TinySol, a tiny solitaire game for DOS

TinySol (formerly MonoSol) is a free tiny Klondike Solitaire game designed for good playability on vintage computers, especially those with monochrome screens.

MonoSol in 640x400 mode on the GRiDCase gas-plasma display.
TinySol in 640×400 mode on the GRiDCase gas-plasma display.

Download TinySol v1.2 (5/27/2024)

Upon launch the game begins and instructions are displayed until the first input is made.

Features

  • Fits anywhere (only 3KB)
  • Runs on any PC (8086 and up)
  • Runs on any graphics
    (CGA, AT&T, EGA, VGA)
  • Change video modes on the fly
  • Play with keyboard or mouse
  • In-Game state Save/Restore (undo)
  • Save/Load game to disk
  • Auto-finish game when possible
  • Scoring (Microsoft style, sans timer)

Compatibility

TinySol should run on most DOS computers.  It has been tested on the following.

  • Real Hardware 8088, 640KB, CGA, MS-DOS 3.30 (IBM 5150)
  • Real Hardware 286, 640KB, CGA/ATT, MS-DOS 3.30 (GRiDCase 1520)
  • Real Hardware Pentium 233, MS-DOS 6.22, VGA
  • Emulation 8086, 64KB RAM, MS-DOS 2.0, CGA
  • Emulation DosBox (primary testing during development)
Supported Video Modes
  
Name INT 10h mode Resolution Key
CGA 06h 640x200x2 F1
AT&T 6300 40h 640x400x2 F2
EGA 10h 640x350x16 F3
VGA 12h 640x480x16 F4

The video mode should be automatically detected except for 640×400 AT&T 6300 mode which will be automatically selected only for some GRiD computers. Modes can be switched on the fly using the F1-F4 keys.

NOTE: For DosBox users, DosBox doesn’t seem to support AT&T 6300 but the other modes work fine.

NOTE: CuteMouse, a popular DOS mouse driver, doesn’t seem to support the AT&T 6300 video mode.  The mouse functions but the cursor is not visible so I tested using the Microsoft Mouse driver v6.   DosBox doesn’t require a mouse driver (it’s integrated).

TinySol was written in x86 Assembly in early 2022, assembled with NASM, and was my first attempt at writing a tiny game.  The goal was a game that would look sharp in 640x400x2 mode on GRiD gas-plasma displays yet also be small enough to include in ROMs without much consequence.

NOTE: 640x400x2 mode is referenced by many different names.  AT&T 6300, Olivetti M24, Compaq Portable III, Doublescan CGA, and more.

Keyboard Controls (tinysol.com or tinysolm.com)
1-7 Tableau piles
A-D Foundation piles
8/Space Deck pile, deal 3 cards
9/Enter Draw pile, select card
Tab Auto-send selected card to a foundation pile
Up/Down Modify card selection within a pile
+/- Save/Restore game state
f Auto-Finish, sends all cards home if possible
n New game
x Exit
s Save current game to file named ‘save’
F1-F4 Change video mode (CGA, AT&T 6300, EGA, VGA)
Mouse Controls (tinysolm.com supports mouse)
Left Click Select piles (source or destination)
Right Click Auto-send selected card to a foundation pile
Click the N New game
Click the X Exit
Version History
v1.0 03/2022 Initial release
v1.1 11/2022 fixes, optimizations, performance, features (added ending screen)
v1.2 05/2024 fixes, optimizations, features (scoring, save to file, auto-finish)