Paul Alfille changed Baker's Game by making cards build according to alternate
colors, thus creating FreeCell. He implemented the first computerized version
of it for the PLATO educational computer system in 1978. The game became
popular mainly due to Jim Horne, who learned the game from the PLATO system and
implemented the game as a full graphical version for
Windows. This was eventually bundled along
with several releases of Windows.
Today, there are many other FreeCell implementations for every modern system,
some of them as part of Solitaire suites. However, it is estimated that as of
2003, the Microsoft version remains the most popular, despite the fact that
it is very limited.
While there are actually 52 , or approximately 8.06 * 10^67, possible games, the original Microsoft package includes 32,000, generated by a presumably 15-bit random number seed. These games are known as the "Microsoft 32,000". Later versions of Microsoft FreeCell include more games, of which the original 32,000 are a subset.
The Internet FreeCell Project by Dave Ring, which was finished in October
1995, tried to analyze which of the Microsoft 32,000 were solvable. Ring
assigned 100 consecutive games chunks across volunteering human solvers and
collected the games that they reported to be unsolvable, and assigned them
to other people.
The only game in the Microsoft 32,000 that proved to be unsolvable by anybody
(or any computerized solver) was No. 11,982. Given No. 11,982, Maria Feliany, an expert FreeCell player, could place only two cards into the foundations.
Occasionally an invented card game is referred to as the "next FreeCell", indicating a prediction that it will become likewise popular.
Another known solver is Patsolve of Tom Holroyd. Patsolve uses atomic moves,
and since version 3.0 incorporated a weighting function based on the
results of a genetic algorithm that made it much faster.
Shlomi Fish started his own solver starting of March 2000. This solver was
simply dubbed FreeCell Solver (which coupled with its many releases has
the unfortunate effect of clogging the Google search for "freecell solver").
This solver is unusual because it can use meta-moves, groups of
moves that aim to achieve a certain end.
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