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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class. It's a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. What's Up? Everyone? Welcome to this Day in

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Speaker 1: History class, where we bring you a new tidbit from

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Speaker 1: history every day. Today is June six, nineteen. The day

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Speaker 1: was June six, nine four. Soviet Russian computer engineer Alexey

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Speaker 1: Pogetof launched a video game he called Tetris. Today, Tetris

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Speaker 1: is one of the best selling video games of all time.

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Speaker 1: Pogetnov have been working at the doubt Nietschen Computing Center

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Speaker 1: of the Academy of Science of the U s s

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Speaker 1: R and Moscow as an artificial intelligence researcher. When the

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Speaker 1: lab was sent new software, researchers there would figure out

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Speaker 1: the software's power by writing a program for it. Pogetof

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Speaker 1: would sometimes makes games as the simple programs. One game

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Speaker 1: that Pogetknoff particularly liked was Pentomenos. A penomeno is a

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Speaker 1: plane geometric figure made by joining five squares of the

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Speaker 1: same size together edge to edge. In ninety four, poget

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Speaker 1: Knov realized that pentominoes could be part of a good

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Speaker 1: computer game. But there are twelve variations of pentominoes, which

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Speaker 1: Pogetnov thought was too many, so he decided to go

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Speaker 1: with Tetraminos, which used four squares and have only seven variations.

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Speaker 1: He was working on a computer called the Electronica sixty,

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Speaker 1: which had a text based display, so he had to

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Speaker 1: create the puzzle pieces using letters. Then he set up

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Speaker 1: the procedures for the game, which are fairly simple. The

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Speaker 1: player flips and rotates puzzle pieces of different colors and

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Speaker 1: shapes as they fall so they fit together. As the

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Speaker 1: pieces form solid rose rose disappeared to make room for more.

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Speaker 1: The player loses when a puzzle piece hits the top

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Speaker 1: of the screen. Once the game was refined, he and

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Speaker 1: his colleagues founded enjoyable. The game was soon ported to

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Speaker 1: a PC. Poget Kov called the game Tetris, which was

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Speaker 1: a combination of the words tetraumino and tennis. The first

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Speaker 1: playable version of the game was released on June six.

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Speaker 1: N Early on, players used floppy disk to copy and

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Speaker 1: share the game. It quickly spread across Moscow, and soon

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Speaker 1: the PC version was sent to Hungary. Pirate it versions

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Speaker 1: spread to western countries. In Hungary, the game was put

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Speaker 1: on display in a software exhibit at the Hungarian Institute

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Speaker 1: of Technology. Hungarian programmers had made versions of the game

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Speaker 1: for other computers, including the Apple too. Owner of Andromeda

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Speaker 1: Software Limited, Robert Stein, saw the game there and found

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Speaker 1: out poget Knoff was the creator, but poget Knov had

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Speaker 1: granted his rights to the game to the government for

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Speaker 1: ten years. Electron North Technica or l ORG was a

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Speaker 1: state owned organization that controlled the export of computer software

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Speaker 1: from the Soviet Union. It was responsible for licensing Tetris,

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Speaker 1: and it handled all rights to the game. L OR

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Speaker 1: licensed Tetris to Stein, who licensed it to distributors Spectrum

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Speaker 1: Holloby and Mirror Self Limited in the US and UK, respectively.

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Speaker 1: The version Spectrum Hollabite design had Russian themed imagery and music.

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Speaker 1: Tetris was one of the first pieces of software to

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Speaker 1: be exported from the Soviet Union to the United States.

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Speaker 1: After some conflict over the right to distribute Tetris on

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Speaker 1: devices other than computers, l OR signed rights for an

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Speaker 1: arcade version over to Atari and non Japanese console and

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Speaker 1: handheld rights over to Nintendo. A copy of Tetris came

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Speaker 1: bundled with every game Boy, helping spur the device's success.

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Speaker 1: Even though Tetris was becoming a hit around the world.

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Speaker 1: Podgetnov did not make much money in the beginning, but

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Speaker 1: in n when the Russian license expired, the rights of

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Speaker 1: the game went back to podgeting Off and he began

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Speaker 1: to collect royalties. He and game license their Hank Rogers

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Speaker 1: founded the Tetris Company, which owns Tetris rights worldwide. I'm

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Speaker 1: each jeffco and hopefully you know a little more about

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Speaker 1: history today than you did yesterday. If you're so inclined,

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Speaker 1: you can follow us at T D I h C

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Speaker 1: Podcasts on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And if you're interested

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Speaker 1: in learning even more about history, then I suggest you

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Speaker 1: listen to another podcast I host called Unpopular. In it,

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Speaker 1: you'll hear the stories of people in history who challenge

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Speaker 1: the status quo to create meaningful change, even when their

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Speaker 1: descent had serious consequences, and I'll try to parse what

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Speaker 1: their descent can teach us about protests and contrarianism today.

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Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you tomorrow. M hmmm.

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Speaker 1: favorite shows.