Have you ever heard of Solitaire Seer? No? That’s not surprising, it’s a kind of card-based fortune telling thing Casio invented to go with their solar-powered card-drawing calculators, the SL-831 and SL-731.
These two calculators are quite unique. Not quite game calculators, yet the blue button and its symbol is the same as those on the earlier game calcs.
Pushing the blue Card button shows the card suits on the right hand side of the display animate quickly (like shuffling/dealing cards maybe?) and eventually you’ll end up with a card number (up to 13) and a suit to go with.
The Solitaire Seer part comes in when you check the card grid that comes with the calculator, assuming you still have it, where you line up your card with a particular fortune. For example drawing the four of hearts produces the fortune “Permanent bachelorhood or spinsterhood or solitude” whereas the Ace of clubs promises “Wealth or success”. Hope that you don’t draw the nine of spades, though — the fortune is simply “The worst card” … leave that to your imagination.
The instruction manual also provides instructions for playing a very manual game of poker as well, where you have to write down the cards you draw. This seems like quite a hassle though and you’re probably better off just finding a pack of cards if you want to get through more than one hand without dying of boredom.
The SL-831 doesn’t appear for sale often and, when it does, is usually listed as a ‘game calculator’ — but don’t be fooled, you’ll be providing all the entertainment for this game.
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