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

Tetris (Russian: Тетрис) was created by Alexey Pajitnov using the Pascal programming language on an Electronika 60, an unauthorized Soviet clone of the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11 computer. The game originally featured monochrome graphics. In its first version, the blocks in the tetrominos were represented by pairs of delete/rubout characters (character code 177). On Soviet clone machines like the Electronika 60, this character code rendered as a rectangle, but on an actual PDP-11, the same code displayed as empty space.

A later revision replaced the delete/rubout characters with square brackets to represent the blocks.

In 2003, to promote the movie Tetris (2023), a web version was released called Tetris E60.

Included with Tetris Forever is a rebuilt version of the game.

Gameplay

Pressing "1" on the keyboard toggles a preview of the next piece.

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 the BBC documentary Tetris: From Russia with Love, a DVK-3 computer is shown displaying a TETRIS logo screen. However, it is unclear which version of the game included this feature or whether the display was merely a mockup.
• 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, an official web game was released to promote the movie Tetris, emulating the look of the original.
• Tetris Effect has a theme that references this version.
• Tetris Forever features a recreation of the game. It offers two versions that it refers to as a "1984" edition (featuring a title/logo in Russian), and a "1985" edition (featuring the title "TETRIS" in large block letters composed of various other characters).

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