NIBBLER

• HIDDEN MESSAGE: In the attract mode, if you push the joystick in any direction when the yellow grid appears (right before the title screen graphics appear), you’ll see the letters “J-U” (for programmer Joe Ulowetz ) in the lower-right corner (picture #1). On a real arcade machine, you might see “J-U6” or “J-U9”, which denotes which version of the game it is.  {Tim McVey}

• HIDDEN MESSAGE: If you enter the initials “JHU” (for programmer Joe Ulowetz ) for the high score, the message, “YOU HAVE THE SAME INITIALS AS MY AUTHOR” will briefly appear (picture #2).  {Tim McVey}

• HIDDEN MESSAGE: If you enter the initials “MRS” (for Joe Ulowetz’s girlfriend, Mary) for the high score, the message, “YOU HAVE THE SAME INITIALS AS MY ANGEL” will briefly appear. 

• There’s 3 different romsets of the game.  With a later version, after wave 32, all objects reappear when the player dies, making the game more difficult.

• In MAME, there’s music that plays during the game, but it stops at the start of wave 14.  The arcade machine doesn’t play music, although there’s a chip on the pcb for it, and it’s possible to enable it!

• The initials for some/all of the programming team are on the high score table (at power up – picture #3):

JHU - Joe Ulowetz
MRS – Joe Ulowetz’s then-girlfriend (now wife)
JMJ - John Jaugilas
BAK - Joe Bak
RMM
LDR - Lonnie Ropp
WHO
JEJ
PJS
ILK

• BUG: If you eat the last bonus object and immediately run into your tail, you won’t get credit for it, plus you’ll lose a life.  {Tim McVey}

• BUG: If you earn more than 99 reserve lives, the counter becomes garbled:

100 = FF
101 = FF
102 = 8
103 = D8
104 = A5
105 = BC
106 = A
107 = C9
108 = 63
109 = 90
110 = 2
111 = A9
112 = 63
113 = A8
114 = B9
115 = A6
116 = 41
117 = F8
118 = 18
119 = 65
120 = B2
121 = 85
122 = B2
123 = A5
124 = B3
125 = 69
126 = 0
127 = B5
128 = B3
129 = A5

If you earn more than 128 reserve lives, you’ll lose all your reserve lives. It’s possible the game might start keeping track of reserve lives again if you could earn more than 255 lives.  {Tom Asaki and Tim McVey}

• BUG: After 99 waves, the wave counter goes back to 80 and it will keep repeating that same order.

• RUMOR: Rumor is Rock-Ola made a version that allowed you to earn up to 255 reserve lives, instead of 128.