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[mob] Fwd: [!CrackMonkey!] It's not a bug
----- Forwarded message from Nick Moffitt <[email protected]> -----
From: Nick Moffitt <[email protected]>
To: The Status is that Rob Levin Should Get a Life <[email protected]>
Subject: [!CrackMonkey!] It's not a bug
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 10:32:45 -0700
http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/games/credits/space.html#hawk
> FUN FACT: While testing the game, Bill came across a bug: every now
> and then, the game would, seemingly at random, hyperspace you. He
> and his boss, Mike Minkoff, went over the code with a fine-tooth
> comb before realizing what the problem was: the Intellivision hand
> controllers encode button presses in such a way that an action
> (side) key pressed at the same time as particular directions on the
> disc will be interpreted instead as a numeric key being pressed.
> There was no software way around this; shooting while moving would
> occasionally be interpreted as pressing 9 -- the hyperspace button.
>
> After several days of puzzling over a solution, the bug was
> ultimately "fixed" by including the following note in the
> instruction manual:
>
> "Every once in a while, your space hunter will move near a 'black
> hole,' and the computer will automatically put him into HYPERSPACE.
> This will cost you the same number of points as if you had pressed
> the HYPERSPACE key yourself. On the other hand, it will save your
> hunter."
>
> This led to an axiom frequently heard around Mattel: If you document
> it, it's not a bug -- it's a feature . Anytime a game in development
> crashed -- no matter how badly or bizarrely -- witnesses would
> invariably turn to the frustrated programmer, shrug, and calmly say
> "document it."
--
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01234567 <- The amazing* indent-o-meter!
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