Originally Posted by sdwyer138

I'm not familiar with this term. What is a stitched score?

Allowing a 'restart' when a technical machine glitch stopped a machine during a marathon and then adding the scores (iirc)

That's silly

Originally Posted by sdwyer138

That's silly

It's my understanding that it was not malicious in nature back then and was commonly accepted since the high level skill was shown to be had. ie) You "could" do it if the game cooperated. Nowadays, of course, we have a very different view and have seen what were believed to be stitched scores be toppled recently. Like the Missile Command marathon.

http://www.videoparadise-sanjose.com/tg-rules.htm - Old TG rules around marathon play which explicitly state that restarts during a marathon were ok.

The old 80's scores are interesting footnotes, but it's hard to take them seriously when many scores back then were either completely made up or played under different rules. I see no way we're actually going to be able to sort out which are which 35 years later. I do agree that something has to be done about this Robotron score that ends with impossible digits. This has been an embarrassment for TG for years.

In addition to the challenges with Robotron that Tim mentions below, there is also behavior just before scoring 100,000,000 that can result in receiving no extra lives for a prolonged period of time after the 100,000,000 rollover.


-George

Originally Posted by pwnasaurus

The same reaction anyone who has ever been curious about what the Robotron WR was has had upon checking out this db.

Very well put, sir. There really is no defending this score, and keeping it will only continue to hurt TG.

The other issue that gstrain refers to is a "goldilocks" period that occurs just before 100 million. Everything you shoot gives you an extra life, which is "owed" later. If you get 30 extra lives during that goldilocks, you will have to get 31 lives/bonuses for you to actually get an extra life. So two things could easily happen - rolling the lives which can be very difficult to recover from (but not impossible, depending on where you are in the game), or you simply get a lot of lives and can't survive until you can receive them again.
None of these issues are insurmountable, but add to the difficulty in attaining such scores. At that time there was no lives counter so it would be very easy to accidentally roll the lives. This has since been updated with the "tie-dye" romset.

Originally Posted by Blastaar

Has anyone ever asked Brian King about the score?

https://www.facebook.com/brian.king3

Are you certain this is the right Brian King? Assuming you're correct I sent him a message, I'll see if he replies, though its kinda weird getting a message from a stranger so I wouldnt be surprised if he doesnt. I do think people deserve to at least be given a chance to talk. Yes I feel really weird and presumptuous reaching out to a stranger like this, but I feel even more weird talking about someone behind their back without giving them a fair chance. For all we know he might come in and say it never happened, and join in requesting it be removed -- then there'd be a rock solid case.

Originally Posted by Snowflake

Are you certain this is the right Brian King? Assuming you're correct I sent him a message, I'll see if he replies, though its kinda weird getting a message from a stranger so I wouldnt be surprised if he doesnt. I do think people deserve to at least be given a chance to talk. Yes I feel really weird and presumptuous reaching out to a stranger like this, but I feel even more weird talking about someone behind their back without giving them a fair chance. For all we know he might come in and say it never happened, and join in requesting it be removed -- then there'd be a rock solid case.

Before the last ownership change, there was an article on the TG website from the local Durham, NC newspaper about an old arcade there that had some information about him that convinced me it's the same guy. I can't find it anymore and don't see that I saved it anywhere.

I would ask him whether he has any information from back then on the event like newspaper articles, etc... especially anything that mentioned what the precise score was. I would also ask if he and any problems with the machine rebooting.

Originally Posted by timhett

it would have taken almost 3 days to make 348 million.

Reportedly it was 94.5 hours:



Does anybody know what magazine that is from? If I ever knew I don't remember, and don't remember where I got it.

"Over a period of five days"

Some rest between resets, perhaps?

Originally Posted by Blastaar

Before the last ownership change, there was an article on the TG website from the local Durham, NC newspaper about an old arcade there that had some information about him that convinced me it's the same guy.

Reportedly it was 94.5 hours:

Doesn't seem like this is the guy - on his Facebook profile is this:



The article you posted said the gamer was 19 years old, but this Brian King started high school in 1989, which would have made him under 10 years old in 1983 when the record was set...I think we're looking for someone else.