This game is SHAREWARE. This means you are free to copy it and give the copies away. You are NOT allowed to sell copies or modify the game. If you play the game and enjoy it, please PAY for it by sending $10, or whatever you can afford, to:
PDA Software
2211 Newfield
Austin, Tx 78703
By registering your copy, you’ll be notified of future versions and bug fixes, as well as other new shareware games for the Newton. You’ll also have the satisfaction of knowing that your money is going to support the development of additional cool applications for the Newton and you’ll confirm that you are, indeed, a good person.
Peg Solitaire is played on a board that contains a number of holes. At the start of the game, all holes but one are occupied by a peg. To move, a peg is removed from one hole and jumped over a peg in an adjacent hole, into an empty hole. The peg jumped over is removed. Diagonal moves are not allowed. The object of the game is to remove all the pegs but one, with that last peg occupying the hole in the board that was initially empty.
In the Newton version of the game, the holes are shown as empty squares and the pegs are represented by gray circles. To move, first tap the peg you wish to move (it will highlight by turning black), then tap the empty space you wish to move to. If the space you’ve tapped is a legal destination by the rules above, then the peg is removed from the old hole and added to the new hole, with the peg in between being removed. If the space is not a legal space, the formerly highlighted peg will be unhighlighted and the peg in the new space, if any, becomes the newly highlighted peg. After a move, the last peg used remains highlighted. If your next move will use this same peg, you do not need to click it first to select it.
To start a game, tap the “New Game” button. A series of buttons will appear that show the nine different board layouts that you can play. Each board has it’s own unique challenges and methodology. Tap a button to select a board layout. When the board you’ve selected is shown, all holes will be filled with pegs. You will first be instructed to tap a peg to create the initial hole. After that, the game proceeds as described above.
Often you will get down to two or three pegs remaining and have no further legal moves. At that point, your only option is to start a new game.
When you are selecting the board you wish to play, there will be two radio buttons beneath the board buttons. The first one, “Pick Pegs Up”, is the default and will lead to a game like the one already described. For a special challenge, tap the “Put Pegs Down” button. This will lead to a game that is the inverse of the normal game. In this game, you start with a single peg and “unjump” pegs in an attempt to populate, rather than depopulate, the board. Until you get used to it, this is considerably harder than the normal game.
At any time, you may quit the game (by tapping the close icon in the lower right). When you start the game back up, it will return to the state it was in when you left. Tapping the clock icon in the lower left corner of the board will briefly display the date, time and remaining battery life.
Once you’ve started a game and made some moves, you can back up by pressing the “Undo” button at the bottom of the screen. You can, however, only back up two moves.
The first evidence of Peg Solitaire being played was in France in the late 1600’sat the court of Louis XIV. They used the 37-hole cross-shaped board, now referred to as the “French” board by those in the know. However, the game is simple and was likely first played much, much earlier. Liebniz mentioned it in a paper he wrote for the Berlin Academy in 1710, seeming quite enthusiastic about it. Chevalier Louis de Jaucourt wrote a scholarly article about the game for a French encyclopedia in 1765 and J. C. Wiegleb published a mathematical study of the game, with solutions to some of the boards, in Germany in 1779. The game has been played, studied and computer-analyzed ever since.
Q) Can all the boards be solved, that is, played down to a single peg in the hole that was initially empty?
A) Well, I’m not sure. The standard, cross-shaped, 33-hole, “American” board that is the first one on the New Game screen is solvable for any starting empty hole. The 6x6 square board, the 4x6 rectangular board, the slanted board and the diamond-shaped board are also solvable for any initial hole. The cross-shaped 37-hole board (in the upper right on the new game grid), is NOT solvable when the initial empty hole is the center one, but it is for some other initially empty holes. The cross-shaped 45-hole board can be solved for all initially empty holes except where the initial hole is the center outside one on one of the arms of the cross. As for the others, particularly the hollow board, who knows?
Q) How much room will this take up on my Newton?
A) About 25K.
Q) Does Peg Solitaire create any soups on my Newton?
A) No.
Q) How do I tell what version I have?
A) Look in the about box (which comes up when you tap the “i” with the circle around it at the top right corner of the main screen).
Q) Have you solved all the boards?
A) Hell no, too busy writing it to play it.
Q) How long did it take to write “Peg Solitaire”?
A) Far longer than it should have taken, but it WAS fun.
Q) Is it easy to write games for the Newton?
A) Well, that depends on your definitions and expectations. It is easier than learning to pilot the space shuttle, but it is not as easy as learning to program your VCR. All things considered, I think it goes faster than writing a game for a very complex platform like the Mac.
For more information and solutions to many of the common boards, pick up:
"The Ins and Outs of Peg Solitaire" by John D Beasley, published by The Oxford University Press in 1985 (and now available in paperback). ISBN 0-19-286145-X. It's a nice little book that will tell you a hell of a lot more than you thought there was to know about the game.
