Super Pac-Man

• EASTER EGG: According to programmer Landon Dyer, an Easter egg is known to exist in the latest version, as well as the 3-15-84 prototype.  To trigger it, press * or # after completing a stage (while the screen is flashing yellow) and the message "4 A GOOD TIME JSR 91BD" will briefly scroll across the bottom of the screen in front of the copyright info (picture #1 and video).  It only appears once after which the standard scrolling text will appear.  "JSR" is a programming instruction that means Jump to SubRoutine, and is the computer assembly language equivalent of "CALL", and "91BD" refers to a memory location.  According to Dyer, "91BD was supposed to do something more interesting (I dunno, maybe a shower of pacmen or ghosts or something), but I didn’t finish it up."  For more information about this, check out Don's site.  {Don Hodges}

• 3 prototype versions exist.  The earliest, dated 1-26-84, has a bug that may cause some doors to remain locked (key doesn’t work).  The next version, dated 3-15-84, corrects the key/door bug, but doesn’t have scrolling text on the title screen (picture #2) or the Easter egg that the latest version has.  Also, the bonus star’s appearance is based on a timer in the earlier versions; in the latest version it’s based on how much of the playfield you clear, as it is with the arcade version.  The latest version has the copyright info in scrolling text (picture #3) along with this info: "WHEN PAC-MAN IS SUPER-SIZE, PRESS BUTTON FOR SUPER SPEED!  EXTEND SUPER SIZE BY EATING POWER DOTS".

• The program will automatically detect what system it’s running on (400/800 or 5200) and configure itself for that system.

• BUG: On the earliest version, some of the doors might not open after eating all the keys.