Celebrating the first NES Tetris game crash • Hacker News Board

Re: Celebrating the first NES Tetris game crash

#41

Post by crtasm » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 2:47 PM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #13

patrickpkt wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Tetris board is 10 blocks wide, so to be able to play the full field, you need to be able to tap left or right at least 5 times before the block lands. Without tapping at super-human speeds, the fastest way to move the blocks that fast is by holding the left or right button down and letting key repeat take over. When that’s someone’s approach, level 29 becomes fast enough that the pieces can’t reach the edges of…

The last few years have seen people learn how to “roll”, effectively lightly pressing left or right and then drumming their fingers on the back of the controller, getting discrete taps far faster than typical. The essence of this trick being that one can move multiple fingers to hit successively with time intervals impossible for a single finger; the same mechanism is also how fast typists work.

Another comparison is a scratch DJ tapping the crossfader with 3 fingers in quick succession - the 'crab scratch': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUQ7MviIaL8&t=34

Re: Celebrating the first NES Tetris game crash

#42

Post by dansalvato » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 2:49 PM UTC

dzdt wrote: post #37

One of my childhood claims-to-fame was getting a windows 3.1 version of Tetris to wrap around to negative scores. The score there was a 16 bit signed integer; after +32767 points it wrapped to -32768. At least in that version the challenge to playing at the highest speed wasn't so much the brainpower to decide where you wanted to get the pieces to go; when you get into the flow that is pretty much a nonissue. The cha…

Here is a video about the rolling technique, I remember watching it when the technique was first pioneered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-BZ5-Q48lE

In short, you hold the controller so that you have a finger resting on top of the d-pad, and then with your other hand, you drum your 4 fingers in sequence against the back of the controller, causing the d-pad to press into your finger in extremely rapid succession.

Tangentially to this, I'm part of the speedrun community, where controller legality can be a hot topic on a per-game basis. I think it's equally cool to maximize skill within the restrictions of the original controller as it is to use new hardware to break that barrier. Different communities decide upon what mods or alternate hardware is acceptable based on what they feel is appropriate for getting the most enjoyment out of their game.

Re: Celebrating the first NES Tetris game crash

#43

Post by layer8 » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 2:59 PM UTC

ceedan wrote: post #36

Do these players suffer from Tetris Syndrome? I played a bunch for a few weeks many years ago and had trouble sleeping because I couldn't stop seeing tetris pieces falling in place, every time I closed my eyes.

It doesn’t normally cause sleep trouble. But I remember my brain trying to “parse” my surroundings into Tetris blocks, buildings in particular.

Re: Celebrating the first NES Tetris game crash

#44

Post by kristopolous » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 3:11 PM UTC

Thanks to gameboy tetris, the cartilage in my thumbs is still messed up 30 years later. I stopped playing video games entirely in the early 90s. Thumbs still crack.

Re: Celebrating the first NES Tetris game crash

#45

Post by jdiff » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 3:27 PM UTC

Danieru wrote: post #34

iforgotpassword wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, shouldn't the save have vanished without power from the battery? My Pokémon gold save was already gone in 2018ish when I stumbled upon the cartridge plus gba, but then again that game contains an rtc, so higher power draw I guess. Edit: got it, you helpfully left some batteries in the Gameboy for future you; you're not talking about opening the cartridge..

Pokemon Red had no real time clock. That was the fatal weakness of gold and silver.

Real time clock doesn't matter, I thought all Gameboy games had battery-backed saves. I can find forum posts of people talking about replacing batteries in their Red cartridges, troubleshooting why the game still won't save after replacing them, across iFixit, Reddit, GameFAQs. I'm pretty sure that G/S/C only took additional advantage of the existing battery, and didn't introduce an additional battery.

Re: Celebrating the first NES Tetris game crash

#46

Post by jdiff » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 3:29 PM UTC

philistine wrote: post #39

iforgotpassword wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, shouldn't the save have vanished without power from the battery? My Pokémon gold save was already gone in 2018ish when I stumbled upon the cartridge plus gba, but then again that game contains an rtc, so higher power draw I guess. Edit: got it, you helpfully left some batteries in the Gameboy for future you; you're not talking about opening the cartridge..

You're right that the save is going to vanish from the batteries, but tests and anecdata have shown that cartridge batteries on Game Boy can easily last more than three decades. Pokémon Silver, Gold, and Crystal have a clock inside the cartridge, limiting their survivability to around a decade.

All Gameboy games (as far as I'm aware) have batteries inside the cartridge, the saves were stored on volatile memory and were battery-backed. Gold, Silver, and Crystal just made extra use of the battery with an RTC. I can find many instances across many forums of people talking and troubleshooting replacement batteries for their Red cartridges so I don't believe my memory is failing me here.

Re: Celebrating the first NES Tetris game crash

#47

Post by physicles » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 3:34 PM UTC

patrickpkt wrote: post #9

internetter wrote: post #2

The author and the AI video describes some very interesting bugs arisen from assumptions made by the original developers. I'm curious on the technicality of it – what were these assumptions? These are some fascinating bugs. There are some surface explanations here but I have no doubt somebody could write hours worth of content on this, like the other video [0] in the article that discusses real maths. [0]: https://ww…

The Tetris board is 10 blocks wide, so to be able to play the full field, you need to be able to tap left or right at least 5 times before the block lands. Without tapping at super-human speeds, the fastest way to move the blocks that fast is by holding the left or right button down and letting key repeat take over. When that’s someone’s approach, level 29 becomes fast enough that the pieces can’t reach the edges of…

Btw, rolling is a relatively new technique. Before that you had hypertapping, where players would hold the controller normally and just press the d-pad obscenely fast. IIRC the fastest hypertappers were capable of 16 presses per second.

Re: Celebrating the first NES Tetris game crash

#48

Post by lightedman » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 3:50 PM UTC

jdiff wrote: post #45

Danieru wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pokemon Red had no real time clock. That was the fatal weakness of gold and silver.

Real time clock doesn't matter, I thought all Gameboy games had battery-backed saves. I can find forum posts of people talking about replacing batteries in their Red cartridges, troubleshooting why the game still won't save after replacing them, across iFixit, Reddit, GameFAQs. I'm pretty sure that G/S/C only took additional advantage of the existing battery, and didn't introduce an additional battery.

The RTC constantly ate power way more than the battery-backed RAM, that absolutely matters.

Re: Celebrating the first NES Tetris game crash

#49

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 3:52 PM UTC

jdiff wrote: post #45

Danieru wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pokemon Red had no real time clock. That was the fatal weakness of gold and silver.

Real time clock doesn't matter, I thought all Gameboy games had battery-backed saves. I can find forum posts of people talking about replacing batteries in their Red cartridges, troubleshooting why the game still won't save after replacing them, across iFixit, Reddit, GameFAQs. I'm pretty sure that G/S/C only took additional advantage of the existing battery, and didn't introduce an additional battery.

[deleted]

Re: Celebrating the first NES Tetris game crash

#50

Post by andrepd » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 4:07 PM UTC

gleenn wrote: post #23

I recently blew the dust off my GameBoy and Tetris game, put some fresh AA batteries in, and it happily booted up and played like a champ even after decades. I wish any hardware or software written today would preserve so well, everything requires internet connections and the hardware hardly lasts this long.

There's software in my phone I installed two months ago and which doesn't work anymore. It's not even anything that needs an online connection for its features, too.