ADN

your four items cost
3.16 1.20 1.50 1.25

(though I can't say what order they were scanned in)

sourced from microsoft excel by "solver"

create range of all decimal numbers (to the second place) from 1.00 to 3.99, store range.

create range of four "empty values"

look for all instances of four cells that produced a product of 7.11

secondary criteria

look for all instances of four cells that sum to 7.11

tertiary criteria for range values, first range of four values must be equal to second range of four values.

everyone that came back was these numbers in different order.

Nicely done!

Wow Raum...that was pretty impressive

hey, it's all in your excel application as well, if you install the whole package... and no one taught me how to do it. i just chewed on my keyboard until it started to tasted pretty good.

I highly recommend
"Microsoft Excel Data Analysis and Business Modelling"
by Wayne Winston as a place to start. Excellent reference.

and actually i found a faster way in solver taking a more retail approach, create range of four adjacent columns, to contain the possible prices for four products, that will render a profit of $.711 at a 10% margin.

you have to use accounting format to get the third decimal point, not currency.

then, in the fifth column, sum the four cells per row, and drag this formula down to the bottom of your recordset. open an autofilter on the fifth column, and search for 7.110 and you get the same values for much less criteria programming.

LOL!

Wow, I have enjoyed this thread tremendously..

For the record, this is not my question, it was asked to me, and I in turn asked it here, as I had no idea how to solve it...

It was posted that the password to a RAR full of goodies was the first four numbers of the answer to this riddle...So, I decided to drop it here and see what came of it...

ok did you tried the numbers, let us know

all this talking for some lousy package of porn pixz!

.... goin' down, down, down, down, down ...