Patience

Patience is a collection of solitaire card games for the Palm Pilot.

Patience Version 2.5.2

Keith Packard

[email protected]

Patience is a collection of solitaire card games for the Palm Pilot.

Version 2.5.2

+ Fixed (at least one) problem causing 2.5 not to start on

OS 3.3

+ Removed diagnostics from 2.5.1

Version 2.5.1

+ Simplify custom characters for readability on Palm screen

+ Add debugging to figure out where Patience fails on

OS 3.3 for some users

Version 2.5

+ Add a few new games

+ A few minor UI changes

+ Changed cards to use custom characters instead of

built in characters (thanks to Imoto Takashi)

+ Runs on PalmOS 3.3

Version 2.4.1 ß

+ shrink data structure sizes

+ Make global game datastructure static rather than allocated

+ Add card count to deck in some games

Version 2.5.1 adds some diagnostics to figure out where Patience fails

on some OS 3.3 boxes and also simplifies the characters displayed on

the cards.

Version 2.5 adds a few more games (Vegas-rules klondike, Freecell and Wish)

plus a few UI fixes. Mostly, it works on OS 3.3 and includes custom

labels for the cards instead of using the built-in characters. This

makes the cards more readable, plus makes it possible to port Patience

to the Shift-JIS encoded Japanese Palm. A Japanese version should

be released soon.

Version 2.4 modifies the UI by making the table have a unique color, and

also adds two new games, Canfield and Eight Off. Eight Off is similar to

Towers, except has more stocks and fewer tableaus. As a result, it

plays a bit easier on the tiny screen. I've changed the UI for Yukon;

tapping a card now moves that card rather than attempting to move some

random subset of the stack. Yukon now has hints as well.

I've added a 'examine' mode where tapping a card shows the whole card;

dragging shows other cards. Hitting the next-page button while holding the

pen on a card switches back to play mode so you can play the selected card.

While in examine mode, a small black square is displayed in the lower right

corner of the screen.

I've added 'always auto-play' mode. In this mode, each time a card

is played, any auto-play moves are made afterwards.

I've added left-handed layouts for games where it matters.

I've discovered a problem when hackmaster is running and using some

of the application heap space -- patience was using too much for

undo history. I've moved the undo history to global memory, increasing

the maximum undo count to 1024 and reducing local heap usage by a lot.

Version 2.3 improves the UI by animating cards to track the pen. It's

also the first release built with the prc tools provided by Jeff Dionne

for Linux. A vast improvement over the Metrowerks environment on the

Macintosh. I also added attribution for Tabby Cat and the rules

of the game to Rick Holzgrafe, the author of Solitaire Till Dawn

for the Macintosh.

The Games

* Aces High

This is a very simple solitaire, infrequently winnable and

pretty much determined by the deal rather than the play.

* Calculation

Keeps your mind working with modulo 13 arithmetic

* Canfield

Another classic, much like Klondike except foundations start

at an arbitrary rank and empty tableaus are filled from a stock.

* Eight Off

Similar to Towers, but with eight tableaus and eight stocks. Seems

to be about as winnable.

* FreeCell

Another classic.

* Golf

Count up and down, try to end with fewer than four cards showing.

* Klondike

The classic; in draw-three style

* Montana

Line up all four suits from 2 to King. Tap empty spaces to highlight

the card which goes there. Tap cards to highlight where they go.

* Spider

My favorite double-deck solitaire; more playable in version 2.0, but still

cramped.

* Spiderette

A single-deck version of Spider. It seems to be less affected by skill than

spider.

* Tabby Cat

Similar to Spiderette, but suits don't matter, and you get this fine

tail to play with.

* Towers

Similar to FreeCell, but a bit easier to play.

* Vegas

Klondike solitaire using Vegas rules (draw one card).

* Wish

A very easy game, pairs of cards matching in rank are discarded until

no cards are left. Approximately 25% of deals are winnable.

* Yukon

Looks like Klondike, but is more complicated.

The Play

All of the games have the same controls; most of the time tapping

on a column will move some cards in a useful manner. When that doesn't

work, drag a card where you want it to go. Hints and 1024-level undo

are always available.

Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 Keith Packard

Patience is made available without fee. If you have a favorite solitaire

that you think will work well on the Pilot, send along a description of the

game and I'll see about incorporating it into the next release.

Keith Packard

[email protected]

http://clueserver.org/keithp