Serial implies one-dimensional ordering, while Collossal Cave was two dimensional.
Most circuit problems have a single input and single output, but the space in between can be as complicated as you like.
If the problem you are trying to solve has conventional solutions, these can serve as known routes through the territory you need to explore, and I've had people reject my short-cuts because they didn't understand the problem clearly enough.
The set of all circuits that can be designed from the Digikey catalog is past 2-dimensional.
The trick is to use a good search algorithm.
Yes, most people reject unusual solutions for several reasons, one being jealousy that they couldn't think of it.
Conventional solutions will have lots of competitors, who have to fight it out by under-bidding one another.
Obviously.
There isn't one. An algorithm is an explicit step-by-step procedure, and the process of getting from a client's requirement to a workable design doesn't seem to have been systematised to that extent.
I can't say that I've seen that. The example that I had in mind rejected what I'd proposed because it used a little bit of positive feedback and that - to him - suggested that it could latch up. It couldn't have and never did when Honeywell used it a few years later (not that either of us had anything to do with that).
Obvious solutions tend to get adopted more frequently (which is what makes them "conventional"). The cheapest acceptable solution does tend to become an industry standard, and about the only way to under-cut that kind of competition is by producing the product on a larger scale, usually in China.
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