conspiracy-theories dept.
If you haven't ever played Solitaire, Minesweeper, Hearts or FreeCell, it's safe to say you're in the minority. These simple Windows games have probably caused more lost worker hours than anything short of a worldwide coffee shortage. Whichever one was your favorite, the temptation to take just one more go at beating them—to get a faster time or a better score—was hard to ignore.
But as fun as these games were, they weren't actually designed for entertainment. At least not in their Windows incarnations.
The oldest of the four, Microsoft Solitaire, was first added to Windows 3.0 in 1990. Although the game (sometimes called "Patience") has existed since the late 1700s, this digital version seemed to be demonstrating that in the future we would no longer require a physical deck to play simple card games. But that's not what it was doing at all. Its real aim was far more modest: it was teaching mouse-fluency by stealth.
The intention was that Solitaire would get a generation of computer users still most familiar with a command-line input to teach themselves how to drag and drop, without realizing that's what they were doing. The fact that we're still dragging and dropping today suggests that it worked rather well.
It is highly probable that SN members were aware of the true purpose of these games but the article seemed interesting nevertheless.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 16 2015, @08:43PM
Where was this 20 years ago. God. Had it out the auditors and accountants wanting the games removed because of its rules. Ps I won. That are training tools period
Is the article a training tool for SN ??
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 16 2015, @09:15PM
I remember reading about this in the early 90s. Kind of late to post this as news now, don't you think?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 16 2015, @11:38PM
Yes, I've known of this for many years, too. About 7 years ago, I had yet another little old lady come in to the shop telling me she'd been giving a laptop and didn't know how to use it. Plug in the mouse, show her how to use it, click, drag. Open solitaire, let her play a few games, and tell her that if she plays solitaire, she'll know how to use the mouse. Come back and see us when she's done, and we'll give her more training.
It's certainly not news.