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>Ironically, Tetris’s success began because the totalitarian Soviet regime did not recognize what we take for granted in the West: the freedom to publish. After Pajitnov adapted Golomb’s geometric discoveries for the nascent digital world, he had no choice but to distribute his game as a samizdat
Samizdat very specifically refers to censored texts. Yeah sure various versions of Tetris informally circulated around on floppies/tapes just like all other games and software, but that's not samizdat and had nothing to do with freedom to publish or censorship, there just weren't many viable ways to distribute the software to private users (and not many of those to begin with). It was way too long ago and I don't remember if any Soviet magazines like Radio had actual listings, but Tetris was a popular game in them.
A sort of oddly opinionated article despite having little citation to it and being rather vague on events and timelines compared to some other pieces out there. I’d love to know why for example, the author finds it so clear that Pajitnov should not have won a copyright. I don’t have any stake in it myself, the claim just isn’t supported in the article. I think this is the 4th or 5th retelling of this story I’ve come across now.
For a decent documentary tracing the creation of Tetris, and the machinations that eventually brought it to the west (taking out part of Maxwell's Mirror empire along the way), find BBC4's "From Russia With Love". Last I checked it was available in full on Youtube, those of us in the UK can no doubt get it on iPlayer.
> What’s more, it had been designed and coded in a state artificial-intelligence research lab tightly controlled by the KGB
Hmm, according to Wikipedia this happened in the Computational Centre for the USSR Science Academy. As far as I know it was never a "closed" institute, so the article is over dramatising it at least.
The author similarly dives into the crazy and interesting series of events - such a snapshot of that era - that led to the game getting onto the Gameboy, and the impressive impact that had.
Nobody ever referred to software as “samizdat”, and there was no concept of “freeware” - everything was “free”, including stolen Western software. Source: I’m from there and then.
It is weird how they use the letter Я ("ya") as a "Russian" version of R. The Russian (actually Cyrillic) version of R is "P". So I read the name with flipped "R" as "Tetyais" and it makes no sense.
Also I wonder how Vadim Gerasimov managed to obtain an IBM PC-compatible computer: where he got the money and what store would be selling that. This shows how unequal and unfair the society became when reforms began at the late USSR. In earlier USSR, everybody would equally and fairly have no computer.
This can't be the first time you're seeing such use of Я? It's very commonly used in Western typography / graphic design as a symbol to invoke associations with Russia. It's not being used as a Cyrillic letter, it's being used a "think of Russia" and people unfamiliar with Cyrillic will mentally associate it with R so TETЯIS is easily read as "tetris". Even if yes, people familiar with the alphabet find it harder because the first reaction to Я is to in fact read it correctly.
Same with Σ being used as a "think of Greece" symbol that people from Latin-script languages are expected to process as E, leading to "brilliant" designs in GRΣΣK. Or how the Chinese character 山 would remind a Russian speaker of Ш so ПО山ЛИ would be easy to read.
Typographers call this "faux Cyrillic", as far as I know. Я for R, И for N, and so on, aimed at readers who don't read Cyrillic at all. That's the point: it signals "Russian" rather than spelling anything. Readers of the script just see a mirrored R, which is probably why it grates on them.
As a Russian programmer, certainly you are aware of Elektronika 60 and Dorodnitsyn Computing Center? Regarding я, it is the same shape as R but backwards and feels exotic, nothing too complex there.
Small nitpick: Я isn't a flipped R historically, that's just a coincidence of shape. IIRC it comes from the old iotated A (ꙗ), which got reshaped under Peter's reforms in the early 1700s. But yeah, the mirrored-Latin look is obviously what the branding was going for, whatever it does to Russian readers.
> the Trump administration released a politically charged clone of Tetris called Build the Wall.
Knowing that the principle of Tetris is to destroy the walls that form when the shapes land, I start to wonder what was the winning condition of this version
Every Tetris player knows the trick for max score is building a tall wall with one column left open, then dropping the I piece to clear four rows at once. So the only winning move is a wall with a gap in it, and the moment you finish it, it vanishes.
> A major instrument of that victory had been the spread of Western culture
That's the political fluff. The important thing was the spread of capitalism and its accompanying legal institutions such as trademark and copyright - which Tetris definitely represented.
The widespread protest movements that led to the fall of the Iron Curtain didn’t happen through some vague “spread of capitalism” or through copyright. The spread of Western culture was a major part of what sparked those widespread protests.
Half a dozen companies each held a handshake license to the same game, and nobody had the paperwork straight. I've inherited that exact setup in prod. Works great until someone important asks who actually owns it.
Samizdat very specifically refers to censored texts. Yeah sure various versions of Tetris informally circulated around on floppies/tapes just like all other games and software, but that's not samizdat and had nothing to do with freedom to publish or censorship, there just weren't many viable ways to distribute the software to private users (and not many of those to begin with). It was way too long ago and I don't remember if any Soviet magazines like Radio had actual listings, but Tetris was a popular game in them.