33333...

I just finished the excellent Professor Layton on the Nintendo DS.

Here's one of the puzzles from it.

Can you use the numbers 1 through to 9 only once each to make 2 numbers, one 5 digits long and the other 4 digits long. Take the smaller one from the larger and try to get the answer 33333.

so...

_ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ = 33333

Anyone care to attempt it?

I took an alternative, but in my mind, completely valid approach as I figured you really are just going to ramdomly re-arrange the numbers to get to or close to the answer.

I wrote a wee spreadsheet app to just keep randomly sorting the numbers and checking the answer until it hit the 33333. I think it took about 105,000 shots before it got it.