Apple II Bits

On, March 28, 1979, the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant became the site of "the most significant accident in United States commercial nuclear energy".

Later that year, Three Mile Island was released as a nuclear simulation game for the Apple II. It too suffered from its own kind of tragic accident: fatal crashes when trying to save your progress.

This bug wasn’t present in the first version of the game Muse Software shipped, back when DOS 3.1 was the standard. But when the game was unofficially transcribed to DOS 3.3, incompatibilities between the operating systems introduced this fatal flaw.

Jorj Bauer didn’t know that, though; all he knew was that this game had been broken for 37 years. Deciding that this bug has existed for 37 years too long, he set out to sleuth the problem and provide a fix. His three-part journal detailing his investigation makes for fascinating reading, akin to a good 4am crack.

You don’t need to be a detective to enjoy the fruits of Jorj’s labor: the fixed version of the game can be played in the Internet Archive, courtesy Jason Scott.

I put the fixed 1980 Three Mile Island game (fixed in 2017!) up on https://t.co/pvwAEWBfbr. https://t.co/5HestDCK1F

— Jason Scott (@textfiles) January 16, 2017

That’s one fewer meltdown for the world to face.

(Hat tip to Lewin Day)