The
original Freecell executable was distributed as a test
application that came with the
Win32 dll for
Windows 3.1. This allowed you to run 32-bit applications (such as
Warcraft 2, etc) on the older
operating system. It was originally written by
Jim Horne for
Microsoft. Contrary to popular belief, the games are randomly
generated, but the games are generated the same way by the numbers as seeds, therefore they are
consistent. The grid of cards was created with the knowledge that a few might be impossible, and was left vague on
purpose.
The game was so popular that
Microsoft packaged it with several of its
Entertainment Packs, until it was finally included with
Windows when
Windows 95 came out. It now enjoys the status it does today.
There are two
easter egg games in
FreeCell, -1, and -2 (accessible from the select game feature off of the file menu). You can hit
control-shift-f10 to bring up an
abort-retry-ignore dialog to
win,
lose, or
cancel.