4 ms·

>Super Mario World Okay, with some script... >Here is a video, where a human (not a script!) creates a playable Flappy Bird clone this way. Wait, what?!

by nothis 9y ago

teamhappy 9y ago
The StarCraft community created a level editor and a scripting language around a buffer overflow in the game: http://0xeb.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/StarCraft_EUD_Emulator.pdf http://0xeb.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/StarCraft_EUD_Emu...
- kiwidrew 9y ago
  That was fascinating. The amount of effort that Blizzard went through to "emulate" the original buffer overflow is ridiculous. Also the mod community's epScript compiler is itself a very clever feat, especially its use of self-modifying "code".
userbinator 9y ago
It's a human following a script... which is still impressive nonetheless, even if for nothing other than the patience and planning required to do something like this.
- oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
  I can't even begin to fathom how someone would be able to do this. Wouldn't they have to perform many (100s?) pixel-perfect actions in order to get everything exactly as intended?
  - lifthrasiir 9y ago
    He starts by writing dozens of bytes to check if the written bytes are correct or not (along with other side effects for bootstrapping), and some more to see the exact bytes to be written before applying them. And then finally 300+ actual bytes are written. Not as difficult overall, but initial steps would still require extreme patience.
  - ploek 9y ago
    If you watch the video you'll see that one of the first things he does is to make the coin counter show Mario's x-position in the level. But up until that point yes, he has to do a lot of pixel-perfect actions. Extremely impressive.
ericfrederich 9y ago
Super impressive. I wouldn't count this as being turing complete. You could say that the SNES itself is turing complete. He successfully got a turing complete machine to run arbitrary code. It was the SNES itself running this code he injected, not some rule engine built into the game. This is much different than getting CSS or HTML to run arbitrary code.
- johnnyfived 9y ago
  Still counts since he managed to create the working method to inject the code which allows the game to be Turing complete. A medium with no way of entering or traveling through it isn't really a medium.

>Super Mario World Okay, with some script... >Here is a video, where a human (not a script!) creates a playable Flappy Bird clone this way. Wait, what?!

by nothis 9y ago

>Super Mario World Okay, with some script... >Here is a video, where a human (not a script!) creates a playable Flappy Bird clone this way. Wait, what?!

teamhappy 9y ago

The StarCraft community created a level editor and a scripting language around a buffer overflow in the game: http://0xeb.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/StarCraft_EUD_Emulator.pdf http://0xeb.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/StarCraft_EUD_Emu...

kiwidrew 9y ago
That was fascinating. The amount of effort that Blizzard went through to "emulate" the original buffer overflow is ridiculous. Also the mod community's epScript compiler is itself a very clever feat, especially its use of self-modifying "code".

userbinator 9y ago

It's a human following a script... which is still impressive nonetheless, even if for nothing other than the patience and planning required to do something like this.

oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
I can't even begin to fathom how someone would be able to do this. Wouldn't they have to perform many (100s?) pixel-perfect actions in order to get everything exactly as intended?
- lifthrasiir 9y ago
  He starts by writing dozens of bytes to check if the written bytes are correct or not (along with other side effects for bootstrapping), and some more to see the exact bytes to be written before applying them. And then finally 300+ actual bytes are written. Not as difficult overall, but initial steps would still require extreme patience.
- ploek 9y ago
  If you watch the video you'll see that one of the first things he does is to make the coin counter show Mario's x-position in the level. But up until that point yes, he has to do a lot of pixel-perfect actions. Extremely impressive.

ericfrederich 9y ago

Super impressive. I wouldn't count this as being turing complete. You could say that the SNES itself is turing complete. He successfully got a turing complete machine to run arbitrary code. It was the SNES itself running this code he injected, not some rule engine built into the game. This is much different than getting CSS or HTML to run arbitrary code.

johnnyfived 9y ago
Still counts since he managed to create the working method to inject the code which allows the game to be Turing complete. A medium with no way of entering or traveling through it isn't really a medium.