Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, March 1 (Xinhua) Minesweeper was originally designed to teach people how to use the mouse, but it has become a very popular game, making many office workers indulge in it. It is reported that Microsoft founder Bill Gates is also one of the fans of the minesweeping game, and he is so enthusiastic about the game that his girlfriend at the time, Melinda French, asked others not to reveal his new minesweeping record to Bill Gates.

The story comes from the book Minesweeper written by Kyle Orland. According to Chris Fitzgerald, a former Microsoft project manager, Minesweeper was originally developed as a test tool for the Windows 3.1 operating system, but was later played as a game by many employees. Microsoft has even set up a ranking that records the shortest time it takes to complete a game at each difficulty level. Bill Gates is one of the active participants.

"Bill was addicted," Fitzgerald said. "I got an email from Bill saying,'I just spent 10 seconds in [primary] mine sweeping. is that a good score? I replied, 'Yes, 10 seconds is very good. Our current record is eight seconds'. Obviously, he was very close to breaking the record, which made him determined to break it."

Gates played minesweeper so much that someone uninstalled the game from his computer, but that didn't stop him from continuing to challenge the record. He even went to other people's offices to play minesweeper. On one occasion, Gates set a new record in the minesweeping game and invited Fitzgerald to verify it. It was a weekend night and Bill's call came from the office of then Microsoft president Mike Harman (Mike Hallman).

Melinda French, who later married Bill Gates, asked Microsoft employees not to tell Gates about the new record, so as not to distract him as CEO, "for the sake of the company."... please don't share the progress on mine clearance records with Bill.... bill has a lot of important decisions to make, and these things shouldn't take up (his) time! "

Instead of hiding the new record from Gates, Fitzgerald decided to repeat the minesweeper using a program called Macro Recorder, which he hoped would create an unbreakable record, and it did. Fitzgerald sent Gates a screenshot of the "one second" record (the minesweeping timer starts at one second) and said, "Sorry, your five-second record has been permanently overshadowed, because I don't think you can beat one second."

Gates seemed comfortable with the prank, replying, "my key skills have been replaced by computers." this technology is developing too fast. how can we maintain our human dignity when machines can do faster than humans? "

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.