after navigating through a wrist-numbing 255 levels of the arcade classic. The problem of system overload was endemic in early videogames: In the documentary King of Kong, players attempt to score as many points as possible before they hit the Donkey Kong kill screen. But that game doesn’t erupt in 8-bit psychedelia the way Pac-Man does. Geeks like Don Hodges, a 40-year-old computer lab manager at Glendale Community College in California, have combed through the code for an explanation. The answer: Pac-Man has a subroutine that tells it how to draw bonus items (cherries, peaches, strawberries, et cetera) for every level up to 255. When it tries to render the item for level 256, the subroutine’s hexadecimal code goes into integer overflow, accesses data that’s outside the memory allotted for drawing fruit, and spews out a hideous mess of ASCII letters and graphics. But that doesn’t mean the game is over: Pac-masters can actually wade through the chaos and complete the corrupted screen from memory. “It’s still possible to have a perfect game,” Hodges says.

Authors: David Kushner

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