Minesweeper

The first traceable game that has, more or less, the gameplay of Minesweeper is Relentless Logic (1984) by Conway, Hong, and Smith. In this game, which uses character graphics, the size of the minefield is fixed to 14×9, but the number of bombs can be chosen between 10 and 40. The goal is not to disarm the minefield completely, but just to cross it safely. But the biggest difference to the well-known later implementations is that the number of nearby bombs is not shown permanently. You have to map the field out on a piece of paper. Four years later, Larry Ludwick remade Relentless Logic as Landmine with CGA graphics.

Minesweeper as we know it now was first written by Curt Johnson for OS/2 and was released in May 1990 as PMMine (PM for Presentation Manager). The copyright notice still says Bogus Software, a label used by several Microsoft programmers for their recreational programs. Robert Donner ported it to Windows 3.0 as WinMine. A couple of releases from June 1990 exist, they all show a Duff Software copyright notice. The name Minesweeper first turns up on the version included in the Windows Entertainment Pack. It was probably invented by the marketing department, who also renamed Chris Pirih's WinSki to SkiFree.

Since Windows 3.1, Minesweeper has been part of every Windows distribution. Most clones were created after this point, and usually for DOS or Mac, not for Windows. The motivation may often have been what Edward Henigin wrote in the readme of his game Minefind:

My primary intent in writing this game was to fill a void. People who use a particular brand of GUI for an operating system can play a game surprisingly similar to this one whenever they want. I enjoy that game so much, I searched for a clone that would run under DOS, and couldn't find one.

Minesweeper for DOS
Blow Up	Bombs Away!	D-mineur	Mijnen
Mine Field	Minefind	Mynes
Minesweeper for Windows
LandMine	Mines	Minesweeper Mania	Mynes