Klondike may be the most commonly-known version of solitaire card games. This Macintosh version has been a lasting success, enough so that more than one person has written to curse the day some friend gave them a copy. A recent letter included a screen shot proving that person had played over 26,000 games of Klondike on his copy.
Version 5.1 is the latest version of Klondike solitaire for the Macintosh, as of September 1, 1992. This version adds support for more color and more animation, as well as fixing some bugs. Read the 'NEWS' help for a list of changes in this version.
When running under System 7.0, you will find Help menus for Klondike 5.1 on the system Help menu (the little question mark in a balloon, at the right end of the menu bar). Klondike has its own Help menu on earlier systems.
With System 7.0, you can also turn on Balloon Help for explanations of Klondike’s menu items and buttons in the Scoring dialog.
Read the Help for information on Klondike. There are four Help menus: Rules, Play, Scoring and News. Rules will give you the basic rules of Klondike solitaire. Play instructs you in how Klondike works on the Mac, including the available options. Scoring explains the scorekeeping variations provided. News provides a summary of changes in Klondike from release to release.
A Little History
Klondike has been available since 1984, and has evolved gradually since then. Casino scoring was an early addition, and color support was added as soon as the Mac II came out. Use the ‘Red Suits,’ ‘Card Backs,’ and 'Background' items on the Options menu to adjust color.
When Multifinder was released, Klondike was adapted to be Multifinder aware (it already had a ‘SIZE’ resource, as defined for Switcher, the precursor of Multifinder).
Around version 3.6, I added the ability to save and open external ‘decks’ (documents), which hold a private scoreboard and option selections. This was to support families with more than one Klondike fan: more than one husband (or wife) wrote in to complain that their spouse was getting so good, and making such high scores, they were no longer able to put their own name on the high scores list. There are also three (8-bit) colorized decks available which contain color face card images. Opening these decks makes the game even more colorful for those with color monitors. I hope some color artist makes a 24-bit deck available someday.
More recently, the game was improved visually (in my opinion) by providing full animation of cards when moving them around. Of course, this is controlled by the ‘Animation’ and 'Return' items on the Options menu. There are still those who prefer the original, ‘Outline’ animation.
I have recently been able to verify that Klondike works in 32-bit addressing mode. It also works under A/UX, as reported by a helpful Apple employee and Klondike player.
On the subject of memory, you will note that Klondike asks for 384K memory. I have played the game on a black-and-white Mac using as little as 64K. More memory is needed for full animation of the cards, 384K supports full animation with 8-bit color.
Finally, version 5.1 is System 7.0-friendly, which mainly means that it accepts high-level Apple Events. It also uses Apple’s Sound Manager to play tunes when it deals the cards and when you win a game. This is to provide compatibility with new and future Macs, although I have had to switch to simpler, less pleasant sound in order to avoid problems with older Macs.
The Pitch
Klondike is Shareware, which means that I would like you to send in a few dollars if you like the game and plan to keep playing it. You’ll find a reminder and the full address details in the “About…” box when you play the game. Be sure to include a disk and stamped envelope to receive a full set of the latest versions of four solitaire games (Klondike, Canfield, Golf and Calculation) as well as the three color ‘decks’.
The Plea
Klondike is a hobby. I only get to work on it a little every now and then (I find it therapeutic: I’m a programmer at heart). If you encounter any problems or incompatibilities playing Klondike, or have any suggestions for future improvements, PLEASE write to me personally at the address below. When I get time, I hope that I can fix your problem. Actually, I usually get bugs fixed fairly quickly; enhancements can take a while.
