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1. Embed this notice
   Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Sunday, 23-Mar-2025 10:48:54 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

   proud accomplishments:

   * triggered the crash handler in the 1995 Super Nintendo game Addams Family Values

   • Embed this notice
     Luke T. Shumaker (lukeshu@fosstodon.org)'s status on Sunday, 23-Mar-2025 10:48:45 JST Luke T. Shumaker

     in reply to

     @foone

     1. I've done horrible hacks to save space so that debug builds would fit within a limit. The hacks turn out to be pointless for release/production builds.

     2. Maybe earlier builds were bigger when the hack was added, but then something got cut, and it would have been more effort to remove the hack.

   • Embed this notice
     Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Sunday, 23-Mar-2025 10:48:46 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     it has been zero days since I triggered the crash handler.

     (you can't view character #1 for some reason)

   • Embed this notice
     Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Sunday, 23-Mar-2025 10:48:47 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     using zlib on lowest compression (not that they could have done that in <1995) saves 13 kilobytes, for comparison.

     So yeah. They tried to get clever and save bytes, but it only saved a bit over 2 kilobytes. Which they didn't need to save anyway.

   • Embed this notice
     Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Sunday, 23-Mar-2025 10:48:48 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     but here's the fun part: I have this game's entire script here.

     and I've already seen that there's a bunch of unused space at the end of the ROM...

     So did they even need this trick? I CAN FIND OUT

   • Embed this notice
     Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Sunday, 23-Mar-2025 10:48:48 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     The game has 9342 bytes of unused space at the end of the 2 megabyte ROM chip it shipped on.

     They use this trick 2311 times in the ROM, saving ... 2311 bytes.

     NOPE. IT WAS UNNECESSARY!

   • Embed this notice
     Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Sunday, 23-Mar-2025 10:48:49 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     but saving AN ENTIRE BYTE of this game's ROM every single time they needed to use a space character, just by only using uppercase for the game?

     that's brilliant and stupid in equal measure and I love it.

   • Embed this notice
     Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Sunday, 23-Mar-2025 10:48:50 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     "SoASentenceLikeThis"
     turns into:
     "SO A SENTENCE LIKE THIS"

   • Embed this notice
     Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Sunday, 23-Mar-2025 10:48:50 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     This isn't how the memory of the game while running is laid out. They have to decode the ROM contents into the all-uppercase contents, adding spaces along the way

   • Embed this notice
     Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Sunday, 23-Mar-2025 10:48:51 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     THEY'RE ENCODING WHERE THE SPACES ARE INTO IF A LETTER IS CAPITAL OR NOT

   • Embed this notice
     Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Sunday, 23-Mar-2025 10:48:52 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     Here's the reason they don't use spaces, and are WikiWording EveryThing:

   • Embed this notice
     Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Sunday, 23-Mar-2025 10:48:52 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     The game is in all caps.

   • Embed this notice
     Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Sunday, 23-Mar-2025 10:48:53 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     So the digits are used to select different character portraits for that line, and the $ turns into a newline.

     But notice the really big weird thing about this text?

     NO SPACES!

   • Embed this notice
     Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Sunday, 23-Mar-2025 10:48:54 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     So here's a conversation snippet from the rom, which is expressed as 3 c-strings:

     "5NeverMind,$How`sThingsFester?"
     "4Miserable!"
     "5GladToSeeYou`re$EnjoyingYourself!"