The most popular Tetris was the original, it is one of the most sold video games ever, and it didn't even allow you to hold a piece. That is what people think of when they hear Tetris, it isn't old enough that the people who played it back then are dead.
It's actually doubtful most people have even seen the original, let alone played it ;)
Still, Nintendo's Tetris implementations on NES and Game Boy are both early and among the best-known versions, neither of which use a piece bag.
NES Tetris is both a pretty good implementation to be enjoyable, and it's unchanging in a way that makes it ideal for competition. It is gaining new players to this day.
For anyone wondering, the original implementation was on a PDP-11 clone called Electronika 60 https://tetris.wiki/Tetris_(Electronika_60) ... not the 1989 Game Boy version most people consider to be the "original" :)
I've got the backplane and boards to build a more-or-less LSI-11, the original system cloned by the Electronika 60. One day I really want to load the original Tetris onto it somehow... Would probably have to use a terminal emulator to get the Cyrillic character set to render, but I bet it's possible!
> NES Tetris is both a pretty good implementation to be enjoyable, and it's unchanging in a way that makes it ideal for competition. It is gaining new players to this day.
Not only new players, but also new techniques (for fast side movement):
After 1. DAS (holding the d-pad) and 2. Hypertapping (rapidly tapping the d-pad with one finger) now there is 3. Rolling (rapidly tapping the controller with multiple fingers in succession). The geekiness is strong with these.
