[HN Gopher] After 34 years, someone beat Tetris [video]
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       After 34 years, someone beat Tetris [video]
        
       Author : gslin
       Score  : 338 points
       Date   : 2024-01-02 12:46 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
        
       | philihp wrote:
       | Alexander wept
        
         | kaffekaka wrote:
         | i know a guy too
        
       | ajdude wrote:
       | See also:
       | 
       | Celebrating the first NES Tetris game crash (biggieblog.com)
       | 
       | 197 points by davidrjones1977 10 days ago | 56 comments
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38734106
        
       | dragontamer wrote:
       | I knew about hypertapping or rolling, but I wasn't plugged into
       | the developments after that.
       | 
       | Exciting to finally get to the kill screen of this classic!
        
       | kypro wrote:
       | It's almost inhuman how good some people can get at rapid and
       | highly complex muscle movements with enough practise. What an
       | amazing achievement.
        
         | somenameforme wrote:
         | And mental, think about something like chess! In general it's
         | just incredible how good we can become at anything. It's kind
         | of interesting to think about in times long past where warfare
         | was melee based and how there would have been similar outliers.
         | Somebody who lucked into some good genetics, good diet, and
         | good training would have been a mountain among men.
        
           | whatshisface wrote:
           | They must have been incredibly disappointed when they first
           | encountered a well-disciplined line of mediocre pikemen!
        
           | Taylor_OD wrote:
           | > It's kind of interesting to think about in times long past
           | where warfare was melee based and how there would have been
           | similar outliers. Somebody who lucked into some good
           | genetics, good diet, and good training would have been a
           | mountain among men.
           | 
           | The UFC exists today. Some fighters, like Jon Jones, are
           | incredibly gifted and have won, and held, a championship
           | title despite doing a lot of things "wrong" outside of the
           | ring.
           | 
           | Part of the enjoyment of watching modern MMA is seeing chess
           | matches and tactics play out between the most highly skilled
           | fighters in the world.
        
             | wnevets wrote:
             | > like Jon Jones, are incredibly gifted
             | 
             | with lots of steroids and other PEDs
        
       | lawlessone wrote:
       | Is this all only possible with old consoles?
       | 
       | I'm speculating that modern games limit the amount user IO on PC
       | and Consoles?
        
         | tokai wrote:
         | Only Teris for NES matters.
        
           | anthk wrote:
           | Ironically the Tengen release was better.
        
         | jerf wrote:
         | Depends on what you mean by "limit user IO". Standard USB
         | keyboards have a limit on the number of keys you can hold down
         | at once but otherwise the limits are your physical speed rather
         | than the protocol. Similarly, these techniques for fast
         | clicking are still under what even the NES hardware is capable
         | of; this rolling technique allows clicking buttons much more
         | quickly than you normally can but they're still a long way from
         | the 30Hz strobe the hardware itself will accept, as used by
         | Tool Assisted Speedruns on real hardware. So even in the NES
         | generation the "limits" were still far, far beyond human
         | capabilities.
        
           | lawlessone wrote:
           | >this rolling technique allows clicking buttons much more
           | quickly than you normally can but they're still a long way
           | from the 30Hz strobe the hardware itself will accept
           | 
           | That actually kind of what I was thinking of :-) . I would
           | have though more "modern" games , particularly multiplayer,
           | would have software limits even as the hardware got more
           | capable.
        
             | kroltan wrote:
             | Quite the contrary, actually. Some games check for inputs
             | every frame, and computers nowadays can run modern games at
             | up to hundreds of frames per second.
             | 
             | The simulation rate is often lower than the draw rate
             | though. Minecraft is as low as 20 updates per second, while
             | something like Counter Strike 2 handles events immediately
             | and sends precise timestamps to the server, not discretized
             | to any sampling rate beyond your hardware.
        
             | TillE wrote:
             | Nobody artificially limits input rates because that would
             | reduce responsiveness. You _can_ analyze a _series_ of
             | inputs to detect humanly-impossible changes.
        
             | Karliss wrote:
             | Online multiplayer games are more likely have proper timers
             | for all the ability cooldowns if anything to allow game
             | designers to finetune the balance between various
             | abilities. Otherwise they would be very quickly exploited
             | by autoclickers (software and hardware). Although stuff
             | like "rapid fire"/turbo buttons for console controllers
             | with "100% UNDETECTABLE" in the marketing materials are
             | very much a thing, so there are probably plenty of
             | exceptions.
             | 
             | As for single player games there are barely any reasons for
             | game developers to have improved in this regard over the
             | years. "OnKeyDown" is still a standard API in many input
             | libraries and the simplest thing to do is to have this
             | mistake. Unless it's an ability with multiple second
             | cooldown where the mistake would be obvious. And that's not
             | unique to small games made by beginners or indie devs, AAA
             | games have the same problems. Just few years ago DOOM
             | Eternal had an exploit where mapping jump to a scrollwheel
             | (even better if you have freely spinning scrolwheel), in
             | combination with a few other quirks allowed you to do game
             | breaking jumps skipping large parts of levels by quickly
             | doing a bunch of them in a row and accumulating speed
             | before game noticed that you are above ground and shouldn't
             | be able to jump again. It was somewhat hot topic between
             | speed runners of that game.
        
           | anthk wrote:
           | How about the Brick Game? And that game might be the most
           | played game ever all over the world.
        
       | mr_sturd wrote:
       | Unreal achievements being made in the game. I hope the "rebirth"
       | screen can be reached!
       | 
       | I'm left wondering if the game score be overflowed to produce
       | different kill screens?
        
       | prng2021 wrote:
       | I'm not into Tetris but that was surprisingly interesting.
        
         | vidarh wrote:
         | Yeah, same. I hardly ever even watch youtube videos, and
         | skipped a bit at the start but then quickly got caught up in
         | it...
        
       | jasoneckert wrote:
       | I beat Tetris back in 2020 (although by a different means):
       | https://jasoneckert.github.io/myblog/i-finally-beat-tetris/
        
         | strunz wrote:
         | Man I would change your font, that is super difficult to read
         | as large blocks of text.
        
           | recursive wrote:
           | I guess I'm just really good at reading text. It wasn't even
           | a challenge for me.
        
           | Kiro wrote:
           | Text looks normal to me. What's the issue?
        
             | turtlebits wrote:
             | The default font-family for that page is cursive, you see
             | during the FOUC (before the webfont loads). Maybe the user
             | has web fonts disabled?
        
           | QuiDortDine wrote:
           | Indeed serif fonts are considered easier to read for big
           | blocks of text. I would consider the font too thin as well.
        
       | johnisgood wrote:
       | I get why this is exciting and all that, but how is bad code (or
       | insufficient resources) leading to the bug or crash equivalent to
       | "player beating the game"?
        
         | mensetmanusman wrote:
         | Because the game is code.
        
         | ghusto wrote:
         | It's the last thing that can happen in the game, which I think
         | is a fair definition of getting to the end, or "beating" it.
        
           | johnisgood wrote:
           | When I made a game crash through a bug before I did not
           | consider myself beating the game, that is why I have or had
           | difficulties understanding. I suppose the difference is
           | making it crash through playing as many levels, for example,
           | as possible.
        
             | ImPostingOnHN wrote:
             | I guess that's the difference between playing a game to the
             | end, and exploiting a game to jump to the end or crash it.
             | The former might be considered beating the game, the latter
             | might not.
        
             | JohnBooty wrote:
             | In order to get the "kill screen" on Tetris (or Pac-Man,
             | etc) you need to play at an absolute master's level for an
             | extended period of time
             | 
             | Also the Tetris player here (edit: arguably) isn't
             | "exploiting" a bug. The game just literally hits a
             | limitation that can only be hit via extended and nearly
             | superhuman play
        
               | johnisgood wrote:
               | What if this "kill screen" were to happen at, say, level
               | 30 due to bad code? Would it still be considered "beating
               | the game"?
        
               | __jonas wrote:
               | no
        
               | feoren wrote:
               | Yes, it would, and then you'd never hear about
               | competitions in that game because it doesn't support
               | ultra high-level play.
        
               | JohnBooty wrote:
               | Well, it's definitely a judgement call.
               | 
               | I think most "serious" Tetris players can get to 30
               | easily in a short amount of time, right? Like 15-20
               | minutes? It'd be hard to think of that as a legitimate
               | "ending."
               | 
               | Whereas a run to level 100+ or whatever for this kill
               | screen is a major achievement. Took people 30+ years to
               | get there.
               | 
               | I don't know, though. It's all subjective. If you want to
               | think of a hypothetical lvl 30 crash as a "kill screen"
               | or "ending" then hey... go for it.
        
               | mgerullis wrote:
               | Um, it wasn't until 2011 before the first person achieved
               | level 30, as the video mentions fairly early on
        
               | alistairSH wrote:
               | What's interesting to me is the "kill screen" in Tetris
               | is (apparently?) at a variable point in play.
               | 
               | So, this was the first person to encounter the "bug"
               | (hardware limitation). But, future players may try to hit
               | that point faster, with a lower/higher score, or other
               | combinations of game state to beat the game in a "better"
               | (more interesting) way.
        
             | vidarh wrote:
             | If it was just happening randomly and fairly commonly, I
             | doubt anyone would care. The reason people care here is
             | because 1) it's a game people have been playing for so long
             | without triggering this state before, 2) the condition was
             | known (from an AI playing, and subsequent analysis) and
             | people had been actively chasing it _and_ were pushing the
             | limits on the number of levels completed at the same time.
             | 
             | Pushing limits in games is fun.
             | 
             | I've never played competitively, but I remember well my own
             | excitement as a child whenever I managed to trigger a
             | glitch (such as getting enough bonus lives to overflow the
             | lives counter on Commando on C64, which was pretty simple
             | but still was very exciting the first time it happened).
        
             | munificent wrote:
             | Some games don't have deliberately implemented "you win"
             | screens and gameplay can in theory go forever unless the
             | game has a bug that prevents advancing.
             | 
             | In a game with no human-authored intentional "win state",
             | one reasonable definition of "beating the game" is
             | "reaching a state that no other player is able to surpass".
             | If the game crashes at a certain point, then reaching that
             | crash is a viable state that fits that definition.
        
         | noman-land wrote:
         | We're on hackernews. Think instead of the player triumphing
         | over the game as a hacker.
        
         | zrezzed wrote:
         | I think of it as "the first time anyone has not lost". Until
         | that crash run, every game had ended with a top out.
        
           | twic wrote:
           | Tetris is a deathmatch, and this is the first time Tetris
           | died first.
        
         | tenebrisalietum wrote:
         | It's an achieveable ending--one not planned by the coders, but
         | one nonetheless. You cannot play past that point.
         | 
         | A couple of old arcade games have "kill screens", such as
         | Pacman and Donkey Kong.
        
           | SubiculumCode wrote:
           | i reached the kill screen on Demon Attack on Atari as a kid.
           | It was highlight of my early life
        
           | jamincan wrote:
           | My understanding is that it's a bit of a roll of the dice
           | exactly when the kill screen appears, so in theory you could
           | continue playing longer. I suppose the significance, then, is
           | that it's the first time that someone has played the game and
           | not lost.
        
           | davidcbc wrote:
           | Because of the specifics of how this is done you actually can
           | play past this point, but you have to intentionally dodge the
           | crash and the conditions for the crash can be different per
           | level.
           | 
           | It is technically possible to go up through level 255 at
           | which point it loops back to 0. It's been done through a tool
           | assisted run (carefully doing inputs frame by frame rather
           | than playing in real time)
        
             | tiltowait wrote:
             | In this case, he even intentionally intentionally
             | _triggered_ the crash. As cool an achievement this is, I
             | struggle to call it  "beating" the game, since players
             | could still theoretically go much further. Given that the
             | glitch is predictable and well-documented, I'd consider it
             | to be yet another (and new) obstacle to overcome, not the
             | end. This is therefore the first time someone's ever hit
             | the obstacle, _and_ the first time someone 's ever passed
             | it (since he missed his first chance at glitching and had
             | to take the second).
             | 
             | All that said, I feel a bit weird telling a community I
             | don't belong to that they're incorrectly enjoying a game I
             | don't play.
        
               | tedunangst wrote:
               | The game is man vs machine. The machine fills the space
               | with blocks; the human clears space for the blocks. The
               | machine wins when the human fails to make room for the
               | next block. The human wins when the machine fails to
               | deliver the next block.
        
         | TheRoque wrote:
         | Some old games are infinite, and don't have a proper end, then
         | can roll infinitely. So as a result, you can play as long as
         | you wish, until you reach the hardware limits, which is called
         | the kill screen, and might be the closest thing to "finishing"
         | a game when it's infinite.
        
           | refulgentis wrote:
           | I don't understand, what hardware limit?
        
             | TheRoque wrote:
             | Memory. Past a certain point, the numbers can become so
             | high (score, level or other) that it corrupts the memory
             | and freezes the game
        
               | yakshaving_jgt wrote:
               | The Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games can crash this way. If
               | you cheat and enable perfect balance, then you can grind
               | infinitely on a circular rail and eventually the score is
               | so high it crashes the game.
        
               | dpkonofa wrote:
               | That's what I think makes the Tetris feat so incredible.
               | There's no cheating needed. This is being done on the
               | base game after something like 40 years.
        
             | ndiddy wrote:
             | In this case, the hardware limit is CPU time. NES Tetris
             | will give you more points for clearing lines the higher the
             | level is. For example, on level 0 clearing one line gives
             | you 40 points but on level 9 clearing one line gives you
             | 400 points. This is implemented in the code by adding the
             | base number of points to the score in a loop where the
             | counter is the level number: https://github.com/CelestialAm
             | ber/TetrisNESDisasm/blob/2bd89... NES Tetris is written
             | with the assumption that its main game code won't run for
             | more than one frame. When the player reaches a high enough
             | level the "add score for cleared lines" code will take too
             | long, and the processor will get interrupted for the start
             | of the next frame while it's still adding the score. This
             | causes the game to crash.
        
         | bordercases wrote:
         | It's impossible to do anything else within the confines of the
         | system, and it's difficult to get to that end state without
         | skill and intention.
         | 
         | Reverse engineering the NES Tetris cartridge shows that it has
         | only so many possible states which is what allows one to find
         | these limits.
        
         | namuol wrote:
         | It's technically arbitrary and something the community sort of
         | collectively decided was a coveted goal. Personally, I think
         | it's a cool milestone. There will be more similar milestones
         | probably but few will be on true unmodified code, which I think
         | makes this one truly special.
        
       | 7373737373 wrote:
       | Now the question is: can the RAM code execution lead to
       | interesting game states/exploits like the Pokemon Yellow Total
       | Control Hack? https://youtube.com/watch?v=p5T81yHkHtI
        
         | rzzzt wrote:
         | There's also one for Super Mario World:
         | https://youtu.be/jnZ2NNYySuE
        
         | kirjavascript wrote:
         | It can and we have achieved Arbitrary Code Execution in NES
         | Tetris.
         | 
         | The setup is horrifyingly complicated and precise though,
         | involving getting some near-impossible scores and entering
         | specific names in the highscore list, then reaching the crash
         | on the same frame that the internal values for random number
         | generation happen to represent a jump instruction to said
         | highscore list (and we get lucky and various registers also
         | happen to contain values we need).
         | 
         | Then from there, there is some bootstrapping before total
         | control is achieved.
        
           | 7373737373 wrote:
           | Holy shit, and massive kudos!
        
           | fractal161 wrote:
           | _However_ , I'm like 90% sure that this can be made easier
           | using p3/p4 controllers through the famicom expansion port.
           | In particular, Hydrantdude and I found a consistent enough
           | setup using the single at 1489 lines (pushdown gives you a
           | 50% chance, and I think).
           | 
           | This setup would even allow crude human-possible ACE. Right
           | now we're limited to small payloads (I made a proof of
           | concept that activates the unused two player mode), but more
           | sophisticated setups might give us more power.
        
             | ejona86 wrote:
             | Size-optimized, RAM-only mods. Sounds interesting...
        
       | Whitespace wrote:
       | I was very saddened to hear that his father passed away not that
       | long ago.
       | 
       | That has got to be very hard for a 13 year old.
        
       | AndrewKemendo wrote:
       | The last couple of years in Tetris have been wild
       | 
       | I grew up with Tetris and playing a traditional DAS [1] style and
       | never was able to put the time into learning hypertapping. Once
       | rolling came out a few years ago I totally abandoned trying to
       | keep up. My highest score was almost a maxout on 29
       | 
       | Something you'll notice too is that the younger players are
       | crushing the traditional players by changing the rules. So,
       | NOBODY at CTWC is playing DAS anymore and I think Jonas was the
       | last big DAS player, before moving to Tapping. I attribute this
       | to anyone over 30 learning in the DAS style while younger players
       | can START with rolling.
       | 
       | RIP Jonas Neubauer (NubbinsGoody
       | https://www.twitch.tv/nubbinsgoody) he was the guy that kind of
       | lead the explosion of Tetris after the movie came out and Thor
       | more or less retired. He and his wife were very helpful to me
       | trying to get to maxout with some tips back in 2018 to get a CRT
       | monitor as that was a limiting factor back then.
       | 
       | [1]https://tetris.fandom.com/wiki/DAS
        
         | hannofcart wrote:
         | I thought I knew Tetris. I guess I don't. I'm just humbled by
         | how little I understood of the comment above.
        
           | shadefinale wrote:
           | What's cool is a lot of the above terms are specific to NES
           | tetris too. Tetris has a lot of depth and there's a ton of
           | variants out there depending on what you want to get out of
           | playing. Personally I love the TGM series but it's totally
           | different from what you'd think of if you started with NES
           | tetris.
        
           | crdrost wrote:
           | Quick glossary:
           | 
           | DAS - "Delayed autoshift," the delay is between when you
           | press the button and when the long keypress starts to
           | register as multiple clicks, auto-shifting the piece to the
           | sides. So this is kind of a software-based "convention" that
           | everyone knows, you open your word processor, you press the
           | down arrow, it goes "down" one line and then waits for a
           | quarter-second and then starts going in a more fluid motion
           | steadily downwards as the software converts the continuous
           | keypress to effectively be a stream of down-button-presses.
           | Tetris has this too, if you hold down left/right you'll move
           | once then after a delay it'll start shifting constantly to
           | the edges.
           | 
           | tapping, hypertapping - tapping a NES controller very quickly
           | by using pressure in your grip to create a "springy" system
           | where you can rapidly flip up/down across the actuation
           | point, so that you don't wait for the delay and the computer-
           | auto-button-presses but communicate each button-press
           | yourself
           | 
           | CTWC - Classic Tetris World Championship, hosted by the
           | Portland Retro Gaming Expo.
           | 
           | Rolling - strategies where you flip tapping/hypertapping
           | "upside down", so that the hand holding the button in tension
           | is actually pressing on the D-pad while the hand actuating
           | the button rapidly is pressing on the traditional bottom of
           | the controller. I don't know what styles are popular but the
           | controller itself might be held upside down to facilitate
           | this. This is something like pressing on your mouse button
           | with two or more fingers in an alternating rhythm in clicky-
           | style games, normally the directional pad is too small to hit
           | with multiple fingers but this technique allows multiple
           | fingers to each register a separate keypress.
           | 
           | Maxout - I believe this refers to when the score overflows
           | the digits available for display and the game just tells you
           | that you have 999,999 points and you have to use independent
           | means to confirm how much you actually scored
           | 
           | CRT monitor - hopefully I don't have to explain this to folks
           | here but a big bulky sort of display that was used before
           | LCDs became ubiquitous, short for "cathode ray tube," which
           | is a big electron gun that we would eagerly point at our own
           | faces hoping that the electrons all got 100% absorbed by
           | little phosphors on the actual screen, which could be
           | reliably triggered to emit red, green, or blue light.
        
             | rkagerer wrote:
             | Adding one more thing about CRT monitors for younger folks
             | here... they had better refresh characteristics than early
             | LCD monitors (which had lag due to their more complicated
             | electronics/processing).
        
               | Retr0id wrote:
               | They _still_ have better refresh characteristics than
               | LCDs, on paper, although the practical difference becomes
               | negligible.
        
               | mrob wrote:
               | CRTs have better refresh characteristics at the same
               | refresh rate, which is relevant to NES Tetris because it
               | runs at a fixed 60.1Hz (slightly faster than NTSC). But
               | LCDs are available with higher refresh rate than CRTs, so
               | if the software supports it you can get lower average
               | latency on an LCD.
        
               | charcircuit wrote:
               | Do the display controllers for LCDs not wait for an
               | entire frame to be written, so it can display it at once?
        
               | shawnz wrote:
               | There are LCDs with a refresh rate more than double 60Hz,
               | so even with entire frames worth of latency they could
               | still be faster than a 60Hz CRT
        
               | Retr0id wrote:
               | The CRT's electron beam gets to "write" the video data
               | onto the phosphor in real-time, as the analog signal
               | comes off the wire.
        
               | shawnz wrote:
               | But only once every 60 Hz (for a 60 Hz display). So, if
               | you have an LCD display with higher latency but also
               | higher refresh rate, you could on average be spending
               | less time waiting for new information.
        
               | Retr0id wrote:
               | We're talking about the NES here, the physical output is
               | analog, and locked to ~60.whatever fps
        
             | jameshart wrote:
             | I must be missing something because it doesn't seem like
             | 'DAS' needs such a technical name. Isn't it just 'pushing
             | the D pad the direction you want the piece to go, then
             | letting go when it gets there'?
        
               | gorjusborg wrote:
               | DAS is probably shorter than anything most people could
               | come up with to describe the style. Do you think your own
               | description: 'pushing the D pad direction you want the
               | piece to go, then letting go when it gets there' is a
               | better way to communicate?
               | 
               | Almost any sufficiently advanced community will develop
               | jargon that those outside it find confusing or
               | lackluster.
        
               | brianpan wrote:
               | Well, considering Windows and MacOS have system settings
               | to tune this (key repeat rate and key repeat delay), and
               | considering the modern Tetris innovations are about how
               | you can physically press a button faster, it doesn't seem
               | that strange.
        
         | helix278 wrote:
         | What is hypertapping and tapping?
        
           | abcd_f wrote:
           | Wouldn't hurt to explain other voodoo words, e.g. DAS and
           | rolling.
        
             | Aissen wrote:
             | Both of those terms are explained quickly in the video, and
             | have a dedicated explanation video:
             | 
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-BZ5-Q48lE
        
           | xerox13ster wrote:
           | These are shown and explained in the video.
           | 
           | tapping/hypertapping: what you do to your mouse trying to get
           | your click speed above 10 CPS
           | 
           | rolling: the same but tapping each finger on the bottom of
           | the controller while pressing the buttons to feather tap the
           | switch state extremely fast. like fiddling a mechanical
           | keyboard key over the actuation point. The equivalent of
           | putting sharpied electrical tape on your mouse and rubbing
           | it.
           | 
           | DAS: the thing we did as kids to hold the piece up by holding
           | down a horizontal direction.
        
             | refulgentis wrote:
             | Gently teasing :) - I definitely got _more_ confused, these
             | are interesting examples.
             | 
             | > what you do to your mouse trying to get your click speed
             | above 10 CPS.
             | 
             | ?!
             | 
             | > The equivalent of putting sharpied electrical tape on
             | your mouse and rubbing it.
             | 
             | ?!?
        
               | jameshart wrote:
               | You know, like when you use bacon grease in your USB
               | ports. Or flip the monitor to face away from you when
               | you're pressing backspace. Just the regular things normal
               | technomancers learn to do to avoid the wrath of the
               | Basilisk.
        
               | charcircuit wrote:
               | How is it surprising? Do you think people should just
               | cheat with autoclickers instead?
        
               | AndrewKemendo wrote:
               | You're trying to give a specify kind of input to a
               | controller at a speed higher than the controller was
               | designed to input
               | 
               | So if you can vibrate the controller on a way that your
               | input rate increases it doesn't matter how you make it do
               | that
        
         | floucky wrote:
         | I didn't know he had died, it's really sad... I remember seeing
         | some random Tetris videos on YouTube with him and the guy
         | saying 'Boom Tetris'.
        
       | hintymad wrote:
       | What an inspiring video. I might go so far as to say it is this
       | level of geekiness that moves our civilization forward.
        
       | Angostura wrote:
       | I found this video weirdly moving. Thanks for posting OP.
        
       | brianbreslin wrote:
       | Watching this reminded me of The Wizard movie from the 1980s.
       | Which at the time (I was 7) I had no idea what ASD was, now it
       | resonates in a completely different way.
       | 
       | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098663/
        
       | anticorporate wrote:
       | I only ever knew the version of Tetris that shipped with the
       | Windows Entertainment Pack
       | <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Entertainment_Pack>.
       | 
       | Since this version was made for 16-bit Windows, it was no
       | surprise that they used a 16-bit integer to store your score.
       | What _was_ surprising is that they used a _signed_ 16-bit
       | integer, meaning that after you passed 32,767 points, your score
       | would roll over into the negative.
       | 
       | Teenage me was so good, I'd consider it a disappointment if my
       | score didn't turn negative in every round I played.
        
         | danielvaughn wrote:
         | I played Minesweeper almost every day during the summer in the
         | 90's. I got so good at it that I eventually whittled down my
         | time to a mere 17 seconds on the largest puzzle (expert). At
         | that point I figured I couldn't get any faster, and moved on to
         | a new game. Years later, I was looking at the Guiness Book of
         | World Records and noticed that the record for the expert
         | minesweeper is something like 25 seconds.
         | 
         | Of course, I'd have to dig up my old computer from a landfill
         | to try and prove it, so I just have to live out the rest of my
         | days knowing that I'm an unrecognized world record holder.
        
           | xtracto wrote:
           | xyzzy !
        
           | itchyouch wrote:
           | Funny story. When my friend started playing minesweeper, I
           | would go to his computer and clear out all of his scores by
           | editing in my scores as "beating" him.
           | 
           | Being super competitive, in order not to lose to me, he
           | became a fiend at minesweeper, being able to do solve the
           | beginner series in under 20 seconds. As he would get better
           | and better, I would continue to beat his high score until he
           | had the beginner down to somewhere around 7 seconds.
           | 
           | I changed it to 6 seconds.
           | 
           | He beat it to 5 seconds.
           | 
           | I changed it to 4 seconds.
           | 
           | At that point he was like, WHAT IS GOING ON? And then I
           | showed him how I could just edit the scores. Boy was he
           | dissapointed. But it goes to show how far we can push
           | ourselves if we know that it's "possible."
        
             | anticorporate wrote:
             | Related: My mom really likes the old Windows version of
             | FreeCell. For years, every time she moved computers, I've
             | had to copy the Windows registry values where the score
             | table is kept in order to get her to "accept" the new
             | computer.
        
       | tslocum wrote:
       | Speaking of Tetris, you can play it (single-player or
       | multiplayer!) in your terminal via SSH:                 ssh
       | playnetris.com
       | 
       | Code: https://code.rocket9labs.com/tslocum/netris
        
       | throw7 wrote:
       | Is there a definitive definition of "glitch"? To me, it's just a
       | bug...
        
         | singlow wrote:
         | I think its a subset of bugs. A glitch usually is not fatal,
         | allowing the program to continue in a possibly degraded/altered
         | way. In games it most often refers to a bug that allows for
         | some unintended behavior that may be advantageous for certain
         | desired outcomes, although it also can be just a visual
         | artifact or it could get you stuck. But I wouldn't expect it to
         | be used to describe a bug that caused the game to shut down or
         | end instantly.
        
       | sixQuarks wrote:
       | Wow, practicing for 3-4 hours per day! I feel like they're gonna
       | be regretful for spending that much time on this later in life. I
       | spent way too much time playing battlefield 1942, had fun but way
       | too much time wasted.
        
         | nvarsj wrote:
         | Time enjoyed is not time wasted.
        
         | recursive wrote:
         | You think most other kids are spending that time on something
         | less regrettable? This is a serious accomplishment. Being able
         | to commit to a goal, and putting in the work to achieve it is a
         | useful skill. I believe it's transferable to some degree
         | between disciplines. It might be called "grit". He's not just
         | goofing off. In order to get to this level of performance, he'd
         | have to have an organized training program, not just be goofing
         | around with tetris. I see it as similar to getting good at
         | bowling, golf, or tennis.
        
         | nullhole wrote:
         | To quote Arcade Fire,                  If I could have it back
         | All the time that we wasted        I'd only waste it again
         | If I could have it back        You know I would love to waste
         | it again        Waste it again and again and again
        
       | sschueller wrote:
       | The game is beaten IMO when you beat level 255 and rollover back
       | to 0 avoiding any position that would result in a crash before
       | then.
        
         | klyrs wrote:
         | Make your own video then
        
           | charcircuit wrote:
           | A comment is just as valid as contributing to a conversation
           | as a video.
        
             | klyrs wrote:
             | The video is the topic of conversation, because it is a
             | record of an achievement. A lowbrow dismissal of that
             | achievement is, as you say, a valid contribution to a
             | conversation about the video. But I would not put the
             | achievement and the lowbrow dismissal on a level as you
             | have suggested.
             | 
             | And for whatever it's worth, my kneejerk dismissal of the
             | lowbrow dismissal is _just as valid_ a contribution to the
             | conversation. So, good day to you.
        
         | jnwatson wrote:
         | The video points this out as a potential future goal, and it
         | outlines what would be required to actually accomplish it.
         | 
         | The definition of "beating" the game is simply a convention.
        
       | 1letterunixname wrote:
       | I'm gonna have to ask you to go ahead and come back another time.
       | 
       | ----
       | 
       | Edit - Also worth a look:
       | 
       | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409371
       | 
       | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12758060
        
       | havkom wrote:
       | I did not know about the scene but this video made me happy!
       | Great to see such dedication!
        
       | ChatGTP wrote:
       | This guy is like Neo from The Matrix
        
       | tennisflyi wrote:
       | Been "solved" via playing forever,
       | https://harddrop.com/wiki/Playing_forever#:~:text=If%20you%2....
        
       | exabrial wrote:
       | with what... a stack overflow error?
       | 
       | (pun... just in case anyone didn't get it)
        
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       (page generated 2024-01-02 23:00 UTC)