First discovery of Pac Man kill screen?

kstillin

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When was the 256th level of PacMan first reached?

I remember back in the day that 9th key patterns existed and once you got there, it seemed that you could play indefinitely.

Not so, as we know now.

I had several multi-hour games before I considered it defeated and lost interest. I remember the last time I played 2+ hours with 2+ million before losing focus and dying before I could finish a level and get back to my pattern.

But there were several strategy paperback books published back then, including 'Mastering Pac Man' by Ken Uston. There was no mention of the kill screen.

I've also read that the 'rack advance' DIP setting will reach the level after 15+ minutes. Surely somebody noticed that way back closer to 1980.

I even remember a regional tournament sponsored by Putt Putt where a local boy represented our city (Steve Hair of Columbia). But I recall that it was a time-limited contest, suggesting that the killscreen was still unknown at that point.

I'd like to make it one day just to say I did.
Do any of you have references to when the kill screen was first mentioned in print or local circles?

Kerry
 
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I asked this very same question on Twitter years and years ago but got not replies. I did find some early references, it's not definitive, but the first articles I've found mention Eric Schwibs as reaching the kill screen in 1982 or therebouts. Do a google search for him + Pac-Man and you should get some hits. Here's one: https://archive.org/stream/Video_Ga...o_1_1982-09_Carnegie_Publications_US_djvu.txt. Good luck!
 
The first instance we are aware of here at ACAM was by Kevin Fischer of Silver Springs, MD in the spring of 1982. That information was also published by Ken Uston in the June, 1982 edition of Electronic Games Magazine.

An interesting sidenote.... Despite the information about the split screen bug being published publicly in a number of places (including the aforementioned Electronic Games Magazine), Twin Galaxies was still reporting an impossible-to-achieve world record score of close to 13 million points ONE FULL YEAR later in June of 1983. That info can be found here.... http://www.videoparadise-sanjose.com/tg-all.htm
 
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I'd like to make it one day just to say I did.
Kerry

That's what I'm working towards as well. At some point I may switch over to learning the perfect game routes once I'm comfortable with a long run through the keys. I'm just happy getting to my 11th key at this point, concentration is tough.
 
But there were several strategy paperback books published back then, including 'Mastering Pac Man' by Ken Uston. There was no mention of the kill screen.

I have PDFs of some of the Pac-Man strategy books on my site, including Uston's Mastering Pac-Man:
http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/books/books.html

I also have a master listing with more strategy books:

http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/books/master_book_listing.html


Here's the EG article from June 1982, which is the earliest I know of. The first I remember reading about it was in Joystick magazine. Here's 2 mentions of it, from the January and April 1983 issues, as well as the Fall 1982 Video Games Player one.

The April 1983 mention in Joystik is a letter from Chris "CCC" Crabtree (Union City, TN) who claims to have found a way past the split-screen. As bad as that is, the editor confirms Chris' solution works!


An interesting sidenote.... Despite the information about the split screen bug being published publicly in a number of places (including the aforementioned Electronic Games Magazine), Twin Galaxies was still reporting an impossible-to-achieve world record score of close to 13 million points ONE FULL YEAR later in June of 1983. That info can be found here.... http://www.videoparadise-sanjose.com/tg-all.htm

No surprise there. 35 years later and TG is still just as clueless in some regards.
 

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The April 1983 mention in Joystik is a letter from Chris "CCC" Crabtree (Union City, TN) who claims to have found a way past the split-screen. As bad as that is, the editor confirms Chris' solution works!

I call total BS... Had someone figured it out back then, a lot more people would have been past that screen.

The score also has ZERO to do with the level counter.
 
An interesting sidenote.... Despite the information about the split screen bug being published publicly in a number of places (including the aforementioned Electronic Games Magazine), Twin Galaxies was still reporting an impossible-to-achieve world record score of close to 13 million points ONE FULL YEAR later in June of 1983. That info can be found here.... http://www.videoparadise-sanjose.com/tg-all.htm

I wonder how many of those scores were legit. Didn't a kid named Jeffrey Yee also claim to have an impossible Pac-Man score back in the day ?

I call total BS... Had someone figured it out back then, a lot more people would have been past that screen.

Someone opened up the game and used rack test to pass the split screen.
 
I call total BS... Had someone figured it out back then, a lot more people would have been past that screen.

Everyone has been calling BS on that guy's claim for years. Clearly nobody at the magazine spent the time to play the game all the way to board 255 to see if his "solution" worked.


Someone opened up the game and used rack test to pass the split screen.

Sure. How else would you expect a magazine to get such a nice screenshot of a split-screen Pac-Man? :)
 
A YouTube search of Jeffrey Yee turned up this video:



Ricky Mori reached the kill screen and was a good player but Jeffrey Yee comes across as a little liar saying he got 5 million points (impossible) yet coming nowhere near matching Ricky. Also what was with the weird blue joystick on his machine ?
 
Ricky Mori reached the kill screen and was a good player but Jeffrey Yee comes across as a little liar saying he got 5 million points (impossible) yet coming nowhere near matching Ricky.

Yee was the kid that lied again later about a 6 million point score and got some kind of award or certificate from President Reagan.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of lies about scores....not just back in the day, but recently as well. Not that long ago, the self-proclaimed scoring experts had to wipe out a significant amount of Circus Charlie scores because a Canadian gamer (Neil Chapman...I think) proved the score does not roll over at 1 million points. The game keeps playing, but the scoring stops. So, everything over 999,990 was rescinded, and I have a feeling a good chunk of the scores below 999,990 are no good due to lack of proof/verification or shoddy record keeping.
 
Yee should have been called out, on the spot, before that segment even aired. When the rollover occurred on the other machine, it was obvious that Yee's "record" was impossible.
 
Just saw this video of a split-screen in Pac-Man Plus, and when the lower-left power pill is eaten, the "garbage" graphics change:



I wonder what all the various bootlegs do.

More info about trying to solve the split-screen:

http://www.recordholders.org/en/news/news065.html


Yee was the kid that lied again later about a 6 million point score and got some kind of award or certificate from President Reagan.

AFAIK, it was a letter from Reagan, commending him on his accomplishment, and not an award.
 
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I also have a master listing with more strategy books:

Not to hijack the already hijacked thread here, but do you know of the best resource for learning how to do Billy's perfect game of pac-man? I have several videos saved on youtube of people doing it, but I haven't found a non-video source with this information. Thanks!
 
Just saw this video of a split-screen in Pac-Man Plus, and when the lower-left power pill is eaten, the "garbage" graphics change:



I wonder what all the various bootlegs do.

More info about trying to solve the split-screen:

http://www.recordholders.org/en/news/news065.html

That's interesting though it would require an analysis of a disassembly of the code to determine why that happens. I don't know of any study of the Pac-Man Plus code but here is detailed info about the split screen issue in Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man:
http://www.donhodges.com/how_high_can_you_get2.htm
http://www.donhodges.com/how_high_can_you_get3.htm

AFAIK, it was a letter from Reagan, commending him on his accomplishment, and not an award.

His actual accomplishment was telling a whopper that has been remembered for several decades.
 
To add to the documented proof, in the August 1982 issue of Video Review, in the regular Freeze Frame column, they mention Eric Schwibs, but this time give an account of a witnessed May 1, 1982 play through and this one has a plausible score. He mentions the killscreen, and it sounds as if that wasn't his first encounter with it.
c5355af589882fb0f2a197d776833fd4.jpg
d8c8b7fc8297750d3c9ee986909f360b.jpg
 
I only have 3 issues of Video Review, and that isn't one of them :( I'll have to find a copy.


Not to hijack the already hijacked thread here, but do you know of the best resource for learning how to do Billy's perfect game of pac-man? I have several videos saved on youtube of people doing it, but I haven't found a non-video source with this information. Thanks!

No, but according to TG at least 5 other people have done confirmed perfect games since Mitchell, and all of them have done it in less time:


His actual accomplishment was telling a whopper that has been remembered for several decades.

I'd love to see someone track him down and ask him about it :)
 

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No, but according to TG at least 5 other people have done confirmed perfect games since Mitchell, and all of them have done it in less time

Were they all video verified ? TG can be questionable at times to say the least. In 2015 they actually had a ludicrous "Passing the Split Screen" challenge in which they used the 20th/25th Anniversary version which allows continues and tried to pass that off as legit - http://www.classicarcadegaming.com/forums/index.php?topic=6368.0
 
3 were video, 1 was a DVD, and one (the fastest) was a ref. I added a screenshot of their database page in my last post.
 
Unfortunately, there were a lot of lies about scores....not just back in the day, but recently as well. Not that long ago, the self-proclaimed scoring experts had to wipe out a significant amount of Circus Charlie scores because a Canadian gamer (Neil Chapman...I think) proved the score does not roll over at 1 million points. The game keeps playing, but the scoring stops. So, everything over 999,990 was rescinded, and I have a feeling a good chunk of the scores below 999,990 are no good due to lack of proof/verification or shoddy record keeping.

Wild Western does the same thing. Did they ever pull the B.S. Wild Western score that they reinstated? I proved Wild Western maxes at 999,900 years ago and officially had the top score, and then some time later a 1M+ score they had previously pulled suddenly reappeared in the database. I brought it to their attention but no one gave a shit. Guess you have to be Canadian and wear a cape for people to take you seriously.
 
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