Super Pac-Man
• EASTER EGG: According to programmer Landon Dyer, an Easter egg is known to exist in the latest version. To trigger it, press OPTION or SELCT 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}
• HIDDEN MESSAGE: Using the Atari 800 Win emulator, set it to 5200 mode and load the Atari 8-bit 400/800 cart version instead. You get a "beware pirates" message on the title screen (picture #5), and then the game crashes. It seems somebody replaced spare $FF bytes at the end of the prototype version with a string of "bewarepirates" text. {Scott Stilphen}
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3 prototype versions are known to exist. The earliest one, dated 6-14-84 (picture #2) has the copyright info ("(c) ATARI 1984") in fixed text (not scrolling) and in a different font. It doesn't have the Easter egg; the later versions do. Also, the bonus star’s appearance is based on a timer; in the later versions it’s based on how much of the playfield you clear, as it is with the arcade version. The next latest version has the copyright info in blue text and in a different font (picture #3). The latest version has the copyright info in scrolling text (picture #4) along with this info: "WHEN PAC-MAN IS SUPER-SIZE, PRESS BUTTON FOR SUPER SPEED! EXTEND SUPER SIZE BY EATING POWER DOTS".
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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.
