History
The computer game was originally created by Brodie Lockard in 1981 on the PLATO system and named Mah-Jongg after the game that uses the same tiles for play. Lockard claims that it was based on a centuries-old Chinese game called "the Turtle". There is a children's game in China named 拆牌龜 ("Demolish the Tile Turtle") of unknown age. The computer game was released for free and was played using a CDC-721 touch screen terminal. Control Data Corporation released a new version as a paid online game in 1983. The first version remained available for free.
However, it was not until Activision released Shanghai in 1986 for the Macintosh and Apple IIgs that the game gathered momentum. The Macintosh version was created by Brodie Lockard (programming and graphics) and the Apple IIGS version was ported from the Macintosh by Ivan Manley with Brad Fregger as the producer. The game became very successful, and around 10 million copies were sold. It has been ported to many different platforms. The name "Shanghai" was trademarked by Activision.
As the game is based on mahjong tiles, some confusion arose with the 4-player mahjong game. Although the name mahjong solitaire is generally accepted, other names include The Turtle as well as brand names Shanghai Solitaire, Taipei, Kyodai and Moraff's. Taipei, originally written by David Norris in 1986, was so named as it was a "cheap clone" of Shanghai.
A version of this game was also included in the Microsoft Entertainment Pack for Windows 3.x in 1990 and went by the name Taipei. It was subsequently included in the Best of Windows Entertainment Pack. Premium editions of the Windows Vista operating system and Windows 7 include a version of the game known as Mahjong Titans (known in the betas as Shanghai Solitaire), that can be run on XP.
Some variations have been ported to Flash and are played online using a web browser.
Read more about this topic: Mahjong Solitaire
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