Alexey Pajitnov and tennis

[Sully]

I've heard several people say that Alexey Pajitnov was a fan of tennis, and that he created the word "tetris" from "tetra" and "tennis." I've never seen this docmented in any reliable source. Does anyone have any further info regarding this "tennis" claim?

[colour_thief]

It's the first I've heard of this.

[Sully]

Someone has recently added it to the tetris wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris):


Pajitnov has cited pentominoes as a source of inspiration for the game. Its name is derived from the Greek numerical prefix "tetra-" meaning four, as all of the blocks are made up of four segments and the "is" comes from the game tennis, which was the only other game Alexey Pazhitnov enjoyed.

[caffeine]

from wikipedia's discussion, "That was stated in an episode of Icons on G4 if anyone cares to add a reference for it." --Pagrashtak


i also remember someone saying that on the episode, someone only speculated about this being alexey's favorite sport and the thereafter wordplay. i haven't seen the episode myself.

[Rosti LFC]

(bump) I'm fairly sure that the russians don't call tennis 'tennis'.

[tepples]

(bump) I'm fairly sure that the russians don't call tennis 'tennis'.

Yes they do. Look down the interlanguage links in Wikipedia:Tennis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis) and see the Russian article ?????????:?????? (http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/_25D0_25A2_25D0_25B5_25D0_25BD_25D0_25BD_25D0_25B8 _25D1_2581). In fact, except for Greek and Gaelic, all of the languages that 1. use a Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Cyrillic, or Japanese alphabet and 2. have a Wikipedia article on lawn tennis borrow some form of the word "tennis", possibly mutilating it into something like "tenis" (Spanish), "teniso" (Esperanto), or "???" (tenisu) (Japanese).


In standard 2-player, if you get really easy garbage, as was the case in Tetris (GB) or Tetris & Dr. Mario (Super NES), and you keep sending 4 lines back and forth whenever you get an I tetromino, isn't that like tennis?

[cdsboy]

In standard 2-player, if you get really easy garbage, as was the case in Tetris (GB) or Tetris & Dr. Mario (Super NES), and you keep sending 4 lines back and forth whenever you get an I tetromino, isn't that like tennis?


yes but at the time i do not believe 2 player tetris existed

[tepples]

In standard 2-player, if you get really easy garbage, as was the case in Tetris (GB) or Tetris & Dr. Mario (Super NES), and you keep sending 4 lines back and forth whenever you get an I tetromino, isn't that like tennis?
yes but at the time i do not believe 2 player tetris existed
Perhaps I misspoke with "standard", but from Vadim Gerasimov's Tetris page (http://vadim.oversigma.com/Tetris.htm):
Later Pajitnov and I also developed a 2-player version of Tetris and worked on a couple of psychological test projects. In the 2-player Tetris the glass had no bottom. The pieces for the first player move from the top, for the second - from the bottom. Two players competed for the space inside.

In other words, push.

[deepdorp]

can't resist:
it seems more likely to me that the word tetris is derived from the roots:
tetrad+penis=tetris. i'm not too sure how that translates to russian though

ahahaha