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Games Entertainment

First Ever Pitfall Perfection? 167

Posted by Hemos from the more-fun-then-you-can-jump-with-a-rope-over dept.
micantos writes "Check this out! Apparently somebody is claiming they've done the unprecedented, recorded the first "perfect" Pitfall game. Personally I liked Pitfall II a lot more... finding that damn Quickclaw was fun..."
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First Ever Pitfall Perfection? More

First Ever Pitfall Perfection?

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  • How does this game looks like ?
    (i'm not trolling - i just don't know - there weren't many atari2600s here over the iron courtain)

    --
  • One thing I've always wondered about Galaga: is it worthwhile to use a captured fighter? I always got my highest scores (not very high) using the single fighter because I would get killed too easily with the double fighter.
  • Pitfall is sure big enough, though. Read the articles much? 255 "rooms" in Pitfall.
  • Anybody remember the Supercharger (at least I THINK that's what the name was). It was a tape-drive device for the Atari 2600. You'd stick this cartridge into the 2600, and plug a wire coming out of the back of the cartridge into the headphone jack on a cassette player you supplied, and voila, all of a sudden you could have these huge games that loaded in stages.
  • If all you can do is bitch and moan on Slashdot, why don't you go start your own site? Recent history shows that you know how everything should be run.

    Also, I'd like to see Slashdot ban any links to geekporn.com. Not doing so just gives posters ammunition to piss other people off.</sarcasm>

  • Check this out [uo.com]. It's the map...it's freaking huge and it still has blank spots where the guy couldn't go. What a game.
  • I got a perfect Pitfall 2 score when I was in 8th grade. (I'm 27 now) I have to say... Getting a perfect score in the original Pitfall would probably be 10 times harder.

    At least where I lived at the time...getting the diamond was the hard part. (well, atleast the first time) You had to jump off these walls and bounce back and forth and land on the right ledge. After that, the hardest part was going up the final stage without getting hit by one of those flying vultures, or whatever they were. I think the diamond gave you 50,000 points, and a perfect score was: 199,000.

    Rader

  • Pitfall II was rather easy to get a perfect score in (hmm, I wonder why I only managed it once?). The trickiest part was the Condors (i think?), they would fly in a sine-wave pattern. I ended up making up a template I could hold on the screen at the highest fligt point, and use it to measuer where I had to stand in order for the condor to fly over me.

    This was the PCjr version of Pitfall II (cartridge game).

  • That's a bit harder to quantify. There is an unambiguous maximum number of points you can earn in pitfall and many other games of this era. SMB, on the other hand, can be played indefinately if one is allowed the trick of obtaining extra lives by bouncing turtles on the stairs. Even if this sort of thing is not allowed for a perfect game, I don't think there is an unambiguous maximum score.

  • Re:Perfect pitfall game? (Score:4)

    by Alatar ( 227876 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @03:22AM (#547142) Homepage
    Here is a Pitfall map [webb.net] for the Intellivision version. As you can see it's quite finite. Here's a far more cryptic ASCII drawing [cet.com] of the Pitfall map for the Atari 2600 version.
  • That web site is using locked typeface. At high rez, the type is unreadable and the designer has chosen not to let me resize it. That defies the purpose of HTML and cost them another reader.
  • Well, there was that time they had the story on the new Macs coming out. According to the article, it was supposed to be a...get this...Cube. Nobody believed it for a second. They had these lame, obviously doctored screenshots, and....

    Oh, wait. Guess that was true after all :)
  • Well, since it DID say that he was married, that should answer that, but it didnt way that he had any kids, now did it? :-)
  • I also had a perfect Pitfall II score, also around 6-8th grade sometime, and it was 199,000. I agree that it's 10 times easier than doing that in the original Pitfall! I think mainly because there was no time limit.
  • Shut up signal 11.

    Saying that those games were somehow better than the games today is like saying grits (pardon the reference) are better than a fillet mingon (or however you spell that damn french word) from a genetically engineered to be plump and juicy cow.


    In fact, they're significantly MORE pointless than todays games in that there's no pretty movie or anything for you to watch at the end. And, don't give me that "feeling of accomplishment" bullshit. You could eat the contents of a week old uncleaned port-o-potty, which would probably be very difficult and unpleasant, and come away with about the same benefits as getting a perfect on pitfall (except the port-o-potty scheme is probably slightly more healthy).


    -CoG

    "And with HIS stripes we are healed"
  • Pitfall was great, but Galaga was king. I used to pump $5 a day into that frickin machine and I FINALLY got to the 700,000 mark just to have some tourist show me up in 50c.... kinda made me glad that had more of a life than him though....

  • (in western drawl)You don't come around these here parts much, do ya cowboy?


    -CoG

    "And with HIS stripes we are healed"
  • Not really. I'm still playing StarCraft today. It's terribly addictive, and in no way considered a "classic". Yet.

    And just try to get all the emblems in Sonic Adventure...

  • Activision was a wonderful company when they were doing these 2600 games (of course, it wasn't called 2600 at the time). It's hard to imagine this now, but a third party company making games for a system was pretty novel then. And the coolest thing, other than the gameplay, was the way they credited the game authors. They had their pictures on the boxes and included a little bio. After a while, you got to look forward to new games from your favorite developers. It gave each game just a little extra touch of personality.

    My only complaint, about the article, is that, the author, uses commas, where they, don't belong.


    ChuckleBug

  • What's truly amusing is that those screenshots take the same amount of memory as the whole damn game. What was Pitfall- 4k IIRC? The screenshots are 6k!

    Eric

  • Some Sega Genesis controllers are compatible with Atari 2600 consoles, presumably for compatibility with the Sega Master System.
    Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo [pineight.com].
  • > Reminds me of the Underworld in Ultima V...it was H--U--G--E.

    It was BIG, but not HUGE. I mapped most of it out on graph paper. (Yeah, I was a bored High School student ;-)

    Hmm, that would be a good project. Make one big bitmap of the whole underground... Thx for the idea !
  • Looks like someone beat me to the underworld bitmap.
  • The whole damn site is dead.
  • > Give me Bubble Bobble over Metal Gear Solid any day.

    What you talking about?!

    _BOTH_ of those games rock !

    Puzzle Bobble (NeoGeo) with 2 people is just a blast as well !
  • There is also Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure. I loved this game when I first got it 5 years ago. It took my brother and I about 3 months to get through the 10+ levels. It sure beat out the original Pitfall IMHO :-) In this game, you were the son of Pitfall Harry, and had to rescue him.
    The music and animal sounds were cool, but nothing beat having a bat suck on your face. We traded levels on and off. I couldn't have finished the game without my brother. BTW, we also had Pitfall for the 2600 and played that game to death. He's going to be thrilled to read the story about it.


    ----

  • Anyone got a Pitfall 2 map ?

    Aside, I would love to have a actual bitmap for the WHOLE map (of Pitfall 1 & 2) ... that would be the ultimate walkthru :-)
    (Anyone else remember when the '80's game magazines would show rows of screenshots all lined up into one continious map? :-)
  • Go after him. Dig his eye out. Tunnel in through his eye.
    --

  • Re:Dear God I'm old. (Score:3)

    by LNO ( 180595 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @03:53AM (#547161)
    Yup, I remember those. I 'earned' well over a dozen of those, and proudly displayed them on my jacket. I thought I was the HEIGHT of fashion. I couldn't figure out why the babes didn't flock around me.

    Now I have a Linux bumper sticker, I wear clothes from thinkgeek and copyleft, and yet the babes STILL don't flock around me.

    What could it be?

  • Didn't Pitfall just continue aimlessly with more random similar screens?

    Now a perfect Pitfall 2 game, that would be something.

  • Re:Wait, wait, wait... (Score:3)

    by WNight ( 23683 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @08:29AM (#547163) Homepage
    The best way would be simple examination of the data files. In the Ultima 3-5 days I used to sector edit (floppies) stuff onto the maps, like in 4, horses and ships. You could board them and ride/sail away, leaving another behind. It was kinda convenient.

    Anyways, I played so much that I could recognize terrain features in the ascii representation as I scrolled by.

    I think it's 256 units in each direction, 16x16 map units of 16x16 squares each.

    If you're going to do it by playing, then use the gems, it's much easier than walking around looking at all the detail.

    But, whatever you do, make sure to note how to travel from one section to another using teleportation, it's really hard to figure out when glancing into gems.

  • The Quake Done Quick [planetquake.com] people have beaten Quake in under fifteen minutes [slashdot.org].
    Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo [pineight.com].

  • Question (Score:3)

    by Rudeboy777 ( 214749 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @04:00AM (#547165)
    I'd like to know which Atari joystick Hewston used for his record. Obviously there are MANY crucial situations in this accomplishment where your jump timing needs to be perfect. Button and joystick responsiveness is crucial. What does he or any other Atari gaming professional (I never thought I would use those 3 words together) recommend?

    Side note: This story has inspired me to try to find the booklet I kept all my greatest scores in when I was a kid (it's in my parents basement somewhere) and compare them to the current records. I could have sworn that nobody could have ever gotten a higher Pressure Cooker score than me.

  • Wait, wait, wait... (Score:5)

    by traphicone ( 251726 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2000 @10:56PM (#547166)
    Wait, wait, wait... There was an end to Pitfall!?
  • The cause for the lack of diversified games is not bob-the coders fault. Its the marketroids and the suits. They find out which kind of arcade/videogame sells the most copies, then mimic that game with a few tweaks.

    This annoys me to no end. I went to a dave 'n busters a few weeks ago (the one in the DC area) and they only had two kinds of games. Racing games and gun games, neither of which im very fond of. It was so irritating.

    The only new games im enjoying are the dancing ones (dance dance revolution and bust-a-moove/groove) Unfortunatly, the east coast has their head stuck up their ass when it comes to these games, so ive got no clue as to where to find an arcade machine locally. Last I heard there was one in Philly, but thats too far for a daytrip.

    And people wonder why the arcade buisness is going to shit. Diversify maaaan!

  • hmmm (Score:1)

    by nothng ( 147342 )
    looks like the perfect pitfall fell...
  • Well, it looks like Robert Mruczek is on his way to getting a perfect score at Pitfall 2. Robert is one of the people mentioned in this article as being one of the better players, and can be seen listed as only 5 points off of getting a perfect score in Pitfall.

    He is currently listed at 198,700 [snipercade.com] points for Pitfall 2. Looks like he'll get the official score long before I could dust of my 2600 and relearn the game. I don't think I have the undying patience I did as the kid I once was with nothing better to do. I guess I can take a small satisfaction that he screwed up at the very end...Since I know that happened to me quite a few times before I finally got a perfect score.

    Rader

  • > it's 3 in the morning

    ... in your timezone. it's late morning here in europe.

    --
  • 16 minutes, 35 seconds. On nightmare difficulty.

    12 minutes, 54 seconds on the easiest.

    And 59 minutes, 31 seconds with 100% kills and secrets discovered.

    Shorter, in fact, than Pitfall. :)

    Not that I could do that, but that's the time the speedrunners at Quake Done Quick achieved...

    http://www.planetquake.com/qdq/
  • Some Sega Genesis controllers are compatible with Atari 2600 consoles, presumably for compatibility with the Sega Master System.

    The 2600/7800 FAQ [gamefaqs.com] will tell you how to convert a number of controllers to work with the old systems, including telling you how to convert a SMS light gun to the pinout for the atari.

    By the way, Genesis and SMS gamepads work on an atari without modification, provided they're not some weird version with autofire or something. A better question is, why would you want to use a sega controller? Every generation of Sega controller (except perhaps the DC) has in common the problem of it not being easy to move in the cardinal directions; This is much worse on the SMS controller than on the others. You would be much better off doing a NES controller conversion. You can get NES controllers for $0.50 or so (sometimes as much as two bucks! Don't get taken) at flea markets, or for $1.49 [funcoland.com] at Funcoland [funcoland.com]. I don't know if that price is what they charge in-store, but that's the mail order price. I can't help you with cables, though. The NES controller is nigh-indestructible, so it's my first choice. It's also VERY easy to move in any of the eight directions.

  • Does the emulator work under WinNT? The doc mentions Win95 and Win98, but not NT. The games starts up and runs fine, but locks up shortly after starting (about 1 minute). This happens even if I'm still in the configuartion screens.

    Alternatively, is there any other emulator that might work?
  • I remember those! I wouldnt put a new game down until I had beaten the score (I never submitted them because the first time I tried they either didnt send it or it got lost in the mail - talk about crushing a 9-year-old's spirit!) The score for Kaboom! was incredibly tough. I even remember the score you had to beat (3000 pts.) It took over a year of playing and a few sets of worn out paddles, but I finally did it and I was the hero of the neighbourhood kids. Thanks for the pleasant memory.
  • For me this is a case of needing to see it to believe it. I tried that about a million times and never got it. If you can link to an mpeg or avi of this feat, I'll believe it but not before.
  • Lets not forget, the greatest game ever written... P51.
    Head to head combat over a 300 Baud modem connect..
    Gotta head over to eBay now... Need P51 fix...
  • Ummm... YES.

    The doubled firepower allows you to kill a lot more as they're entering the screen, thus making each wave easier. Yes, it's harder to dodge shots, and costs you a life, but the advantages more than make up for it.

    Once you get into a rhythm with the double fighter setup, you can go for long periods of time without dying and collecting big points from the challenge stages (which almost require double fighers on). Losing one throws off my rhythm, and usually it's a scramble to redouble quickly or be defeated by the onslaught.

    It's not about killing everything carefully, only when worst the most - it's about destroying as much as you can as fast as you can, before they start their diving runs at you which are where they are the deadliest.
    ---
  • The Atari Casino cartridge included a game called Poker Solitare. You were dealt 25 cards from the deck and had to arrange them on a 5x5 grid. You effectivly had 12 hands, 5 verticle, 5 horizontal, and 2 diagonal and received points for each hand.

    There was a maximum possible score hinted in the manual, but it seemed impossible to get the correct 25 cards to acheive this. I worked out the highest scoring layout - you needed to obtain 4 Royal flushes, as well as a straight flush involving a 9.

    Did anyone manage this, or was the card sequence impossible to obtain?

  • originality dry spell? (Score:3)

    by kaisyain ( 15013 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @09:36AM (#547179)
    You didn't think Samba de Amigo, Crazy Taxi, Space Channel 5, or Pokemon had the least bit of originality?
  • Yeah, it was the Numb Thumb Club; god damn my pathetic ass to the fiery pits of the lowest plane of hell for knowing that after all this time.

    Deo

    Terradot.org [terradot.org]: Growing Awareness
  • If you are interested, a free Flash version of this game can be found on BoxerJam.com here [boxerjam.com].

  • Hours of play (Score:3)

    by {tele}machus_*1 ( 117577 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @04:33AM (#547182) Journal
    The most interesting part of this article is that this guy complains that games on new-generation consoles take too many hours to play. I wonder how many hours of play it took him to reach that perfect score? Or how many hours he spent playing that Decathalon of games? I can't get over what a bizarre statement that is, "I don't like those new games, they take too long to play. Excuse me while I go log hour 235,846 on my Atari."
  • My brother got 999,999 and the game stopped. He was, I dunno, maybe 8 or 9 at the time, and this was on an original VCS (not even a 2600 - got it before the switched the naming convention!)

  • Re:And in other, far less signficant news.... (Score:4)

    by Fervent ( 178271 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2000 @11:38PM (#547184)
    I got pissed off at the editors one time for not putting one of my stories up, and submitted a "story" with four of the classic Slashdot components: Linux, UNIX, open source, and Microsoft. And it got posted for about 10 minutes. :)

    It was something like "RedHat press release introduces new Sun-like mouse. Software to be open source. Has optical features like Microsoft mice. Check out the story here." with the "here" link pointing to www.geekporn.com.

    Just goes to show you that:

    a.) Slashdot will post just about anything without checking the link.
    b.) As long as you have elements of Rob's "omelete" (see the faq) you're in.

    (Note: after this was posted, the editors seemed to take my normal news posts far more seriously. I think they had to realize that even though the name was "Fervent", it doesn't mean I can't input intelligent stories.)

  • Very simple. Sneak up behind him.

    How do you sneak up behind him? Well, it takes a bit of a trek... but if you got through the whole game you'd find the way just before the end of the game.

    I always thought that Pitfall II was way too repetitive, although it did have some cool concepts, like the balloon ride.

  • actually, the link doesn't go anywhere. i clicked it and got a server not found error.
  • well for one, i didn't know that's what it was. for another, those things don't bother me because i can kill it very quickly.
  • The TRS-80 Color Computer had legions of devoted fans, lots of talented programmers, and absolutely no chance in the burning brimstone pits of hell of getting licenses for hot properties. Not that this stopped the talented programmers from porting the games anyway.

    Well, I wouldn't quite say that... by the time the CoCo 3 came around, there were actually a lot of licenced properties for it. Silpheed, Thexder, Robot Odyssey, Rampage... heck, I've actually still got a copy of Kings Quest III for the CoCo 3 around here somewhere.

    There was a big push right around the time of the CoCo 3 to get licenced titles so that the CoCo 3 would be taken reasonably seriously by the market. What ended up killing it, really, was Tandy's decision that the IBM PC was 'where the industry was going', and so they dropped things like the CoCo and the original TRS-80 line to focus on the Tandy 1000, one of the least compatible 'IBM compatibles' ever built. The Deskmate software (an early office suite) almost but not quite made up for the problems. Of course, nowadays, it's not as if Tandy actually makes its own computers anymore, having shot themselves in the foot enough to bleed to death...

    -- Bryan Feir
  • That's truly a classic game.

    Remember when his daughter gets turned to stone?
  • I remember repeatedly taking pictures of my TV screen, only to see the Polaroid come out with the screen seemingly off. I accused my brother of sneaking over and turning the TV off in between button press and picture-take.

    Never did get that darned patch.
    -----
  • Good god, man! And I was thrilled the one time I hit 520,000. I always got suspicious when I saw higher scores, because there was no way to tell if the other players used the cheat. More on topic: It's funny how everyone acts like it's an either-or proposition. Either it's classic games that are good, or modern games. Galaga is one of the greatest action video games ever made. But so is Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. When you get down to it, THPS2 is a great game for the same reason. The game mechanics are really pretty simple, but you always have to make one more run to try and grab a higher score...
  • slashdot has been fooled many many times...
  • I believe Sega made an arcade port of Pitfall 2, and the sprites were a lot bigger than the Atari version. It was horrible. I coudln't even get past the eagle.
  • The article, referring to getting all 32 treasures, said: "A week later, Macauley jumped out in front, becoming the first player in history..."

    Lot's of players got all 32 treasures. I did (circa 1984 or so). None got a perfect score, though. I mapped the game out, complete with logs, snakes, fires, crocs, and the like, and completed the game right-to-left. For those not familiar with the game, all the obstacles move right-to-left, making that direction easier to achieve.

    I don't think the game is all that fun anymore (qualification: I'm 34). It waxes nostalgia for 3-4 minutes. I'd much rather play Ridge Racer V.

    For those looking at the maps, it is impossible to finish the game without using the tunnels, which are 3 times as fast as above ground.

    ----------------------

  • Strange that there should be 254, not 256 screens... does this mean there is the possibility of an Easter Egg that has remained dormant all these years?

    Also does anyone know how many FPS he was getting? :)

  • Apparently someone else did this first (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 19, 2000 @11:51PM (#547204)
    According to this page [ncsu.edu] Paul Graber got a first before the person mentioned on /.'s article.

    Here is what he wrote.

    From: Paul Graber

    Whew!!

    I can't believe I did it! I got a perfect 114,000 on pitfall. It can be done. I got all 32 treasures with 40 secs left on the clock! the game just stops when you get the last treasure. Maybe I am the first to do this. I doubt it. Anyway here is how I did it.

    First start out by going right to the 7th screen where the first gold bar is. Then immediately go back to the left and run right into the snake on the next screen left. Yes this loses a life but you will appear on the left and save you about 5secs instead of waiting for the rope to come back. Since I had 40 secs left at the end I guess this did not mean much but I wanted every sec. I could get. Okay keep going left and make sure you can take the rope after the alligators immediately. Go all the way to your original starting point.

    Take the ladder and go left. Upon exit go left until you come to the second left ladder, a ladder which will let you go left. Then upon exit go right until you come to the diamond. Go left till you come to the second left ladder after the diamond. Upon exit, go left and you will come to a bunch of treasures including 2 diamonds and 2 gold bars. After the last gold bar take the first left ladder you come to and go left obviously. Upon exit go left until you get 69,000 points. Then take the next left ladder you come to and go left. When you exit go right 3 screens to get a money bag and then it's back left for the rest of the game.

    The last treasure you will get is the gold bar which is the second gold bar you come to if you start right in the begining of the game. All this sound confusing? Sorry but it is the best I can do to explain it. Now it is important to try and hit every vine and vanishing pond exactly with no wait that you can. This will save you about 4-5 secs each time. It took me a couple of days to finally do it but I did. E-Mail me if you still have questions.

    Good Luck!!

  • According to the record holder (and a few others) there are only 255 rooms in the game but I gotta tell ya', mapping 255 rooms in a came as confusing (to me at least) has got to be one hell of a task.

    Congratulations to Alan Hewston for the record. Classic gaming records are truly remarkable, the games were limited (due to the machines they used to run on) and AI was terrible but these games just live on and will probably out live some of the modern 3D games (such as tombraider)... :)

    --
    All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...

  • Mmm. Classic Gaming Nostalgia... (Score:4)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @12:57AM (#547206) Homepage Journal
    Might be time to fire up Xmame again... I wonder how long the current originality dry spell is going to last. These days they seem to roll the cookie cutter games from the same 3 class libraries. I can just imagine what it must be like in the depths of Capcom or Sega... "What are we programming today Bob?" "Hmm. How about a racing game? Check out the racing class library and lets see if we can crank it out before lunch."

  • It'll be interesting to see if anyone's still playing Tomb Raider fifteen years from now...

    D.

  • Check it out! (Score:5)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @01:07AM (#547212) Homepage Journal
    you can get the ROM here [videogames.org] and an emulator here [classicgaming.com]. Of course, I thought missile command [videogames.org] was the best 2600 game. Btw to get the emulator to work you need to hit F10, select "configure controllers" then "keyboard" and press "up" on your keyboard, select "joystick" and then "up" and repeat for each key you want to use on your keyboard. Why there is no default keyboard config, I don't know.

  • Personally I liked Pitfall II a lot more... finding that damn Quickclaw was fun...

    Yeah, but that music was so annoying and repetitive that I can still remember it. In fact, it gets stuck in my head over, and over again....

    Doo, doo, de-de-dooooo. De-doo, doo, doo, doo....

  • ...Would our generation prefer to attempt this playing Super Mario Bros. or Contra? (Or The Legend of Zelda, or....)

  • Re:And in other, far less signficant news.... (Score:3)

    by FFFish ( 7567 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @05:45AM (#547224) Homepage
    Let's not forget the time, a few weeks back, when some sleazoid marketer managed to post a "hey, is this deal too good to be true" request regarding a cheapass DVD player.

    Some guy was offering to stop by the actual offices of the sleazy company. I'm wondering what happened -- was it an apartment, or a real office? Did you get a picture?

    --
  • I wonder if today in 2000 someone could actually program a decent version of Pac Man for 2600, something that at least resembles the original. I remember when I got Pac Man home, out of the little orange box and into my Atari, I immediately thought "this sucks." I mean, the sounds weren't even close to the original -- it was like an entirely different game.

    At least I had a c64 . .

    I finally bought an XE1541 cable for my c64 a couple weeks ago. It was kind of weird to be playing Pitfall for c64 on a disk, since when I was a kid I had it on cartridge. I think the best port of Pitfall was on the c64, were there any better versions in peoples' opinions? The c64 really killed a lot of consoles at the time.
  • Pitfall didn't end, the guy just got the highest possible score from getting all the treasures. I assume he just had to turn the game off after he was done. Pitfall is sure big enough, though. Reminds me of the Underworld in Ultima V...it was H--U--G--E. I'm talking about a non-repeating continent that went on, literally, for days in each direction.
  • So like, was there are point to reporting this or are there just teasing us? Do I have to buy the video on Ebay or has someone divx'd it and put it online?
  • i remember them posting a story [slashdot.org] about a pci board with 6 processors designed to run seti@home. to their credit, they did cover the hoax in a followup [slashdot.org].

    My .02,

  • This speaks volumes about the longevity of old, classic arcade and console games. For someone to spend so much time on Pitfall(and recently Pac-Man) to acheive a perfect score is considerably more impressive than a perfect score in Tekken Tag Tournament. Give me Bubble Bobble over Metal Gear Solid any day.
  • Apparently the link is broken...

    I've never said this before, because a lot of other people are doing it, but /. should really check the links and the bandwidth of the server before a story gets posted. There is nothing more annoying than finding an interesting story, only to realize that for whatever reason the information is inaccessible. Be it either because of dead links (as in this case), or the /. effect.

    I mean I'm running a small web server (read P100 on a cable modem connection) and I can just imagine what the poor people getting /.-ed are going through.

    So please check the links and/or mirror the small sites before posting a story. I mean how hard can that be? And if there is the problem of getting permission from the owner to mirror his site, I know for sure I'd let /. do it, rather than having my whole bandwidth killed...

  • You did use a slow shutter speed and tripod, right? If you take a picture of a TV with a fast shutter speed you'll only get a few scan lines of image.

    Ryan
  • For a while, Galaga was the only game in my dorm freshman year. I had never played it before then, but always found a few quarters to pump into the game.

    I ended up giving up on it after flipping the score (yes, I didn't use the 2-player trick because I didn't know about it), and running it back around to about 500,000 again. The games just started taking too long.

    However, I never did get tired of the Rollergames pinball machine they brought in later.
    ---
  • Isn't there a second half in which the whole game ends with the hero climbing up a snake coming out of a basket to the tune of a flute?


    I don't remember that...

    IIRC, when you have all four (I think it's 4) treasures he starts jumping around and the music changes. You can't move him after that and a reset is required.

    Then again, if you're right, I didn;'t finish the game... and I no longer have that old 2600.

    Ooohhhh.
  • 1) Israel has granted Palestinians full citizenship and representation in government, and the Palestinians have agreed that full equality and participation in goverment is fair and just.

    2) IBM has perfected holographic memory: data
    crystals which consume now power, have an access time of 1ns, and a capacity of 1000TB are in stores near you.

    3) Impartial recounts by news services in Florida shows that Gore actually DID win by 350 votes. Bush has agreed that this clearly displays the will of the people and has stepped down in favor of Gore.

    4) Slashdot has instituted a news story moderation system. Now the readership can judge which submitted stories are worthy instead of being fed whatever the slashdot editors find amusing at the moment.
  • On a related note, where could you get new Atari controllers? Does anyone still make them (yeah, its a long shot, but maybe), or do I have to risk it on eBay? All mine are either broken or work intermittantly (halfway through a game it'll decide that I shouldn't go left anymore, or that firing isn't that important).

  • Hmm (Score:2)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 )
    Touche. Though 4 of the 5 I've never heard of...

  • This is nothing... (Score:3)

    by jayhawk88 ( 160512 ) <jayhawk88@gmail.com> on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @06:36AM (#547253)
    Pitfall? Pansy game. I've been working on the Perfect Asteroids game. Yes sir, 14 years, 4 months, 6 days, 7 hours and counting. I haven't actually found the ending yet, but I'm sure that I'm very close and....What?! Where did that alien ship come from? NOOOOOOO!
  • There was also that time that they posted the story for the (fasle) comapny who claimed to be manufacturing SETI "expansion boards" and selling them to the public. Turns out that due to the huge amount of people /. directed to the (false, but VERY convincing) site, the people who ran the site collected sensitive credit card information. People actually placed orders. Of course, the next day the (false) site confessed that it was a joke. Interesting though, how people took /. with such high regard.

  • Getting past the rat (Score:3)

    by jfunk ( 33224 ) <jfunk@roadrunner.nf.net> on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @01:48AM (#547260) Homepage
    Ah, Pitfall 2... My memory is a little fuzzy, but I vaguely remember.

    The rat is the first treasure you see and the last one you get. You have to go find the other treasures and you will eventually find the passageway to get him from behind. You will have gone in a complete circle. Placing him at the beginning was such an evil tease.

    Of course, there is option 2: cheating. Use an older 2600 (with the toggle-ish switches), place the cartridge in, and power cycle by slowly pushing the power switch on and off until the screen looks messed up. When you've acheived that state, you won't be able to see much on the screen, except the important stuff. Move Harry to the right and he will fall through the floor behind the rat. grab him and move to the next screen. Everything should now be fine, no screen garbage or other errors.

    What's really funny is how I found it, moving the power switch back and forth in frustration.
  • Basically, it's a 1-dim left-right side scroller -- you could travel either left or right off a board. Each 'screen' had a ground level and a subterrian level with ladders interspersed on the various screens. The ground level had obstacles such as pits that would open and close, lakes with gators, stationary and rolling logs, and vines to cross the pits or lakes when needed. The underground level had scorpians, but also had several deads. There were treasures that were spread out through the game that you had to collect.

  • I was talking about the C64 versions. But the article is talking about Atari 2600

  • Dear God I'm old. (Score:4)

    by Moosifer ( 168884 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2000 @11:11PM (#547270)
    I wonder if Activision still presents those patches (or were they iron ons?) to people who achieve high scores in their games. Had to take a picture of your television screen and send it to them, and they'd induct you into a club for video game over-achievers and mail you a handsome patch as a reward [allowing 4-6 weeks for delivery]. I'm sure I still have mine somewhere. Maybe I'll dig up my pitfall patch--if anyone deserves it, it's this guy.

    Anyone remember these? Anyone?
  • > In the Ultima 3-5 days I used to sector edit (floppies) stuff onto the maps, like in 4, horses and ships.

    Hehehe. I thought I was the only one who did that ;-)

    My favorite all time hack has to be, in Ultima 4, when I put a ship right outside LB's castle. Since it was part of the "landscape" it never went away.

    > You could board them and ride/sail away, leaving another behind.
    Yeap! Ultima 2 had a ship bug, where you would board a pirate ship, then if you sailed away, the pirates would spawn their own ship and keep on attacking ! ... Can we say "LAND_to_LAND bridges via SHIPS ;-)"
  • Do you have U5 for the IBM by any chance? I'd be interested in getting it, or the data files for the underworld, and writing a little program to translate it into a workable map.

    EMail me.
  • It'll be interesting to see if anyone's still playing Tomb Raider fifteen years from now...
    Someone will find the ancient graphics a turn-on, and use it as foreplay. Sort of the Internet-version of old pinups. Variations will be "play it one-handedly" and "in groups".
  • well by then Lara Croft will be old and ugly, :-)

    Or dead, like Lola Ferrari.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Some screen shots and images [altavista.com] of Pitfall games. :)

  • At least you don't need to be a rocket scientist to do that.

    So, how did native of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, employed as a rocket scientist, develop the skills that made him the world's best Pitfall player?

    Oh darn...

  • Anyone have examples of these old video game patches? I don't think I have ever seen one before even though I owned an Atari 2600!

  • Yes! I had a Spider Fighter patch. I think I have lost it now. And I don't have the patch either...

  • Re:And in other, far less signficant news.... (Score:3)

    by Kierthos ( 225954 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2000 @11:18PM (#547296) Homepage
    Actually, this brings up an interesting point... has /. ever been fooled? Has anyone ever managed to get a spoofed "News for Nerds" story posted here? One that has no basis in fact, but sounds plausible and has it's own links to fraudulent but well-built web pages?

    Just curious...

    Kierthos
  • How do you get past the rat?

    :(((((((

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