That time Bill Gates got so obsessed with Minesweeper high scores that Microsoft staff had to conjure up one he couldn't beat

pcgamer.com:

Journalist Kyle Orland is writing an entire book on the history of Minesweeper(opens in new tab), which I suspect is a much more fascinating topic than it may at first appear. Minesweeper is one of those games that feels somehow omnipresent now, always there no matter which PC you're on, though its roots are in early '90s Microsoft and specifically the Windows 3.0 era. As part of the book's launch campaign Ars Technica features a chapter about those early days(opens in new tab), and one particularly big fan of the game.

Minesweeper first appeared on Microsoft's internal network in 1990, where various employees quickly got (understandably) hooked. «It was, needless to say, a very well-tested piece of software around Microsoft,» said Charles Fitzgerald, a product manager for the first Windows Entertainment Pack which would contain Minesweeper.

Plenty of Microsoft employees acquired a Minesweeper habit over this period and, amusingly enough, their reports to the developers were often erroneous. One claimed it was impossible to finish on Expert difficulty. «Whenever someone claimed to have found a bug, I asked them to send me a screenshot and then I had to point out their logic mistake,» recalled Minesweeper coder Robert Donner.

Then, Minesweeper ensnared the biggest fish in Microsoft. «Bill [Gates] got addicted,» said Fitzgerald. 

«Originally, I think I got a mail from Bill saying, 'I just solved [Beginner] Minesweeper in 10 seconds. Is that good?'» said product manager Bruce Ryan recalled. «I wrote back to him, I go, 'Yeah, 10 seconds is really good. The record for us right now I think is eight.' (I think that was me, embarrassingly.) Apparently, the fact that the record was very close to where he was led him to make [it]