Tetris (Electronika 60)

Tetris
Developer(s)	Alexey Pajitnov
Platform(s)	Electronika 60
Release	USSR: 1985
Gameplay info
Next pieces	1
Playfield size	10 × 20
Hold piece	No
Hard drop	Yes
Rotation system	Original Rotation System

The original Tetris (Russian: Тетрис) was programmed by Alexey Pajitnov using the programming language Pascal on an Electronika 60 (Russian: Электроника 60) - an unauthorized Soviet clone of a Digital Equipment Corp. PDP-11 computer. The game has monochrome graphics, and in the first revision of the game, the blocks in the tetrominos are represented by a pair of delete/rubout characters (character code 177); however, the rendering of this character code as a rectangle was a feature specific to the Soviet clone machines, an actual PDP-11 would instead display nothing. A later revision was made where the blocks are represented by a pair of square brackets instead. Pressing 1 on the keyboard will enable showing the next piece drop. In the BBC documentary Tetris: From Russia with Love, the DVK-3 computer can be seen displaying a TETRIS logo screen. It is unknown what version had this, or if it was just a mockup.

Scoring

• Points are awarded for each tetromino successfully dropped into place.
  • At level 0, the potential point score for each tetromino starts at 19, and decreases by 1 every time the tetromino descends a row due to gravity. As can be seen, an I tetromino falling freely from the top of the playfield to the bottom will descend 19 rows and score 0; it is never possible to score less than 0.
  • Playing at higher levels awards an additional 3 x (Level + 1) points per tetromino.
  • Playing with the preview disabled awards an additional 5 points per tetromino.
• 3 digits are provided for score display; when 999 is exceeded, the counter rolls back to 0 and a tally of symbols appear in order to keep track of thousands.

Bugs

It is sometimes possible to manipulate a tetromino after performing a hard drop, even though it is supposed to be locking. Doing so will leave a trail of blocks behind, which, although visible to the player, are not recognized by the game as actually being there. This can lead to a variety of unusual scenarios, for example, visibly complete rows will not clear, and tetrominos can be dropped through the stack.

Trivia

• In Tetris The Grand Master 3 Terror-Instinct's Shirase mode, pieces turn into brackets at level 1000 to 1300.
• In Tetris Worlds (PC only), reaching rank 15 for all the Story mode games will unlock Hadar, a basic clone of this version.
• In 2023, Tetris E60, a web game released officially to promote the movie Tetris, emulating the look of the original.
• There is a theme that references this version in Tetris Effect.

External links

• Video of the game running on a Soviet DVK computer, played by Sergey Frolov
• Original Tetris Emulation Howto
• Video tutorial with package link