The game was originally intended for mouse training by Windows users. picture: microsoft
–
How a Microsoft intern programmed the legendary “Solitaire”
The Windows card game that conquered the world is 30 years old today.
Microsoft is celebrating a milestone birthday today: The virtual card game “Solitaire” is now 30 years old.
For the anniversary, Microsoft writes:
«Proud 35 million players play a round of cards every month – they come from more than 200 countries and regions and speak 65 languages. Even after 30 years, fans don’t get tired: Solitaire is still one of the most played games worldwide with more than 100 million players every day. »
–
How it started
In 1990 the card game was launched under the name “Windows Solitaire” with Windows 3.0. What was new at the time was, above all, dragging and dropping objects with the mouse over the computer screen – the free mini-game was intended to familiarize people with this function.
The original solitaire was programmed by the Microsoft intern Wes Cherry, recalls The Verge. The designer drew for the graphics Susan Kare responsible for designing the legendary icons for the graphical user interface of the Apple Macintosh a few years earlier.
Pixel graphics artist Susan Kare. picture: watson
–
Funny detail: Cherry also programmed a “boss mode”, which should allow the solitaire players with a fake spreadsheet to deceive the bosses and colleagues. However, Microsoft had the boss mode removed before the game was released.
30 years later, Solitaire is played not only on PCs, but also on laptops, tablets and smartphones.
The iPhone version. screenshot: watson
–
With over half a billion players in the past ten years alone, the game has earned its inclusion in the “Video Game Hall of Fame” in 2019, Microsoft writes.
For the 30th anniversary, Microsoft is organizing a solitaire record attempt on Friday: As many users as ever should use the card game in one day. The details are over Microsoft’s Facebook page available.
sources
(dsc)
Since you have scrolled this far, we assume that you like our journalistic offer. As you may know, we have each other recently decidednot to require a login at watson. There will also be no payment barriers with us. We do not want to create any obstacles to access to watson because we believe that in a democracy everyone should be able to get information easily and at any time. If you still want to support us with a small amount, please do so here.
—
–
