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In the vast history of video games, few titles have managed to achieve the iconic status that the game has. Lonely of Microsoft.
In the distant 1990, Microsoft surprised with its new Windows 3.0. An interface that improved its previous versions and brought renewed features and elements. A complete success in the world of computing that began to shape this company as what it would be in the future, the most popular software manufacturer worldwide.
In this sense, one of the additions that had the most impact for users was the solitaire card game. A small and simple game of patience that anyone could enjoy alone and spend hours trying to stack all the cards in the deck.
The impressive thing about this free Microsoft title was that it permeated a large part of society. Not only users who could buy their own computers at home enjoyed it, but also office workers and employees who had access to Windows. For many, the ultimate hobby.
How and where was he born solitary?
All free solitaire games on the Internet have their origins in the mid-18th century in Europe, specifically in aristocratic circles. In this case, it was the nobility of the time that was responsible for making this particular way of playing known.
There is no official creator, but it is speculated that they were people looking for solitary entertainment, that did not need other people to have fun.
Its popularity increased to such an extent that by the mid-19th century there were already different variants of the game, especially in Great Britain. The book Illustrated Games of Patience Published in 1870 by Lady Adelaide Cadogan, it greatly helped to disseminate the different types of solitaires that already existed at the time.
After there the rest is history, solitaire expanded as a quite popular pastime and its best-known variant was Klondike, which would later be taken over by Microsoft to adapt a card classic to the interface of its new baby, Windows 3.0. .
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Adaptation to Windows
Although it may seem like a story straight out of a comedy movie, the reality is that the creation of the most famous PC game was led by a intern working at Microsoft and that he did not charge a single cent for his efforts.
For many this may be complete madness, since the popularity of Windows solitaire was so great that it led to addictions and layoffs in more than one office. For Wes Cherry, the intern in question, it would have been a sure ticket to success and economic stability. But as he has stated on some occasions, he only launched that project within Microsoft so as not to have to take the final exams that tormented him at his university.
By 1989 he was working on adapting solitaire for Windows, and in 1990, Microsoft decided to add it to its next operating system, being a total success among users.
Since then and for many years, Windows Solitaire became a classic PC game that practically everyone had tried at some point. What was born as a simple project to avoid exams at the university, established itself as one of the most important elements of the pop culture of those generations.
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The Purpose of Solitaire for PC
Beyond wanting to include games within the interface of Windows 3.0Microsoft sought with the integration of a title such as solitaire to the operating system, to acclimatize the user to the use of the mousea terminal that in the 90s was not in the minds of many people.
Those were times where PCs were not yet overcrowded as they are today. Certainly they existed within many offices and a few had them inside their homes, but using a “mouse” It could be somewhat uncomfortable at first.
Fortunately, Solitary arrived to help solve that small problem. The dynamics of the game were ideal for teaching users how to use the mouse and getting them used to using the clicks (left and right), as well as the function of dragging elements through the interface, since the cards could be dragged around the screen to their corresponding positions.
In this sense, a videogame as a soloist he ended up helping millions of people to handle the new terminals a little better. Another achievement that points to video games and the importance they have had throughout history.
A game that went very far
It was thanks to Microsoft that the game of solitaire reached so many people over the past few decades. Not only were they in charge of massifying and change the history of video games later with their Xbox consolebut through Windows they managed to ensure that a simple pastime where patience was essential, was installed in the collective imagination of an entire generation.
The company itself has come to recognize how lonely it has been in relation to the applications of Windows, the most used in history. A no small fact that reveals how far this classic card game has come.
Now, such was the popularity of solitaire within civil society, that hThere are serious cases of addiction and, in some companies, there were even layoffs.
The most notorious case at the time was that of Edward Greenwood (2006), a New York state worker who was caught while playing solitaire during work hours. His dismissal became famous because the mayor at the time, Michael Bloomberg, alluded to that uncomfortable situation in a press conference. Without a doubt, the game had gone too far.
In this sense, there were people who had to Attend therapy to try to cope with your addiction in the best way to Windows Solitaire. Something that again seems taken from a movie, but was certainly a problem for a part of the population.
Be that as it may, there is no doubt that although there were cases of addiction or controversial situations surrounding the use of solitaire in work environments, This game was a key piece in introducing many people to the computer environment.