Knight's Tour Applet Instructions

In order to use the applet, Java must be enabled in your browser. Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator are the two recommended browsers to use. If you receive a message to download a plug-in, click yes and the process to download it will begin. (The download is necessary in order to use the applet). Next, pick the closest location to you and click the install button. After the file is downloaded, click yes to accept the licence agreement and then click next to complete the installation.

Your video display must have a resolution of at least 800x600 pixels for the applet to work properly.

This applet uses a recursive backtracking algorithm to figure out the moves of a knight traversing a chessboard landing on every box only once. In the game of chess, a knight's only valid moves are moving two rows and one column, or two columns and one row (the starting and ending position path is in the shape of an "L"). For simplicity, the knight starts out at 0,0 (the upperlefthand corner box). Each number in a chessboard box represents the turn in which the knight landed on that box. For instance, a 1 would represent the first move, a 2 the second, and so on. Red boxes indicate backtracking is occuring. For the purposes of saving time, only the first ten backtracks are shown. After the ten backtracks, the applet will output the solution. To start the animation, click the start animation button.

Please do not resize the browser window during the animation.

To restart the applet, click the broswer's refresh/reload button. To quit, just close the browser.