Pac-Man 256 Glitch (2024)

Every Saturday morning, I would hop on my trusty BMX bike, bomb the dirt trail through the woods and cross a 4 lane highway to get to a strip mall known as "Pine Creek Plaza." I'd meet up with my best friend Lou Boucher who rode in from another suburban neighborhood. Nestled in the corner of the mall was an absolutely magical place for a 12 year old boy, "Game-O-Rama." It was a classic 80's video arcade. It was a time and age where you knew who was inside by taking a quick look at the bikes laying around out front (which didn't need to be locked up). Inside, the smoke poured out of the back break room where Ace Baldinger and other 17 year old misfits sat around smoking Marlboro reds and drinking cans of co*ke in their sleeveless shirts purchased from the backroom at Spencer's gift shop at the mall, "Ford, AC/DC, Pink Floyd."

I was obsessed with several games; Defender, Dig Dug, Tempest, Galaga and Pacman to name a few. In fact, I was so into Pac-Man that I bought a book at Children's Palace that had the pattern for what seems like every level, but looking back, it couldn't have been because there are 256 levels. Regardless, I spent my nights laying in bed studying the patterns instead of doing my homework. I ended up remembering all of the patterns in the book and could play for around 2 hours on a single quarter.

Recently, I stumbled across an article about the 256 glitch which I had completely forgotten about. The infamous “level 256 glitch” was a bug that plagued the original arcade version of the Pac-Man game, due to both hardware limitation and programming error. As the name implies, it’s a bug that happens when you reach level 256. The original game used only a single byte or 8 bits to store the level number. As such, it can really only represent 0 to 255. Of course, players start at level 1 but once they get past level 256, the counter wraps around to level 0, a level the game wasn’t designed to handle. It caused glitches in graphics and gameplay that, in essence, made that level and the game unbeatable. (source: Pac-Man 256 turns historical glitch into endless runner - SlashGear).

I'm not sure that I would have completely been able to wrap my head around that at 12, but after 25 years in the I.T. industry it makes perfect sense. Numbers like 0,8,256 and 512 look like old friends to me.

There's no place like 127.0.0.1