Overview
Computer Scrabble, also known in some versions as Leisure Genius presents Computer Scrabble, is a digital word-based board game developed by Psion (under license from Leisure Genius) and published by Sinclair for the ZX Spectrum in Europe in 1983. It later received releases by Leisure Genius for the Commodore 64 and BBC Micro in 1995, and for the Amstrad CPC and MSX in 1985.
It is the first official computer adaptation of the real-life board game Scrabble (then owned outside of the U.S. by J. W. Spear & Sons), with four-player support with both human and A.I. players. It is based on research from Dr. Peter Turcan, who used the board game as part of his research study in analyzing word structures.
Due to the limited capacity of microcomputers, the game has a limited dictionary set, from 8,500 to 20,000 words (depending on the version played), carefully selected from reference material used in official Scrabble tournaments. As a result of using such a small dictionary, the computer will prompt human players for confirmation if the word they used is not in the dictionary.
It later received a sequel, with the 1986 game Computer Scrabble De Luxe (also known as The Computer Edition of Scrabble Brand Crossword Game).
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