Talk:TREK7

Divide by zero bug

The article mentions an "obstinate ... 'divide by zero' problem that has been plaguing the code for decades hindering any successful game". Curiousity is piqued - what was the bug, what were the circumstances that provoked it, and what were the results when it was? (I'm assuming a fatal total failure, for the latter?) It sounds like the code most have been subtracting one quantity from another, and using the difference to divide something - without checking to see if the difference was 0? Jnc (talk) 22:06, 25 March 2023 (CET)

Comments

The mention of scarce comments reminded me about a favourite MIT story about an obscure comment - perhaps the only comment in a program! So, instruction (I don't think it was a line number - this predates BASIC) 1827 had the comment "LVB RIP". What? Eventually (this was long before the Internet, too :-) the penny dropped - Ludwig van Beethoven died in 1827! Or maybe it was 'JSB RIP' on instruction 1750 - that actually sounds more likely, now that I think about it - old-time hackers were more fans of Bach than Beethoven! I tried to find this story online, but couldn't. I think I read it in an old copy of the Hacker's Dictionary. Jnc (talk) 22:06, 25 March 2023 (CET)