This will help you crack those tricky terminals in the Fallout series. Just run this ruby script and enter each word separated only with a slash and no spaces (ex: kid/cat/pop/dog). It will display each words' total matches minus any words that had no matches. Then once you guess enter in the guess word with the likeness returned from the termin…

FO4_terminal_hack.rb

class Hack
  
  def initialize words
    @words = words.downcase.split(/\/|\s|,\s|\,/)
    @splitwords = []
    @words.each { |w| @splitwords << w.split('') }
    show_likely
  end
  
  def deduct
    @match_matrix.each_key do |w|
      if @match_matrix[w].values.inject(0) {|sum, v| sum + v} <= w.length
        @match_matrix.delete(w)
      end
    end
  end
    
      
  def show_likely
    @match_matrix = {}
    @words.each do |w|
      @words.each_with_index do |ww, i|
        i == 0 ? @match_matrix[w] = {ww => 0} : @match_matrix[w].merge!({ww => 0})
      end
    end
    @splitwords.each do |word|
      word.each_with_index do |letter, i|
        @splitwords.each do |wordword| 
          if letter == wordword[i]
            @match_matrix[word.join][wordword.join] += 1
          end
        end
      end
    end
    deduct
    output
  end

  def comb str
    hint = str.downcase.split(/\/|\,|\s|,\s/)
    @match_matrix.delete(hint[0])
    @match_matrix.each_value do |v|
      if v[hint[0]] != hint[1].to_i
        @match_matrix.each_value {|q| q.delete(@match_matrix.key(v))}
        @match_matrix.delete(@match_matrix.key(v))
      end
    end
    @match_matrix.each_value {|v| v.delete(hint[0])}
    output
  end
  
  def output
    puts "Here's what we got left..."
    @match_matrix.each_key do |k|
      print "#{k}".ljust(15)
      print "#{@match_matrix[k].values.count { |v| v > 0}-1} word matches   "
      print "#{(@match_matrix[k].values.inject(0) {|sum, v| sum + v})-(k.length)} letter matches"
      print "\n"
    end
  end
end

puts "enter list separated by a dash, no spaces (ex: dog/cat/hop)"
input = gets.chomp
h = Hack.new(input)
puts "\n"
while input != "quit"
  puts "Input your word and likeness with a slash between (ex: foot/2) or quit to exit:"
  input  = gets.chomp
  h.comb(input)
end

ok, much improved over the first iteration, it shows word count matches as well as letter matches which don't matter as much. it also updates these counts for each guess/likeness entered.