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Does Windows' Solitaire let you win more often?

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Floppies_only

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Gang,

I haven't recorded the numbers on this, but it seems to me that the version of Solitaire included with Windows 3.1 lets you win much more often than other versions of the game on the PC, the version on my cell phone, and when playing with a physical deck of cards. Has anybody else investigated this? I've heard that the game was included for the purpose of giving people a way to practice using the mouse, so if that is true it would make sense to make the game last longer.

Thanks,
Sean
 
Truly not sure about probability. It could be the random command in the older compiler used isn't as random as the newer compilers. It was taking me too long to find the equation used for basic and qbasic rnd statements. That would give it a smaller random sorting (the card numbers have to be legit so I don't think they'd really cheat) but with smaller or predictable changes it may spread the cards out a bit less.

Yes I also heard that and minesweeper were for mouse training. It was actually pretty smart.. when we got our grandmother her first computer she wasn't used to the mouse or how to use it properly. She loved the physical card game Solitare so we got her to play that which helped her get used to the mouse movements and clicking without moving the mouse.
 
I recall some articles that claimed Windows Solitaire was easier to win than should have been possible. I would not be surprised if it was adjusted for that. After all, Reversi in Windows 2 was lambasted for being nearly impossible to win. Can't teach people mouse skills with a game they won't play.
 
krebizfan said:
I recall some articles that claimed Windows Solitaire was easier to win than should have been possible. I would not be surprised if it was adjusted for that. After all, Reversi in Windows 2 was lambasted for being nearly impossible to win. Can't teach people mouse skills with a game they won't play.
Click to expand...

With the standard Windows Solitaire there were some draws that were ultimately unwinnable. Spider Solitaire is different, in that all playable hands have the ability to win. What seems to be meant is that Wondows Solitaire deals more winnable hands in its random engine.

But as stated, Windows Solitaire can deal an unwinnable hand...

I think it is fully random, and every possible hand would be dealt eventually...
 
My assumption is also based on I think it would be more difficult to code it to cheat than to fully randomize and make honest. Given, who knows and with the programming story Ken recently posted about letting potential customers win more often it's possible. I would just imagine it's probably just the pseudo random generation that makes the difference.

Side note: when writing a few games for personal amusement in highschool (pong, tag, etc) I found a disappointing fact which was if you don't force the computer to make mistakes you pretty much can't win. It's up to adding delays and dumb human-line decisions to get the computer the ability to lose but that's because those games were simple logic of "is item above or below me.. then move +1 or -1".
 
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I'm pretty sure the standard random number generators of that era were not very random. I am hazy in this area but I think generating a very random number takes quite a bit more CPU time, and back before security was important in Windows they really didn't need better randoms.

Side note: At one place I worked, we had Solitaire on the machines for quite a while, then they took it off. Someone told me that they did some snooping to see if people were downloading porn at work. They didn't really find that, but instead found that some people were spending massive amounts of time playing Solitaire.
 
I don't know about 3.11 Solitaire, but I'm only getting about 18% to 22% in the winner's circle with W7 Solitaire. Plenty of time there to practice your mouse moves. And I even know the cheats!
 
We've got Windows NT 4 source around if you know where to look, maybe someone here could dig through it and see how wins are determined? I don't know a thing about C or solitare so I wouldn't know :p
 
barythrin said:
My assumption is also based on I think it would be more difficult to code it to cheat than to fully randomize and make honest.
Click to expand...

It would be quite a bit more difficult to cheat the programming. If they did they must have needed to write a program to find a large number of ways to deal winnable games and stored them in the program.

But I read Microsoft's 25th anniversary book that boasted that they made windows version 1 with non-overlapping windows even though it was more difficult to program. Personally, I like bigger windows that overlap, so I'll try to stick with version 2 on a PC, but whatever.

Sean
 
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