Here is a history of all the previous revisions of both of the games.


Win42

v1.65 Added "Rotate hands" option.

Pulled the hand-related menu items from the File and Options menu and made a new "Hand" menu.

When "Play all hands" is selected, made it ask you for each player's bid so you can override the computer's suggestion, especially when replaying a hand.

Fixed a bug that would prevent a computer player from trumping-in with a higher trump after someone else trumped-in already, even though the computer player would explain that he was trying to trump-in.

v1.61 Added the ability to print a registration form.

Made it less likely to bid plunge if the partner bid 42 or more. This was because, if a partner had bid 42 or 84 intending to go Nel-O, the partner likely has a poor hand instead of a good one.

v1.60 Made the game remember where the windows were placed last time, so that if you have a favorite way of arranging the score, pile, and table windows, you have to do it just once.

Changed the computer's bidding strategy. Before, if it had a hand that was worth more than a 31 bid, it might start at 33, or 34 on a really good hand. Now it will bid 34 or 35 in those situations.

Fixed the minor bug that, if you replayed or re-started a hand, sometimes your hand would be missing a domino that you happened to be dragging at the first of the original hand.

v1.54 Added two new sound files - sixfour.wav and nickel.wav, and changed the program to know when to use them.

v1.52 Added the option when replaying a hand, to use the same bids from that replayed hand instead of bidding again.

v1.51 Fixed the display of previously opened files in the File menu. Before, it would sometimes lose track of one of them.

v1.50 Added the choice to make the "Pile" dominoes be drawn larger. This is especially for higher-resolution monitors where the smaller ones are hard to see.

Enhanced the keyboard controls for those players who aren't using the mouse. Now the Enter key will play a domino if you have only one legal choice, and the "/" or "?" key will show a suggestion.

v1.48 Allowed drawing dominoes after shuffling, immediately after the dominoes are drawn instead of having to wait for a fraction. This also fixed a bug where if someone was really quick, he could draw a couple of dominoes when he was the one who shuffled, and therefore shouldn't be allowed to draw.

v1.45 Changed the game-saving method. Before, it would save the old game when you exited or opened a new game. Now, it asks you if you want it saved. I did this because if you saved a hand that you wanted to play later, that hand would be overwritten with a later setup if you weren't very careful.

v1.4 History of open files was added. Now games are saved with the first name of the human player, plus the .42 extension.

Fixed the bug that would not allow you to bid plunge sometimes, namely when the computer's suggestion would have been Nel-o.

v1.3 "Doubles" as a trump was added back in. It had actually been in an earlier pre-released version, but I took it out because I didn't know how commonly it was allowed.

v1.2 In previous versions, if the shuffling process was interrupted to open a new game, start a hand over, replay a hand, or similar others, then things could get confused. This was fixed in this version by waiting for all event handlers to finish before processing the new interrupts.

v1.1 The ability to save the game setup and open it later was added. Also, when the game is exited the complete setup is automatically saved so that when the game is started again, you are right where you left off.

"Plunge" bidding was added.

v1.0 This was the original released version.


Dominoes for Windows

v1.65 Added the highlight which, in a game with more than two players, shows whose turn it currently is.

v1.61 Added the ability to print a registration form.

v1.60 Made the game remember where the windows were placed last time, so that if you have a favorite way of arranging the score, hand, and table windows, you have to do it just once.

Fixed the other half of the bug that would sometimes cause it to mistakenly think the game was blocked after the first play.

v1.60 Made the game remember where the windows were placed last time, so that if you have a favorite way of arranging the score, hand, and table windows, you have to do it just once.

Fixed the other half of the bug that would sometimes cause it to mistakenly think the game was blocked after the first play.

v1.54 Fixed a bug that would sometimes, in certain situations, cause it to mistakenly think that the game was blocked, when someone could really play.

v1.53 Fixed the bug that would not count the doubles correctly if you were dragging one of the dominoes at the time it was looking to see if anyone had enough doubles to allow a re- shuffle.

Fixed a couple of other very minor bugs that most people would never see.

v1.52 Changed the way that the "Hand" window moves when it has to expand and shrink with the changing number of dominoes.

Fixed the way the layout of the Table would be optimized with a large Table or small domino size. Before, if the Table was bigger than about twenty dominoes wide by ten tall, the iterative routine to find the new spinner position would diverge. In practice, you would see a problem only if your display resolution is 1280x1024 or greater, which I think is still pretty rare for PC's. The problem was that the loop gain in the feedback was dependent on the area of the Table, and with a very large Table the gain would be large enough to move a pole to the right half of the s-plane. Made the gain independent of area, and did more analysis of the loop to choose a gain value that settles quickly.

Finally fixed the way the spots are drawn on the Table dominoes when they are at the largest size.

v1.51 Fixed the "Overall score" display, which would before show the human player's score for all players.

Added the choice to reshuffle if you have more than a certain number of doubles. Added the setting of this certain number on the Game Options window.

Fixed the display of previously opened files. Before, it would sometimes lose track of one of them.

v1.50 It now allows you to use the keyboard to play the game, as well as the mouse.

Fixed the bug that would cause the score box not to be updated properly, if File, New Game was selected with a different player or a different number of players.

v1.38 Fixed the very minor bug that would sometimes cause the spots in a domino (pips) to be drawn without the little reflection spot.

Allowed drawing the dominoes after a shuffle, immediately after the dominoes are drawn instead of waiting for a fraction.

v1.37 Fixed the bug that would prevent the "score" box from being displayed for first-time users, or anytime the game starts without a previous game file to load.

v1.36 Added the menu option to view the overall score. Previously, the only time it could be seen was at the end of a game.

v1.35 Changed the game-saving method. Before, it would save the old game when you exited or opened a new game. Now, it asks you if you want it saved. I did this because if you saved a hand that you wanted to play later, that hand would be overwritten with a later setup if you weren't very careful.

Improved the way the dominoes are laid out on the table when one of the arms bends at an edge.

In versions 1.1 through 1.3, the dominoes would not be drawn properly the first time the game was run. Successive times the game was started would be no problem. This was fixed in v1.35.

In versions 1.1 through 1.3, the computer opponents would be set to the easiest level (Selectric) by default, instead of the intended hardest (Deep Thought) skill level. This was fixed in v1.35.

v1.3 Added the history of open games.

Fixed the bug that would sometimes let someone play two dominoes in one turn. Fixed the bug that would not count a domino at the end of the hand, if that domino was picked up by the mouse when the hand ended.

v1.21 If the option was selected to allow the person who dominoed last to play first next game, there was a bug which would keep this from working right. It was fixed with this version.

If this option were selected and the previous hand was blocked (no one dominoed), previous versions would give the next down to the person with the fewest points in his hand, or in case of a tie, to the person who downed last. This version changed that to decide the down as if it were the first hand in a game, either by drawing for down or by highest double.

v1.2 In previous versions, if the shuffling process was interrupted to open a new game, then things could get confused. This was fixed in this version by waiting for all event handlers to finish before opening a new game or starting a new game.

Added was the ability to select how many dominoes each player starts with at the beginning of a hand.

v1.1 The ability to save the game setup and open it later was added. Also, when the game is exited the complete setup is automatically saved so that when the game is started again, you are right where you left off.\line\line Added was the ability to let the person who dominoed, go first the next hand.

v1.0 This was the original released version.


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Updated 15 April 2005