Wordle’s clone time travels

Windle. © DialupDotNet/Microsoft.

Wordle, the word game that has been peppering our social media feeds these past few weeks, was cloned so that the resulting Windle can run on a 1990s PC. If you didn’t hang on to your PC from way back then, you can of course use a virtual machine or an emulator like DOSBox, but that would compromise the authenticity of the experience. Which apparently is important to the author of this software because he used a Gateway 2000 4DX2-66V dating from 1993 for its development (Intel 80486 DX2 CPU at 66MHz with Windows 3.11) and the very first version of the Borland Delphi development environment. Running this on vintage hardware has also exposed issues that wouldn’t have been obvious in a virtualized copy of Windows 3.1, such as a system hang that occurs when the entire dictionary is loaded into memory by a 66MHz processor.

Windle was designed to integrate with the Microsoft Entertainment Pack, along with noteworthy games like Chip’s Challenge, JezzBall, or even Minesweeper. It also works perfectly in early 32-bit versions of Windows like Windows 95 and 98. Windle isn’t the only retro Wordle clone: the game was also ported to the original Game Boy and various Palm PDAs. Hardware limitations prevent these ports from using the same dictionary and user interface as the contemporary version, but the basic premise of the game is simple enough that even the Game Boy’s monochromatic screen can get the gist of it.

⇨ Ars Technica, Andrew Cunningham, “If you’re still on Windows 3.1, Windle is the best way to get in on the Wordle craze.”

2022-02-22