What's fascinating is that this isn't even really a 'bad' ending. From Clark's perspective, the bridge simply never blew up so he's just going to his average day of work. Instead of covering the thrilling exploits of Superman, he's probably going to have to do a story on, like, a dog wedding or something for page 12.

See now I have a picture of little Jon sitting there, deflecting his family inquires into your sanity, while trying to figure out how to set a new record. Thanks this was nerdy and fun.

Nerdness of the highest degree, I love it!

Easier way to do this exploit: enter the phone booth, come out and move to the upper center screen. Pause. Wait for the “screen saver” to cycle you to the Daily Planet (similar to your subway trick). Move. Game over. I remember blowing away all the older kids’ minds with this trick

I did the very same thing! It's amazing how we figured out this stuff when we were kids. Having 3 months off from school every year gave me plenty of time. I would do my chores then constantly play Atari. I also used to play adventure and use the bridge everywhere just to see what would happen. KEEP ON KEEPIN' ON!!!

I posted the zero second trick on my site back in the 90s. Fun fact: sometimes the timer takes a while to initialize, so you can get zero seconds with very minimal pausing sometimes. The subway isn't needed; just walk Clark Kent to where the Daily Planet would be on the very first screen.

I LOVE your Atari content! Thank you so much!

I learned something about this game I never knew after 40+ years later. Thanks Jon!

@GenXGrownUp

Ай бұрын

My pleasure!

Ok, i confess, i did not know your method (which ill call method #1) I used a disposable bic razor, and a big rubberband to avoid using the train (which ill call method #2) Great vid!!!!

@someguyfromindiana1777

Ай бұрын

Color me intrigued ! Could you explain this trick?

@alfonsedente9679

Ай бұрын

@@someguyfromindiana1777 if you have an original 2600, the reset lever is spring loaded. I used the razor wedged in a groove, like a lever to keep pressure on the other lever (reset switch). The long rubberband held everything in place. Just keep tapping the stick to move, and the lever keeps resetting the pause.

This was fun, I remember being a kid and trying all kinds of stuff with my games, good times!

This just proves that it was super man’s sneeze that broke the brige, and the enemies are just a cover up

That is bizarre and nerdy. I love it 😁 I wonder if Atari got any screen pictures of the low score 😂

I remember this being mentioned in The 2600 Connection newsletter.

I used to play this game a lot when I was a kid. I didn't know this trick back in the day! 😅

He's in The Phantom Zone!

@GenXGrownUp

Ай бұрын

Ah, nice film ref!

Mind blown. I bow to your nerdery.

@GenXGrownUp

Ай бұрын

Haha! Many thanks for watching! 😁

It was so fun messing around with the Atari VCS as a kid. My discovery (shared by thousands) was 'frying' the machine by flipping the power rapidly off and on again with certain cartridges, causing a corrupted version of the code to load into machine on certain games like Pitfall and Vanguard (the 2 I remember best) where you could find screens never designed, all black Pitfall Harry and other strange quirks. Good times, good times.

Great video! Thanks

@GenXGrownUp

Ай бұрын

Glad you liked it! 😁

That is the nerdiest thing I have seen all year, keep them coming.

It's not only super cool but you're essentially time travelling ;-) Great video Jon and thanks for sharing!

Omg thank you man for sharing!!!

@GenXGrownUp

Ай бұрын

My pleasure! Thank you for watching. 😁

I love this kind of stuff! Closest experience I have is nerding out my friends by showing them how to get to Ghost Town in GTA 3.

Nerdy but fun. I like it.

Luv these!Thanks! now I can be "zero the hero" 😂

“Super Cool,” 🦸‍♂️Jon! 👏🏻 Actually, I don’t recall ever knowing there was a “pause” for this game 😅. Great stuff, as always! 🎉

That’s great, I never knew that trick. I’ll be trying it out, lol.

Very cool trick.

Awesome glitch. Your video made me remember a glitch on River Raid to start the game on a different level. I used to sit and turn on and off my Atari very fast until i noticed a different level. It was a cool experience for me, not so much for my Atari I guess.

@Sinn0100

Ай бұрын

That's okay, I bet it didn't feel a thing. The Atari 2600 (I'm assuming that's the one you're talking about) was built stronger than an Abrams Battle Tank. Unless, of course, you were referring to a 5200.... then you might want to practice the stop, drop, and roll technique before every reset. Those things break on their own. I can't imagine one not exploding through misuse. ;)

@GenXGrownUp

Ай бұрын

The modern term for that is "frying." There's a dedicated button for it on the RetroN 77 and the Stella emulator.

@Sinn0100

Ай бұрын

@@GenXGrownUp That's funny man!

@marcoantoniosotohernandez6789

Ай бұрын

@@GenXGrownUp Awesome, I did not know that could be done on Stella. Thanks for sharing that

@marcoantoniosotohernandez6789

Ай бұрын

@@Sinn0100 Yea I meant 2600. I did not have the chance of owning a 5200 back then.

Superman in the 1978 movie can turn back time by flying past the speed of light. He could beat the game in negative seconds, not just zero.

Glad to see this video! Better score than my 5 seconds.

@GenXGrownUp

Ай бұрын

Have you tried pausing just before dropping into the phone booth and then pausing to enter the subway as Superman? Superman's flight is crippled (he can fly down, but not up) and you just wander until you turn into Clark. You can't end the game by going to The Planet, becuase that requries you to be Clark, not Supe!

Interesting. I knew about using pause, but not this way. I had also gotten a time of zero seconds but i also repaired the bridge and caught Lex Luthor and his gang. (Some neat stuff happens this way.) However, i don't remember being moved back to the pre-pause condition. I'm probably misremembering but i couldn't reproduce it on Stella (and my cartridge was stolen decades ago...) :( I was going to disassemble the code to find out how the timer worked but you answered that in your video. 😅😂

That was most Interesting. 🤔 #thoughtprovoking #curious

@GenXGrownUp

Ай бұрын

Thanks for watching! 😁

Fun video! Makes you wonder if the game developer, John Dunn, had programmed this trick in the game code for testing and forgot to remove for the final version of the game, left in the game, thinking nobody would figure it out, or is it just a quirk in the game? Regardless, it is always fun when you discover a "game cheat" like this!

@GenXGrownUp

Ай бұрын

Thanks for watching! 😁

Have you ever played through the second quest in Pitfall 2? It's exclusive to the 5200 version and is really unique and challenging! I'd like to see you do a video about that!

I wonder how many kids actually spent time doing this 'in the day'. I had forgotten ALL about doing this. I swear you could just wait for the screen to hit the daily planet door instead of the subway and then move...1 second. (?)

@GenXGrownUp

Ай бұрын

Oh, right! If you go mid-screen and wait for the planet to come around, that works too. But the time it takes to walk to mid-screen is another second. (Easily avoided with the rapid-fire pause, too.)

Wow! I remember using that trick to be Clack Kent on the other side of the bridge when it blows up! Another thing you could do with some games was flip the power switch on and off quickly. This would lead to games "freaking out" as I called it back in the day. Some freak outs were really unplayable, but others let you cheat. I remember if I tried long enough to freak out Pitfall II, I would start the game on the level below, right next to Quickclaw! You could grab him first instead of last, and work your way backwards to Rhonda and the big diamond!

@GenXGrownUp

Ай бұрын

The modern term for that is "frying." There's a dedicated button for it on the RetroN 77 and the Stella emulator.

@speedbird737

Ай бұрын

you could do the same with space invaders to get double firing

@danielgehring7437

Ай бұрын

I remember doing that with Asteroids, but the only trick I could figure out was how to get the asteroids to despawn. The alien ship would come out so I'd just practice trying to hit that. It always freaked my brother out because the first time he came into the living room while I was doing it, it was just me staring at a blank screen and I managed to convince him that I'd beaten the game.

Can you show the Atari Space Invaders double shooting exploit?

I like this game.

New Superman video!

@jeremiahthomas8140

Ай бұрын

I never knew about this trick. I like capturing Luthor's henchmen too much to use it, though.

Hey Buddy I like your hands on Live tinker video's do you do them on a schedule or just when you find somthing

@GenXGrownUp

Ай бұрын

Thanks. Do you mean those vertical hangout streams? Those are just ad-hoc at the moment. I never know when I'm going to have a gadget I feel like fixing, tearing apart, or modifying.

@seha6391

Ай бұрын

@@GenXGrownUp Ya those are fun Reminds me of being a kid tinkering with early computers and electronics

LOL. I did not know about this glitch back then. 10 or 11 year old me would have had fun with this exploit. hahaha

This was still better than Superman III

Kind of a devious tactic. I think you're stooping down to Lex Luthor's level LOL

@GenXGrownUp

Ай бұрын

Clark should be ashamed.

When I was a kid I could finish the game within 90 seconds. No cheating.

@GenXGrownUp

Ай бұрын

I totally believe it. Apparently, runs right around the 1-minute mark are pretty common for those who've memorized all the navigation. Also, the bridge pieces don't go to random locations, but predictable ones (provided you get to them before that damn helicoper!)

I remember those days...it's summer, school is out, and you got nothing but time on your hands. You quite literally have moooonths of free time to do nothing but play video games, and then some jerk had to invent adulting. I say boo to them, boo, hiss, and a great big f....this is a family-friendly channel. While I my experience started with the Nes and Master System in 1986, I did the same kinds of things. Actually, we (fiancee and I) still do things like this all the time. For example, we don't work on the weekends, and it's 100% unfettered gaming until Sunday night. Addendum- Okay, I know many of you here are really going to hate me.... I still get all of that time off that you normally do as a kid. I technically work 180 days of the year (I'm a teacher). Unless I do summer school but that seems highly unlikely as I have an overflowing heap of games I need to play. Both retro and brand new titles.

Curious... on the red box atari superman some say special edition..some are regular and a few had a wallet.....Do you know any difference with the regular red box and special editon.... Also have all 3 veriants of the sears telegames Blue Box and rare yellow picture label....keep up the cool gen x stuff

@GenXGrownUp

Ай бұрын

According to my reading (had another commenter ask about this), the "Special Edition" labeling was just a badge that appeared on early printings and was later removed. Nothing different about the contents, and doesn't even necessarily mean it included the wallet.

Why is the box upside down in the video title?

@GenXGrownUp

Ай бұрын

Wait, what? 😜

💜

Next we'll have speedrunners trying to finish the game on zero game seconds in the quickest real time possible...

So would this be the first game with a speed run glitch?

@GenXGrownUp

Ай бұрын

Maybe so?

@asa-punkatsouthvinland7145

Ай бұрын

@@GenXGrownUp it's likely this or Adventure! I'd think. 8 mean technically for a speed run you have to have an ending yo the game & these definitely were some of the earliest games with endings I can think of.

Completely pointless....... And I absolutely love it 😂.

Todd Rodgers beat it in -1 seconds.

@GenXGrownUp

Ай бұрын

He's... creative.

Haha!

NERD ALERT 🚨

@GenXGrownUp

Ай бұрын

🧑‍⚖️ Guility.