One of the things that I wanted to do while I was at
Microsoft as an
intern was to meet the man who wrote
sol.exe, or the
Solitaire Program for
Windows. I did manage to briefly get to talk to him. He's quite a nice guy. He has two claims to fame:
- First, he is proud of his position of being (and i will quote) "The man responsible for the greatest loss in productivity, without being criminal." He is really glad that he was able to waste so many people's days away, with what was originally a pet project.
- Second, he broke the rules with solitaire. You see, at the time it was originally written, it was only a pet project that got approved for inclusion into Windows. It needed real card backings. So, one of the Microsoft internal artists did up a few pixely (but well done) backs, and those were to be the bitmap resources to be used. Well he was dating this girl at the time, and to impress her, he let her draw up the backs. At the last minute, he switched the two, making several superiors (and the artist) quite mad.
However, the two (the developer and the stealth solitaire artist) broke up, and nothing became of the
relationship. The
developer (whose name I unfortunately have
lost), left
Microsoft after many years very
recently, enjoying his quiet social status in playing a
hand in so much wasted
time. Solitaire is one of the most loved (or hated) programs in all of the
Windows bundle, and definately the most identifiable.