These are the top five things you didn't know about Tetris.
We talked to CNET's Dan Ackerman to find out all kinds of Tetris things, because he literally wrote the book on Tetris.
It's called The Tetris Effect.
Go buy it.
Anyway, let's get to the five.
At number five it's a work of art The original black and white version of Tetris is a part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art.
Number four, you can play Tetris on pretty much anything.
Tetris is on more than 65 platforms.
It holds the Guinness World Record for the most ported game ever.
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There is even a version that runs on certain Hewlett-Packard oscilloscopes.
But it's an easter egg.
At number three, it's a 3D version of Tetris.
This 3D game wasn't designed by some knockoff artist.
Tetris' creator built a 3D version of Tetris.
Called Welltris.
Welltris is a top-down version of the game.
At number 2, z-shaped pieces are awful.
If you received only z-shaped pieces, you would lose after 120 pieces no matter what.
At number 1, how Tetris was packed in with the Gameboy.
Now this one's insane.
The year was 1989.
The Soviet government held the right to the Tetris game, because the Soviet government owned the rights to everything out of USSR.
Nintendo hired Hank Rogers, a game developer who ran bullet proof to make a deal.
Rogers travelled to Russia to talk to Elorg, a Soviet agency.
Elorg was actually in talks with three separate parties at the same time about console and hand held rights to Tetris.
Rogers showed off a Famicon version of Tetris and Elorg freaked out, thinking it was an illegal version.
So, Rogers paid them a royalty check of $40,000 on the spot.
That got Hank Rogers and Nintendo the hand held rights to the new Game Boy.
But for the rights for living room consoles like the NES, that was the big prize.
Due to a pe-existing relationship.
Elorg offered to write a first refusal to another party, but that party missed the deadline.
Then, Elorg did a deal with Nintendo directly.
$5 million later and Nintendo had the rights.
Bulletproof was the developer.
Nintendo was the publisher.
The Tetris story is fascinating.
Get Dan's book.
The Tetris Effect, available in Dead Tree and electronic book formats.
And audio book, read by the author.
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