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One thing that has maybe not been considered is that the Atari 2600 is susceptible to what's known in the online Atari community as 'frying', whereby cycling th

One thing that has maybe not been considered is that the Atari 2600 is susceptible to what's known in the online Atari community as 'frying', whereby cycling the power off and then back on very quickly while the console is running can lead to weird changes in the program state. Not saying this is what occurred, but it could be a possibility, depending on the code...

xamuel 9y ago
Reminds me of a controversial technique discovered in the TAS community. Start saving your savefile, then cut the power mid-write. Usually creates a savefile with a bad checksum, but with certain timing on certain games, can result in playable corrupt savefiles which can be used for a faster win. One of the reasons this idea is so controversial is the TAS community always assumes games should be played frame by frame, but this technique would open sub-frame "gameplay" (timing when you cut the power with much higher precision)
- nightcracker 9y ago
  I used to do something similar as a kid, cloning Pokemon in Pokemon Gold by turning off the Game Boy mid-save.
lovehashbrowns 9y ago
There are some games where you can modify the program state to glitch to the end, like Super Mario World: https://youtu.be/vAHXK2wut_I https://youtu.be/vAHXK2wut_I The explanation for the glitch is really interesting. But something like this has to be given its own category. There's a Super Mario World category that allows for that "Credits Warp" glitch. The other categories have different rules for what you can and can't do. So it's possible that Todd did something funky, but that would still make his scores illegitimate.
dkonofalski 9y ago
While that could be a possibility, that would still invalidate his score. It needs to be a full run and the game resets its memory at the start of each attempt so there'd be no way to start a new attempt with a "fryed" console.

xamuel 9y ago

Reminds me of a controversial technique discovered in the TAS community. Start saving your savefile, then cut the power mid-write. Usually creates a savefile with a bad checksum, but with certain timing on certain games, can result in playable corrupt savefiles which can be used for a faster win. One of the reasons this idea is so controversial is the TAS community always assumes games should be played frame by frame, but this technique would open sub-frame "gameplay" (timing when you cut the power with much higher precision)

nightcracker 9y ago
I used to do something similar as a kid, cloning Pokemon in Pokemon Gold by turning off the Game Boy mid-save.

lovehashbrowns 9y ago

There are some games where you can modify the program state to glitch to the end, like Super Mario World: https://youtu.be/vAHXK2wut_I https://youtu.be/vAHXK2wut_I The explanation for the glitch is really interesting. But something like this has to be given its own category. There's a Super Mario World category that allows for that "Credits Warp" glitch. The other categories have different rules for what you can and can't do. So it's possible that Todd did something funky, but that would still make his scores illegitimate.

dkonofalski 9y ago

While that could be a possibility, that would still invalidate his score. It needs to be a full run and the game resets its memory at the start of each attempt so there'd be no way to start a new attempt with a "fryed" console.