A brief history of Tetris

Tetris was the first computer game that involved falling tetromino pieces that the game player must align in order to create an unbroken line which subsequently disappears in order to free up more game play space. If the player is unable to make an unbroken line, the game play space quickly gets crowded until the point where no more space is available and the game is over.

The game of Tetris was first programmed in 1985 in the former Soviet Union by Alexey Pazhitnov. It ran on a machine called an Electronica 60 but was quickly ported to run on an IBM PC in the same month of its initial release. One month later and the game had been ported for use on the Apple II and the Commodore 64 by a programming team in Hungary.

The game quickly saw interest from a software house in the UK, Andromeda, who released it in the UK and USA in 1986 although the original programmer Pazhitnov had not agreed to any sale or licensing agreement. Nonetheless, Anromeda managed to copyright licensing for the game and marketed Tetris as