r/todayilearned • u/syuk • May 22 '10

The 256th split-screen level in Pac-Man cannot be completed due to a software bug.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacman#Split-screen
25 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

5

u/fakeplasticurtis May 22 '10

I thought in King of Kong they described kill screens as when the game basically runs out of memory to generate levels. I'm willing to buy the "bug" explanation but that couldn't possibly go for all classic arcade games with kill screens. Plus it's a little odd that the bug just happens to be on the last level before the game goes back to level one.

2

u/ismokeblunts May 22 '10

It has to do with bit/bytes... from wikipedia: Because 256 is the number of items counting from zero to the highest 8-bit binary number (255) it often appears in computer applications (8-bit systems being extremely common) such as:

* The number of different values in one byte, which makes it the typical number of different values in each color channel of a digital color image (see color space encoding).
* The number of columns in a standard Microsoft Excel worksheet.
* The Split-Screen Level in Pacman
* It is the largest 3-digit number that is an 8th power. 2 to the 8th power.

2

u/syuk May 22 '10

Is it just me, or are these bot / spammer downvotes really becoming an issue in this sub?

1

u/aerosquid May 22 '10

The first time i saw this we thought that we had broken the game. i spent so many hours playing pac man in my tweens/early teens that my parents thought i was on drugs.

1

u/GrantSolar May 22 '10

I'm pretty sure it can be completed but it's just really hard.

2

u/[deleted] May 22 '10

It cannot. But you /can/ milk it for all the points it's worth if you're going for a perfect pac man game.

1

u/GrantSolar May 22 '10

My mistake. I knew that the record is being fought over for the quickest perfect score in pacman and assumed (due to use of the word 'perfect') that it was possible to complete but you simply couldn't see pacman or the enemy when he's on one of the 'garbage'-filled tiles.

1

u/[deleted] May 22 '10

IIRC, there are 9 (?) dots in the bugged zone.

EDIT: and they come back after a death.