‘He Got Hooked’: Obsessed With Records, Bill Gates Played Minesweeper So Much He Was Taken From The Game

Long before the advent of smartphones, the only game Windows owners had was Reversi, a board game (also called Othello) where the goal is to capture white or black pawns. But in 1990, the new version of the operating system brought its share of novelties within the Microsoft Entertainment Pack: new games like Tetris and especially Minesweeper.

And it is this emblematic strategic game that will mark a milestone for the American group. As Arstechnica journalist Kyle Orland recounts in a soon-to-be-published book, the minesweeper’s first admirer was chief Bill Gates.

record to beat

If he wasn’t already the richest man in the world, it wasn’t on one of the consoles of the day (the Super Nintendo launched in Japan in 1990) that he spent his time. In fact, Bill Gates has become obsessed with the minesweeper. “He got addicted,” says Charles Fitzgerald, a product manager at the time, today.

Quickly, Bill Gates multiplies the games to try to break the records. 10 seconds for beginner level? Almost the record, Fitzgerald replies that he understands that his boss will do everything possible to beat him.

The addiction is such that engineers decide to remove minesweeper from your PC. So the boss turns to the machines of his colleagues. Another product manager at the time, Bruce Ryan, recalls a call from Bill Gates one Saturday night that he wanted to bring witnesses to the office to prove a new record for minesweeper.

Software to beat Bill Gates

So it was Melinda French, marketing manager, who would later become Melinda Gates, who took matters into her own hands.

Therefore, the instruction is to leave the chief out of the progress of the demining file.

Bruce Ryan has an idea: get an unbeatable record from Bill Gates who had passed the beginner level in 5 seconds. He used for this a small program in charge of multiplying the parts, a million times to be precise.

Four hours later, the game was won in a second. “Sorry, your five second record has been permanently eclipsed because I don’t think you can beat a second,” he later sent to the CEO.