Adaptation Displacement: Solitaire is more often played as a computer game than with physical cards these days. Of the various versions, Microsoft's are the best known.
Memetic Mutation: The bouncing card deck animation when you win in Microsoft Solitaire.
Nintendo Hard: For a sedate little card game that comes with most people's computers, solitaire can be surprisingly difficult and many games will end in defeat. For Klondike solitaire, losing is often a certainty, as at least a fifth of all Klondike games are mathematically unwinnable.
Older Than They Think: Long before Microsoft made it a computer game, it was already an extremely common solo game and way to kill time, with the earliest recorded versions dating to the 18th century. There was nothing unusual about seeing someone playing a game at a desk or lunch table - using physical cards - during a work break during the 1980s and before. Microsoft's version that first appeared in Windows 3.0 in 1990 was specifically designed to get office workers transitioning from MS-DOS comfortable using the mouse. It was ubiquitous enough to be occasionally referenced in media from the pre-Internet era, often in the form of a passer-by pointing out an overlooked play. Even before Microsoft's versions, there were already implementations of various solitaire games on computers dating back to the mainframe era. One of the first popular computer implementations, Solitaire Royale, was published a few years before Microsoft's version and was ported to several major home computer platforms.
Popularity Polynomial: Microsoft's versions of solitaire games have reinvigorated interest in solitaire games as a whole since the 1990s.
