Tetris is a very popular computer puzzle game. It was originally designed
and programmed by Alexey Pazhitnov (last name transliterated Pajitnov by
The Tetris Company [1]) in 1985, while he was working for the Dorodnicyn
Computing Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, during
the days of the Soviet Union. Pajitnov has cited pentominoes as a source
of inspiration for the game. Its name is derived from the Greek numerical prefix
" tetra-" meaning four, as all of the blocks are made up of four segments.
The game (or one of its many variants) is available for nearly every video
game console and computer operating system, as well as on devices such as
graphing calculators, mobile phones, iPods, and PDAs. Tetris
has even appeared as part of an art exhibition on the side of Brown University`s
14-story Sciences Library [1]. The game first gained mainstream exposure and
popularity beginning in 1989 when Nintendo released Tetris on its
Game Boy system. Tetris consistently appears on lists of the greatest
video games of all time.
