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Researchers still don't know why this Atari 2600 game works
Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2023 8:48 pm
by Juan F. Ramirez
Someone tooted it on Mastodon, I think I should share it:
https://www.techspot.com/news/85622-nob ... ombed.html
"The basic maze generating routine had been partially written by a stoner who had left. I contacted him to try and understand what the maze generating algorithm did. He told me it came upon him when he was drunk and whacked out of his brain, he coded it up in assembly overnight before he passed out, but now could not for the life of him remember how the algorithm worked"
I hope it will discovered some day!
Re: Researchers still don't know why this Atari 2600 game works
Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2023 9:00 pm
by catmeows
Re: Researchers still don't know why this Atari 2600 game works
Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2023 10:40 pm
by Einar Saukas
Re: Researchers still don't know why this Atari 2600 game works
Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2023 3:37 am
by equinox
Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 8:48 pm
He told me it came upon him when he was drunk and whacked out of his brain, he coded it up in assembly overnight before he passed out, but now could not for the life of him remember how the algorithm worked
Frankly that's a much cooler story than actually explaining the rules that you
do remember. I'd be tempted to say so too. I am sceptical.
Re: Researchers still don't know why this Atari 2600 game works
Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2023 5:55 pm
by mjwilson
Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 8:48 pm
Someone tooted it on Mastodon, I think I should share it:
https://www.techspot.com/news/85622-nob ... ombed.html
"The basic maze generating routine had been partially written by a stoner who had left. I contacted him to try and understand what the maze generating algorithm did. He told me it came upon him when he was drunk and whacked out of his brain, he coded it up in assembly overnight before he passed out, but now could not for the life of him remember how the algorithm worked"
I hope it will discovered some day!
There's a Spectacle page like that...
Re: Researchers still don't know why this Atari 2600 game works
Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2023 5:07 pm
by ZXDunny
It's a fun routine. Converted to SpecBAS:
And with formatting:
Set it to loop forever. Wonder if I can make use of this...
Re: Researchers still don't know why this Atari 2600 game works
Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2023 6:27 pm
by Joefish
I don't really see what the fuss is about. There's some logic encoded in a look-up 'truth table' instead of explicit IF statements, and it's proving difficult to reverse-engineer the logic that went into making that look-up table (assuming it is all logical in the first place), that's all.
It's not like it's some miracle algorithm. It doesn't generate any 2x2 or larger open areas, but that's hardly a taxing problem. It generates loads of passageways that are completely cut-off, and those diagonal block dead-ends that pop-up occasionally suggest to me that there's actually a flaw in the logic.