© 1997 Lawrence I. Charters (writing as Washington Apple Pi Labs)
Washington Apple Pi Journal, Vol. 19, no. 1, January-February 1997, pp. 39-41.
Not all of us use our computers to change the world, make millions of dollars, restore the land and purify the waters, and bring universal peace. And why not? Washington Apple Pi Labs (WAPL) dared to ask this question, and we found an answer: Eric’s Ultimate Solitaire.
If you bought a Macintosh with System 7.5 on a CD-ROM, or you purchased a shrinkwrap version of System 7.5 on CD-ROM, you may have found, floating in with the “extras,” a sample version of Eric’s Ultimate Solitaire. The sample version is so compelling and addicting that many people never cared to discover there was a bigger, brighter, even more addictive commercial version available.
In fact, many people, after playing the sample version, never cared about eating, drinking, working, or any other activity, and only stopped playing because their electricity was cut off for non-payment, crashing their computers and bringing an end to the game. WAPL has also heard that Eric’s Ultimate Solitaire is a great way to stop smoking, stop drinking, lose weight and attain enlightened celibacy. (Enlightened celibacy?)
Understandably, WAPL took the utmost care in evaluating Eric’s Ultimate Solitaire, passing it on to three successive reviewers. Working out of carefully isolated facilities located throughout the United States, the reports they sent back were – chilling.
On the surface, Ultimate Solitaire is “just” a solitaire game. Actually, it is 17 different solitaire games, the number derived, as the manual states, because “that’s how many fit in the menu of a Mac Plus without scrolling.” It runs on any Mac with at least two megabytes of memory, running System 6.0.5 up to the latest version of System 7.
Unlike virtually every other Mac manual, you want to read this one. Reading isn’t required; virtually anyone on the planet will be able to install and run the game without ever looking at the manual. But the manual is very funny: it makes fun of games, of license agreements, of troubleshooting, of manuals, of lawyers, of Windows for Workgroups. Of everything.
“In fact, many people, after playing the sample version, never cared about eating, drinking, working, or any other activity, and only stopped playing because their electricity was cut off for non-payment, crashing their computers and bringing an end to the game.”
You can even learn things from the manual, like how to cheat. But you won’t learn everything; it doesn’t tell you, for example, that if you play Ultimate Solitaire on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, birthday, a small tribute to King is shown on the screen. (Similar things happen on other special dates, all undocumented.) It doesn’t explain why it came with a slip of paper saying the game is shipped without a box to cut down on solid waste – even though it did come in a box. It doesn’t explain, really, why the Recommended Reading list includes The Tao of Pooh, Calvin and Hobbes, The Macintosh Way, Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman, The Strait Dope, and Nobody’s Business I{You Do, but not a single book on games, cards or solitaire. It doesn’t explain why it is 64 pages long. But it is highly
Illustration:
shaded.
Getting back to the game: one reviewer reported that it is “not the least bit addictive,” but is “definitely fun to play.” Ultimate Solitaire has “intelligent cards” that “fly” across the desktop if you “toss” them where they are supposed to go; you don’t have to drag cards around. This makes it “much easier to play, allowing you to concentrate on the game.” But the fact that they’d spent over a thousand hours playing the game (the game keeps track of the time) “doesn’t mean it is addictive.”
Another reviewer reported that a specific game, Eight Off, was a superb test of mental skill. Since you can always win an Eight Off game, this puzzled us, but they explained the real challenge was seeing how quickly you could win, and if you could raise or lower your average time. After 600 hours of play, their fastest win took 37 seconds, and their average game lasted 2 minutes, 4 seconds. “But no, I wouldn’t call it addictive.”
Yet another reviewer offered proof that Ultimate Solitaire isn’t addictive. “See? It says I’ve played it only 30 hours.” An associate of the reviewer privately confided the real story: while on hold for technical support from the Evil Empire, the WAPL staff member decided to play to pass the time, and Eric’s Ultimate Solitaire froze on launch. Throwing out the Preferences file from the System Folder eliminated the problem, and also eliminated all evidence that the game had actually been played for at least 1,200 hours. After realizing that the WAPL technical staff had, collectively, spent almost 120 full days playing the game, without writing any reviews and, possibly, without eating, drinking, working, sleeping or other activity (celibacy??) we sacked them all. We also came to a conclusion: Do not buy Eric’s Ultimate Solitaire. It is a Menace To Civilization. A deluxe CD-ROM version may be available by the time this appears in print. Assuming, of course, the Editor doesn’t discover it first …
Eric’s Ultimate Solitaire
$49 (available at $30-$45, at the whim of the retailer)
Delta Tao Software, Inc.
760 Harvard Ave.
Sunnyvale, CA 94087
(800) 827-9316
http://www.outland.com/deltatao/