The game originated in 1949, and its name comes from a spider's eight legs, referencing the eight foundation piles that must be filled in order to win.

The 50 remaining cards can be dealt to the tableau ten at a time when none of the piles are empty.

These play modes are equivalent to disregarding suit difference, either within the colors or altogether, and thus can be simulated in the physical card game, though the computer version aids visibility by representing all cards as spades and/or hearts.

[citation needed] An earlier version was written for Windows 3.x in 1991 by John A. Junod, the original developer of WS_FTP.

A similar game called Arachnid was also written for Windows 3.x in 1991 by Ian Heath, a computer science professor at the University of Southampton in the UK.

Different software implementations of spider offer alternative scoring rules.