MonoSol, a tiny solitaire game for DOS

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

Download MonoSol v1.1 (11/29/2022)

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)
  • Play with keyboard or mouse
  • Change video modes on the fly
  • Game state save and restore
  • Simple clean graphics.

MonoSol should run on most DOS computers.  Under emulation it has been tested on an 8086, 64KB RAM, MS-DOS 2.0.  On real hardware 286, 640KB, MS-DOS 3.30.

Supported Video Modes
 
Name INT 10h mode Resolution Key
CGA 06h 640x200x2 F1
AT&T 6300 40h 640x400x2 F2
EGA 0Fh 640x350x2 F3
VGA 11h 640x480x2 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.

DosBox doesn’t seem to support AT&T 6300 or monochrome EGA modes but MonoSol runs fine in DosBox monochrome CGA and VGA modes.

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).

MonoSol 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 (monosol.com or monosolm.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
n New game
x Exit
F1-F4 Change video mode (CGA, AT&T 6300, EGA, VGA)
Mouse Controls (monosolm.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 3/2022 Initial release
v1.1 11/2022 fixes, optimizations, performance, added ending screen