more rewarding later in my career. In fact, it likely contributed to me get my first programming job:  I demoed LAMPWords during one of the interviews.

Where do Lamps Fit In?

Heh, the program's name has nothing to do with lamps, of course. I might have called it PalmWords, but Palm frowns on including the Palm trademark as part of program names. Anyhow, there was already a program that had a very similar name (though it has since changed names for the reason above). So I got to thinking: Lamp and Palm are anagrams. The program is an anagramming tool for Palm computing devices. So the name became LampWords.

I still wasn't satisfied with this, though. It seemed silly and nonsensical - which it was, but I didn't want it to look that way. So I invoked an old computer hacker's tradition: the backronym. A backronym is an acronym applied to an existing word or set of letters after the fact, and is often used to make sense out of, or make fun of, an otherwise nonsensical string of characters.

So the just plain silly LampWords became the delightfully pretentious LAMPWords, with LAMP standing for Lexical Anagrammer and Matcher for the Palm. Now it looks like it stands for something! However, I decided to stop short of insisting it be pronounced Ell-Ay-Em-Pee-Words, since I wouldn't have the patience to pronounce it that way myself.  Incidentally, I've since grown to loathe the name as being too nonsensical.