Soviet blockbuster computer game Tetris is 30 years old. Tetris (Russian: Те́трис, pronounced [ˈtɛtrʲɪs]) is a Soviet tile-matching puzzle video game originally designed and programmed by Alexey Pajitnov. It was released on June 6, 1984. It was the first entertainment software to be exported from the USSR to the US. The versions of Tetris were sold for a range of 1980s home computer platforms, and has later had very many re-incarnations in different forms, including ones mentioned in this blog: MIT huge Tetris hack and JavaScript Tetris in 140 bytes. There are nowadays many version of Tetris on-line to play on web browser.
Happy Birthday Tetris: It’s flipping 30 article and Tetris Wikipedia page give you a good look on the history of this classic computer game.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
The Complicated History Of ‘Tetris,’ Which Celebrates Its 30th Anniversary Today
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/tetris-history-2014-6#ixzz33wVzjMno
Tomi Engdahl says:
“I never imaged Tetris was going to be this successful,” Alexey Pajitnov says.
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/tetris-turns-30-creator-says-he-still-plays-every-week/1100-6420154/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Free Tetris
http://www.freetetris.org/
Tomi Engdahl says:
You Can Play Tetris on Your T-Shirt Now
http://news.softpedia.com/news/You-Can-Play-Tetris-on-Your-T-Shirt-Now-449303.shtml
Tetris had its 30th anniversary back on June 6, and a video game enthusiast has decided to celebrate the timeless game by creating a T-shirt that plays it. Definitely a step up from the sound-activated LED T-shirts that some people are wearing at parties.
“Here is a project I just finished, just in time for the 30th anniversary of Tetris. a T-Shirt you can play. with an Arduino Uno, 4 AA batteries and 128 LEDs. I always wanted a playable T-shirt, well now I made one myself. Based on the pumpktris instructables,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Here is a funny Tetris inspired animation:
Softbody-Tetris
http://vimeo.com/103050125
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Man Who Made Tetris
http://games.slashdot.org/story/14/11/21/0259215/the-man-who-made-tetris
Life gets pretty chill after creating ‘Tetris’ and escaping the KGB. A quick web search for “Alexey Pajitnov” brings up pages of articles and interviews that fixate only on his seminal creation
The Man Who Made ‘Tetris’
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-man-who-made-tetris
I’m at the wheel of a Tesla with a license plate that reads, simply: TETRIS. Alexey Pajitnov, the creator of that legendary video game, rides shotgun.
“Push the gas, push the gas!” whoops Pajitnov, bearded and jean jacketed. “Faster!”
Tomi Engdahl says:
You Can Now Play Tetris on Facebook Messenger
https://nerdist.com/tetris-facebook-messenger/
CoolGames has launched an in-Messenger version of the classic stacking game—all you have to do is connect your Facebook account, and you’re in.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tetris Joins Minecraft And DOOM In Running A Computer
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/10/tetris-joins-minecraft-and-doom-in-running-a-computer/
There is a select group of computer games whose in-game logic is enough for them to simulate computers in themselves. We’ve seen it in Minecraft and DOOM, and now there’s a new player in town from a surprising quarter: Tetris.
One might wonder how the Russian falling-blocks game could do this, as unlike the previous examples it has a very small playing field. And indeed it’s not quite the Tetris you’re used to playing, but a version played over an infinite board. Then viewed as a continuous progression of the game it can be viewed as somewhat similar to the tape in a Turing machine.
Tetris is Capable of Universal Computation
https://meatfighter.com/tetromino-computer/
This text presents a method for embedding a programmable, general-purpose, digital computer into Tetris. It describes the capabilities and performance of an implementation that runs Tetris on Tetris.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tetris Clone Uses 1000 Lines Of Code, And Nothing Else
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/25/tetris-clone-uses-1000-lines-of-code-and-nothing-else/
If you’re programming on a modern computer, you typically make use of lots of work done by other people. There’s operating systems to abstract away the complexities of modern hardware, standard libraries to implement common tasks, and tons of third-party libraries that prevent you from having to reinvent the wheel all the time: you’re definitely not the first one trying to draw graphics onto a screen or store data in a file.
But if it’s the wheels you’re most interested in, then there’s nothing wrong with inventing new ones now and then. [Michal Zalewski], for instance, has made a beautiful Tetris clone in just 1000 lines of C, without using anyone else’s code.
https://lcamtuf.substack.com/p/mcu-land-part-10-blocks-all-the-way
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2024/06/08/happy-birthday-tetris/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tetris has been crammed into a tiny 60KB PDF, works in any browser
Falling tetriminos find new life in a PDF
https://www.techspot.com/news/106316-tetris-has-crammed-tiny-60kb-pdf-works-any.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/21/from-retro-to-radiant-3d-tetris-on-a-led-matrix/