Solitaire.exe: a real deck of cards based on Windows 98 Solitaire

Evan Roth, of Graffiti Research Lab (whose work we've featured many times in the past) has created a 500-piece limited-edition deck of cards based on the Solitaire game that came with Windows 98. They were manufactured by the US Playing Card Company (makers of Bicycle cards), and are for sale at $20 a deck.

Solitaire.exe

(Thanks, Evan!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Henry Pootel

Brilliant :)

And great for when the power is out and you need that fix!
taras

The app was called sol.exe, not solitaire.exe. Sad times/8.3 filenames. I do love it though.

Also (for API nerds) check out what Cooper Hewitt, who commissioned this deck, are doing with their collection: http://collection.cooperhewitt.org/api/
http://twitter.com/adamkorman Adam Korman

Didn’t Susan Kare design Solitaire? Why is Evan Roth signing these as if it’s his work (and presumably profiting from it)? http://kare.com/portfolio/17_microsoft_solataire.html
- Angryjim
  
  I see Roth does credit her an his site. I do think it is awesome that he made the cards real, and he deserves credit for doing that work, but it does annoy me a little when an artist is merely appropriating another’s work. Duchamp’s fountain was at least turned sideways and given new meaning.. So, anyway I am glad Roth is acknowledging her and linking to her portfolio.
onereader

Solitaire was included in Windows 3.0. I spent hours playing it when I was a child. I loved the final animation, when the cards started exploding from the stacks. Too bad it was calibrated for 1990 PCs and never revamped, IIRC in Windows XP it fast you almost couldn’t see it.
- Metostopholes
  
  You should go watch the video on the store page.
  
  In fact everyone reading this should.
- Jorpho
  
  Indeed, the link suggests there is some difference between the cards as used in Windows 98 and those from Windows 3.0. What could the difference be?
http://www.fatjerry.com Dimmer

Windows 3.0 had a 16 colour palette, Windows ’98 had a 256 colour one?
- http://profile.yahoo.com/LQ3L2HJDTI47BUD672CJT4CRSE Ian
  
  Windows 3.0 and 98 both supported 24 bit color if your video driver and card could handle it.
Warren_Terra

It’s been a long, long time, but I’m pretty sure the file name in Windows 3.x was “sol.exe”, not “solitaire.exe”. Especially since the latter is 9 characters before the extension, rather than 8.
- taras
  
  Wes Cherry, who wrote sol.exe, said in this interview that BoingBoing is one of his favourite sites. !