How did Ghostbusters know your bank account balance?!

[@OneHandleToHandleThemAll]

David Crane is my childhood hero. He is one of the main reasons I went with programming as hobby and later as career.

[@sweatypackage]

A Boy and his Blob was the first game I played where I saw his name. I never forgot it simply on the premise that there was no other game like it on NES, and probably the first game I spent the most time trying to complete. Little young me thought it was the same guy from M.A.S.H. at first until I actually paid attention and realized it was Bob Crane lol.

[@playnochat]

1984: In my naivety I actually considered Activion collecting my personal data and store it in their data vault. 2020: In my naivety I didn't realise Activion would collect all my personal data and store it in their data vault.

[@RetroRecipes]

Haha!

[@albertvankrieg5548]

Best comment I read today.

[@Freeknickers24]

Just slowly losing vision

[@blackhawks81H]

If by "store it in their vault" you mean "sell it to absolutely everyone, especially particularly shady companies located in places without consumer privacy or protection laws of any kind." Lol

[@llcaudio]

It WAS 1984. They were letting us know how big brother would work beforehand.

[@calanon534]

David Crane - a real professional, apologizing after decades. I hope he knows that this game was the one thing that I remember of my father, the man who got me into computers, and the one that inspired me to look further than the loading screens.

[@mikeha]

his games were the best ones made for the atari 2600. I still am waiting for a good remake of pitfall

[@cyberash3000]

@@calanon534 apologising for what? He did othing wrong

[@MuckyPup115]

@@cyberash3000 Around 3:34 Crane apologizes for the faulty batch of games that went out.

[@michael-4k4000]

@calanon534 who's david Crane? Loved the Ghostbusters game, movie, and everything else they made.

[@MikeDerucki0]

@@cyberash3000 nword

[@RetroRecipes]

7-Oct-2020 Update: Thanks for watching and for all the comments! To answer a repeated comment, yes if you played a new successful game and your balance increased, you would be given a "new" account number. If your game was not successful, you could replay as much as you wanted with the first account number. In this way it was different to a bank account, but still an incredibly cool illusion to an 11 year old me in 1984 :-)

[@noahfregger380]

Cool video! My grandfather actually worked with David Crane on that game, among others as well. His name is Brad Fregger :-)

[@RetroRecipes]

@@noahfregger380 That's amazing! What did he do?

[@noahfregger380]

Retro Recipes He actually produced the game, as well as many others. He was the world’s first (In Title) computer game producer. Activision was the first company to create that job description. He’s kind of a wealth of knowledge on the subject. He even wrote a book, Lucky That Way, which goes into great detail on all of the games he played a roll in. I let him know I saw your video 👍🏻

[@RetroRecipes]

@@noahfregger380 That's amazing. Please thank him for me. I'm doing a video soon about Pitfall. Was he involved in that? I'd love to hear his memories of it and put them in a video, however brief. Text or video works. Feel free to email me! [e-mail]

[@noahfregger380]

@@RetroRecipes he certainly did. He’s got a great story about it actually regarding an Easter Egg. I’ll get him in touch with you 👍🏻

[@yungee3921]

Three bytes! That's what impresses me the most. They stored the value and the result of a fairly complex checksum in just three bytes!

[@TheSimoc]

@@yungee3921 Yep, today's unprofessional software industry would need 3GB for that.

[@Adam_Lyskawa]

Because my OCD would kill me if I had a 1/256 chance of false positive code validation now ;) Now 1 in max-32-bit-number collision chance is a big no-no.

[@sebastiang7394]

You can make checksums of every length. That is not difficult at all. Just the more bites the less collisions and more security. You can just take any hashing algorithm and truncate as many bits you want from that.

[@myfaveyoutube]

Necessity is The Mother of Invention

[@tuvoca]

@@yungee3921 What we have now is much less concise... less efficient.

[@qaaris4280]

I like seeing how old games dealt with limitations, it really shows how game developers actually tried to squeeze as much as possible into their games.

[@ablemagawitch]

if you have every spent 6-8 hours to make 257K of code get down to 256K so it would fit, you might be a programmer

[@qaaris4280]

This was also during the days when games were finished on release, and you didn't have to buy anything to complete the story.

[@remytv]

Limitations are one of the biggest driver of innovation IMO. Unlimited resources creates a lot of waste.

[@DeathBringer769]

@@remytv "Necessity is the mother of invention," after all ;)

[@AlexiosTheSixth]

@@remytv Yeah, just look at game file sizes nowdays

[@The8BitGuy]

Neat. I need to go play it again with more money this time and see if I can finally win!

[@RetroRecipes]

Good luck! I get 10% of all profits. 😉

[@JesusisJesus]

Retro Recipes Try WADE FARRELL with code 911 It was an Easter egg put in to the game but I didn’t ever find out why.

[@RetroRecipes]

@@JesusisJesus Who is this Wade Farrell I keep hearing about?

[@JesusisJesus]

Retro Recipes I really dunno, but try it and you get a bazillion dollars to start yourself off. Maybe he was on the team with David Crane. Now that we have better access to machine language tools and more information that’s readily available, perhaps you could rip into the machine code of this game and answer your own question and make a video about it. I believe that Wade either drove or wanted a Porsche 911 either for real or in the game somehow, so knock yourself out and have a go. Then you can buy whatever you want straight up and get to the Zuul ending screen a lot quicker and easier. For the record, I changed my username from “Jesus” to SID because I’m working on a way to stuff as many SID chips into a 64 as possible, using the Gideon Elite ultimate board, twin SIDS and even a SID2SID cartridge with a twinsid board in a cartridge doubler in a cartridge doubler so I’d really like to collaborate, aka talk further with you, about how this can be done on the software end of things. Like if you could write a multi-SID (MOD style) tracker for addressable SID chips with the ability to address up 8 or 16 SIDs, I can assemble the hardware if the software existed to sequence or “MOD Tracker” all the chips because they are simply the best sound chips EVER invented and man it would be cool to have 24-48 voices of SID available all at once. Another idea I’ve had is to string them together using MIDI cartridges in multiple 64’s equipped with multiple SIDs. A decompile of Ghostbusters would also make for great content with the crunchy voice samples, and the name and account equations. Maybe get the talking hands named Robin could do a collaboration series on this game. I think the game pulled some neat tricks that are worth delving into.

[@stevethepocket]

Welp. Let's hope the Ghostbusters thought to invest in identity theft protection.

[@TechnoEsoterica]

There is more love in the eyes of that dog for you than in the rest of the world combined.

[@zelvadrian]

When it asks you on the C64 if you have an account, type "YES", then for the name type "OWEN" and then for the account number, type "LIST". It gives you enough money to buy the most expensive car and all of the equipment!

[@udengineer2002]

Another one is “GOO” with account number 77777777. This gives you more money than you can spend.

[@br1rocks]

THIS was the hack from back in the day!!!!

[@erichfischer8064]

That brings back such memories, I totally forgot that. When I saw "type OWEN" I went back to my childhood in 6th grade😊

[@KnordRW]

There was another one too, I don't remember the name (I wanna say it was "Gozer", actually), but the account number was all 1's. Gave you $1,000,000.

[@Caffin8tor]

The one I knew was to use the name "goo" and 1111111... (All 1's filling the text field) for the account number

[@emmanuelicart7773]

6 weeks to create this game is awesome, particularly considering it became a standard in the 8-bits era. I liked this game a lot and was lucky enough to have a non-faulty C64 cassette. Thanks for this video Peri!

[@davidewhite69]

I read somewhere that Bob Dinnerman made F/A-18 Interceptor in six weeks as well

[@szlash280z]

My Dad dragged me to a NAVY submarine party at a sailors house while I was a young warthog where there was an older kid that had a C64 and the Ghostbusters game. It was one of the most amazing games that I had ever seen at the time, I was somewhere between 7 and 10 years old. The digitized voice and the soundtrack are STILL ingrained in my mind to this day. What a fantastic game. I was never any good at it but I sure did play the crap out of it.

[@Daud76]

3:18 Those loading stripes seemed to go on forever! As kids, we would load a game and then go have lunch. Then come back to find game had loaded or a nasty load error message. A neighbourhood friend and I had the idea that if we did not pay attention to loading stripes, the game would load faster and without any load errors too. So we would turn our backs to the screen and do something else. 😄

[@RetroTechChris]

This showed up in my feed today... I think this is one of the first videos of yours that I watched!! Very cool explanation (love the way you explain things on the channel!) and how awesome that you were able to chat with David Crane... the legend!!

[@deano43]

There’s better security here than my current bank account. Scary times.

[@darrenforster99]

Not really that secure as there are probably numerous names that would also generate the code 2C - in a way I guess it's similar to MD5ing a password, multiple passwords can create the same MD5 code which is why you can't retrieve a password from an MD5, but it's just knowing which passwords will generate the exact MD5 code you're after (plus if any "salt" has been added to encode it further).

[@deano43]

Darren Forster , it was a joke , but thanks for telling me. I don’t have a clue what your on about though .

[@thomasbland6428]

Darren Forster I used this to unlock files on old Radio Shack systems.

[@QuantumRift]

This is how the Federal Reserve conjures up your money.

[@tangdynasty4779]

@@deano43 r/whooosh

[@MajinHercule]

OH. In the GAME. I mean, damn, that would have been insane if it was YOUR bank balance.

[@reyariass]

That was my thought too! I thought it was something similar to the AI site Jebrils made

[@cbalan777]

"You have $2.25" Damn, even this game knows I'm poor.

[@Sammy71ful]

I thought the same - it was why I clicked on the video. Still, it was a fascinating video nonetheless.

[@antbojo]

Thumbs up #200

[@brian8152]

That’s what I thought the title was about lmao

[@SirSethery]

"Ah man, my poor deranged human is talking to the wall again."

[@tangdynasty4779]

furry

[@Under_Sky_Third_Gaia]

Damn

[@elrojo31]

Wow, the memories. Some friends and I actually figured out how to generate account codes back in the day that worked some times and not others and now I see why. The account was name dependent. I guess we got lucky including the same code for one of our names as part of the number that we thought was part of how it worked. Either way, we figured out pretty quick that it was the code that determined the bank account amount and it was not some filing cabinet somewhere...

[@yoyoz333]

your dog so badly wants your attention. its adorable.

[@StevenDelRizzo]

This is the first time I'm seeing anything like this. I knew that people were collecting and using the old gaming systems. I loved Ghostbusters on the 64. I really miss playing that game, David did a great job with it. I had no idea the old systems could be modified, repurposed, integrated into modern computers, emulated.. wow, it's amazing what skills you have you two. I also, have to say Ladyfractic is gorgeous, however I arrived to this channel to see your Rasperberry Pi 400 video, thinking of getting one. Thanks for showing me what more is possible in the world of computing and retro gaming. Cheers!

[@RetroRecipes]

Thank you for your kind words! Means a lot 👍🕹️

[@brianr101010]

You have a frighteningly calm and soothing voice. You sound like you have how to paint TV show.

[@cernajosem]

I love how much ingenuity went in to programs from back in the early days, with so many limitations on hardware and software, you had to be creative and in many cases invent work arounds.

[@amirgamil]

This video is amazing! A fantastic combination of professionalism, creativity, comedy, edutainment and nostalgia! Thanks for making it! Subscribed.

[@lurkerrekrul]

I didn't know the exact method it used, but I always figured that the account number contained a name checksum and the balance. I never bothered to save my account numbers though, I always just started fresh each time. With more money, you can buy more expensive equipment, but that just means that you need to make even MORE money before the end of the game.

[@Allen-by6ci]

David Crane was insanely gifted at making games. Great episode.. I've been wondering about that algorithm my whole life!

[@jorybeatty1726]

Part of me was under the illusion that the game knew your ACTUAL account balance. Sort of like an early bank website. The other part of me knew that wouldn't be a thing at all; but the first part was really insistent.

[@roguishpaladin]

1:43 This explains something about early licensed game dev and is a point I disagree with wholeheartedly. It's certainly true that narrative and mechanics are separate, but especially in a licensed title mechanics need to support narrative at least a little - after all, the narrative links are what attracted people in the first place. This is how we got Marty McFly jumping over obstacles in a road, Uncle Fester shooting shapeless enemies with a gun, and whatever you want to call E.T. I think Crane lucked out here, in that there are enough game-like elements in the movie Ghostbusters that common mechanics like shooting and driving fit the narrative pretty well. But there are so, so many games from those days that have not a thing to do with the license.

[@bossofkings]

The KZbin algorithm keeps hiding these gems of videos behind all the other crap. Loved the video everything about it.

[@OMA2k]

@@bossofkings It doesn't. I discovered this video and channel because of the algorithm. ;)

[@myfaveyoutube]

Ever wondered how many hours of video are uploaded every MINUTE

[@mmeewezen]

What a great insight to one of my favorite C64 games, thank you, I might just try it out this weekend. I loved that you got in touch with mr Crane.

[@Daehawk]

David Crane = One of a kind. I was a member of his Pitfall Club.

[@Davivd2]

The amount of thought put into this is pretty impressive.

[@johnnymnemonic69]

I thought this video was about how the game knew your actual bank account number. Now that would be some impressive coding 😆

[@RetroRecipes]

Haha don't put anything past David Crane!

[@johnnymnemonic69]

@@RetroRecipes 😂😂 yep.

[@dmo848]

Same, it had me scratching my head for a minute

[@ltx4096]

The digital speech samples in this game was done by Electronic Speech Systems. They are the same ESS that made the AudioDrive soundcards for old DOS PCs and now make high quality DACs used in phones and headphones.

[@TheDoctormandrake]

Omg! I played this on a friends computer in austin TX in the mid 80s! I was trying to remember all the details. Thank you for posting this. ❤😊

[@CALIGS]

I'm shocked you're under 80k subs. This is easily one of the coolest gaming videos I've ever seen. Here's to you and your growth.

[@RetroRecipes]

Wow, thank you!

[@CALIGS]

@@RetroRecipes no way, thank you for the awesome content. I'll be keeping posted!

[@ganjiblobflankis6581]

I had this as a kid and entered "cac" as name and "I dont know" as an account number and was rewarded with some huge amount if cash. I dont know if this was a cheat code or a weird coincidence and I was just messing around, but it worked.

[@nicks3608]

someone needs to try it

[@crazyrocketguy4687]

@@nicks3608 I tried it on my machine. To my surprise, it actually works. You get #

[@nicks3608]

@@crazyrocketguy4687 that's awesome

[@darrenforster99]

Secret code maybe - could be "Crane ACtivision"?

[@thomasbland6428]

To get an account code that is all numeric and to further obscure the encoding, the 3 hexadecimal bytes are converted into their octal equivalent values. Because it is octal, the digit values are limited to 0 through 7. When you put other characters in, the results depend on how they coded that part of the algorithm..

[@drg5352]

I love how David Crane just grins at the "Ghostbusters! Bwahahahahaha!" intro. I do the exact same thing, all these years later. It took until last year to actually get past the @&*!ing Stay Puft Marshmallow Man at the Zuul building. Yes, I still occasionally play Ghostbusters; though these days a lack of space or a working C64 means it's via an emulator. It's one of my traditional "breaking in the new computer" games, along with Doom, Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, and Might and Magic World of Xeen.

[@elrojo31]

DRG nice. For me breaking in the new computer game is Lords Of The Realm and Defender of the Crown.

[@icelollypoppy1668]

elrojo31 Defender of the Crown ... that still springs to my mind even nowadays.

[@TheKairielise]

I had this game when I was six and I was today years old when I found out what the whole account number thing was. I never had any idea what it was talking about and never knew you could start a new game with your previous money. Probably why I never beat the game.

[@Ranstone]

Fun fact: This is how driver license numbers are made, as well as EDIPI for our military friends. Yes, if you know how to de-code it, a drivers license has (at _least)_ your DOB and SSN. It has additional information as well, but I was never privileged enough to know what that was. If you worked for law enforcement before the internet went mainstream, you'll remember this.

[@NeilCWCampbell]

@@Ranstone citizen relocation codes;)

[@Emulous79]

David Crane was way ahead of his time. Look at Pitfall II.

[@scorpius319]

Was that a good game?

[@braindamage_eclipse]

Pitfall II was one of the best games of all time, even running on a modest 2600.

[@steveanton763]

Loved that game.

[@djamesfrancis]

Waiting for that balloon to show up

[@myfaveyoutube]

In the spirit of Adventure, Pitfall 2 boggled the mind if you know how the Atari 2600 works or even just played a decent amount of the games available. Not just rinse and repeat.

[@cameralabs]

Awesome work, that was seriously hardcore!

[@gerald8573]

Alright wait a minute. So this video just got suggested and I clicked on it and now I can't believe I'm awake. The quality of this video, the calm voice, the cutest doggo on youtube, and you made thought bubbles and the information was so well visualized and explained and... Oh my god I think I just stumbled upon the worlds best ever KZbin-Channel ever!!!! I will binge-watch all of your videos, but first I head towards the subscribe button! Seriously sir, you are amazing! Tell your dog I love both of you and please never ever stop what you are doing, because it is absolutely spot on perfect!

[@RetroRecipes]

Thank you for your kind words! Means a lot 👍🕹️

[@KarlHamilton]

Welcome

[@Drarok]

Hey Gerald, how goes the binge watching? I love your positivity!

[@gerald8573]

@@Drarok Hey there Drarok, thanks :) Well, let's put it that way: I won't ever be able to screw in a screw without going "ee-o ee-o ee-o" ;) Also I have to add to my original content: Dear Retro Recipes: I didn't knew there were more than just two, so I love ALL of them! Thank you for including the whistling of Puppyfractic in newer videos, it always cracks me up and makes my day way better! Love and best wishes from Germany

[@RetroRecipes]

@@gerald8573 You are very welcome! 🐶🎵

[@LurgsHowToGuides]

And I thought it was Voodoo magic. Amazing what they crammed into such a small amount of memory, I used to love the digitised Ghostbusters voice, seemed incredible at the time

[@killessaslaire]

Also, now I can’t stop yelling “GHOSTBUSTERS!” through my closed teeth and laughing at it, so thanks for that. It’s the little things that randomly cheer you up that you gotta appreciate.

[@McFluchtfahrer]

„Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!!“ Loved watching that episode. Thank you for that. I used to play this game on my brother’s commodore, but I couldn’t figure out, how to proceed after the marshmallow man appeared. Never beat the game, but wasted hours listening to that theme song 😄 and driving though NY catching ghosts.

[@AlphasysNl]

Wasn't really that hard to complete. The Marshmallow man hopped from side to side before the Zool building, so after going there, you had to sneak your team past the Marshmallow man into the building. Every man stomped on would be incapacitated. If you had enough people on the inside, you'd meet Zool after climbing the tower, killing ghosts along the way. Kill him by crossing enough streams. End of game round, PKE back down, next round of ghostbusting!

[@McFluchtfahrer]

Alphasys well then, I guess I have to get back to ghostbusting, soon 😄

[@jonkirk2118]

This was brilliant. We still have the game sitting on a shelf full of C64 games along with a C64 and C128D. Our Ghostbusters is the one released in Ocean's 'They Sold a Million #3' pack. All tapes stored vertically, of course.

[@doctorskodtsjunkdrawer5970]

Fun video! Here's a couple of things for you, @Retro Recipes : Ghostbusters is available for Atari 2600. It's not quite as good as the Commodore version, of course, but it's still fun. Since you now have a working 2600, I thought I would throw that tidbit at you in case you were unaware. (There are a few really good Atari 2600 titles that are not too common that you may wish to check out too: Pengo, Fantastic Voyage, Falldown (an Atari Age home brew cart), Juno First (also Atari Age home brew), Tron Deadly Discs, Fast Food, Gremlins, Jr. Pac Man, Laser Gates, Mr Do!, Seaquest (common but really fun, my all-time fave), Space Rocks (another Atari Age home brew cart). Spider-man, Star Trek, Wizard of Wor (there is an original 2600 game from the 80s and an Atari Age home brew that is far superior). I would suggest reading the instructions, of course,. Off to eBay and Atari Age you go!

[@davidjames579]

Watching Puppy Fractic whistle the Ghostbusters theme put me into a laughing fit! Thank you for giving me something to cheer me up anytime I feel low.

[@blueroomslots6639]

Honestly, you could just loop the dog with the whistle and make a fortune.

[@davidjames579]

It's so cute.

[@myfaveyoutube]

Steady on

[@westbrook2e2]

This is amazing! Loved playing that game and just hearing the sounds brings back so many great memories. Wish I still had the C64 and all these games.

[@8_Bit]

I love the Ghostbusters game, but I really wish that "Car Wars" game actually happened back then. I've been obsessed with car battling games and have a huge collection of them (easily 100 games, I need to re-count) and Crane's story about how Car Wars became Ghostbusters always blows my mind.

[@RetroRecipes]

Yeah. He told me that sadly nothing remains of it. It was all left with the publisher then lost or destroyed.

[@davidkroeker1821]

I assume your collection must include DeathTrack from 1989 by Dynamix? I played that one on PC back around 1990 a fair bit. Lots of fun! "Car Wars" immediately made me think of DeathTrack.

[@8_Bit]

@@davidkroeker1821 Yes, definitely, DeathTrack is probably the most famous MS-DOS exclusive car battling game made. I've got a boxed copy :)

[@aternialaffsalot]

What a fascinating little video. Played the heck out of this game in my youth; this took me back as well as learning something along the way.

[@Odog78]

I am 4 years late, but the algorithm finally caught up. The Guru Meditation is complete....

[@hualni]

I has this on my Apple II growing up. I used my name, and my home phone number and added another number on the end. I actually got it to work. I ended up with some obscene amount of money. I felt like a hacker when I pulled it off, never knowing what I was actually doing.

[@claviousmusic]

This is a hands down all around good video...very informative...the structure of it was excellent..entertaining and I love the dog so much. RARELY do I comment on a youtube video..and rarely do I subscribe to channels but I often visit this video because it reminded me of excellent times and it was just great man! Make me happy!

[@RetroRecipes]

Thank you for your kind words! Means a lot 👍🕹️

[@temparalflux914]

You have got to have the calmest most soft voice on all of KZbin, plus your Dog is so cute, love how she keeps tapping your arm. YT randomly threw this video my way (did play this game a little bit when i was a boy so nice to be reminded of it), Ive hit the Like and Subscribe to see you and your doggo more in the future :)

[@RetroRecipes]

Thank you for your kind words! Means a lot 👍🕹️

[@MrSmuggler28]

Loved that game! And the speech!!! Truly a glimpse of the future to come!

[@alextirrellRI]

I don't know why taking the whistle from Puppy Fractic is so funny, but I cracked up both times.

[@RetroRecipes]

:-D

[@purplefuku]

This is so awesome! I’m personally partial to the Master System version & still play it regularly to this day! Truly (no joke!) one of my favourites of all time. Thanks for solving one of those age old mysteries for me.

[@RetroRecipes]

You're welcome! It's my favourite game of all time! 👍🕹️

[@oprime]

I still own my Master System version as well! :)

[@rossdtool]

I got a dodgy tape version of it also, and I'm in Australia. We got our disk drive before we got a working tape version so it was the first game I had on a disk.

[@peteasmr2952]

I love the clever approach using the checksum and converting around hex and binary. Its a fun way to make your own ciphers.

[@CharliePreston]

I had exactly the same experience when I got the game for Christmas - spent far too much of the day trying to get the thing to load...somehow thinking it was going to work. This was on the Spectrum 48k however. After Christmas my dad took the game back and we got two Ghost Busters posters as a sorry 🙂

[@RetroRecipes]

Wow! Welcome to the club!

[@cosmotraumatika7474]

Awesome pup. Looks like a Black Mouth Cur! Our BMC is constantly pawing too. Thanks for the great videos!

[@RetroRecipes]

Thanks! She's a Great Pyrenees German Shepherd mix 😊

[@RetroRespawn]

Great video. It's like magic, what David Crane could do with simple code. Love your co-host too.

[@pkf4124]

The hours i spent playing this in the 80's brought back memories. still got the game in my collection.

[@Durrpadil]

dogs make me laugh... they can't go 5 seconds without attention 😂

[@cosmicrider5898]

Which is why he uses the dog as a prop to get views...

[@davidewhite69]

one of my golden retrievers cant go 5 seconds without attention either

[@gorillaau]

Don't work with animals on camera as they steal the scene.. what was the computer game called again?

[@00Skyfox]

And they deserve it!🐶❤️

[@Durrpadil]

@@00Skyfox They really are a blessing :3

[@gonnahavemesomefun]

Unbelievable! I wish I had paid more attention to stuff and games I played with when I was a kid. I didn't have the patience to play games long enough. Seeing this stuff as a 50 year old I appreciate it more.

[@myztklk3v]

I had the sega master system port of this game, I was too young to figure out what to do before the timer runs out, but i remember the game fondly.

[@ADJStreams]

This explains why when I contacted a C64 magazine back in the day asking for a tip for money in this game, the tip they gave was to enter a shortened version of my actual name. Which I thought was amazing coincidence, but had forgotten until I saw this come up in my youtube recommendations.

[@sysop073]

This sounds so impressive until you finally find out that the game gives you a long number you have to type back in to recover your balance, and the number changes as your balance does. Then it becomes really obvious.

[@glasswalker22]

That dog with the whistle is my new spirit animal.

[@soski7200]

“If you suffer from crippling debt, who you gonna call?” “DEBTBUSTERS!”

[@kristianTV1974]

His (earlier?) title Little Computer People did a similar sort of trick, each copy had a different seed number (cant recall the exact implementation) that gave your LCP character a different 'personality'. If your character died you sent off the disk and got a newer character with different traits. Also the original pitfall games did some crazy algorithmic stuff to compress all the level data down. David Crane is possibly the original rock star games programmer.

[@dreamcastfan]

That probably explains why I was never able to get my account code to work, I must have typed a different name at the start! I only ever came close to beating the game once and that was by accident. I just left it running and when I came back I was able to enter the Zuul building even though I’d not been catching ghosts or doing anything. I always enjoyed playing Invade-a-load while waiting for the game to finish loading too!

[@merman1974]

Great video, and a fascinating glimpse into the code. Ghostbusters on the C64 is one of the first games I ever played, and it’s brilliant. Built up my account to over $100,000 by playing multiple times and ultimately won the game.

[@f123raptor]

“Ghostbusters! Ahhhahahaha!” Sounds like Tom Hanks I always thought.

[@allanhazle-VideoGuy]

it totally does

[@1981patx]

Love your creative take on Retro-Topics to questions I asked myself as a kid too...now I can rest well again ^^

[@nssimpson]

So each time you earn more cash you have to write down a new "account number"? Personally I think they should have said the number is your password because changing that makes more sense.

[@x35gaming]

"password" savegames were actually quite common back then

[@markdillon5494]

Another stellar video sir. I remember reading about the Ghostbusters balance algorithm in Zzap64 all those years ago. Loved that game.

[@AG-sd9ik]

Best narrating voice ever

[@forrestp33]

I think your channel and each fractic is just adorable. Every episode is so much fun!

[@RetroRecipes]

Thank you for your kind words! Means a lot 👍🕹️

[@SynthMusicWorld]

Ah, back in the days where you loaded a game via cassette. Or saved it. And it wasn't super reliable, so you'd never know if your save worked or not.

[@app0the]

So they came up with a way to make you save your game on a piece of paper. Worked every time! :D

[@kyrkbymannen]

Loved this episode.. Remember playing this with my friend for hours and hours. Thanks for taking me back into time for a while. 🎉

[@padistedor]

I was able to meet David Crane and get a picture with him last year. He is very nice to everyone.

[@burtbackattack]

I had this game for the Spectrum and then later for the Sega Master System. One of my favourite childhood games from my favourite movie. Awesome.

[@fnjesusfreak]

The Apple ][ (which doesn't even *have* dedicated sound hardware and the speaker has to be directly manipulated by the CPU) has the "Ghostbusters! Ahahahaha" sample too. The karaoke's there too but it inverts the text instead of doing a bouncing ball.

[@logiciananimal]

There was a program for the IIs with cassette drive called _Megamusic_ that allowed digitization via this interface. Amazing stuff, as is the playback (which works on most IIs). I wonder if this program was used?

[@kenkrugger]

Oh the hours of fun I had playing this game. The best opening for a video game ever. Thanks for making these videos! I have such a happy memory of my time with the Commodore 64.

[@PaulinesPastimes]

I can now go out to the supermarket feeling happy after watching you and Puppy sharing love. I wish 'Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego' was that clever. I wouldn't have to keep track of the .dat file with my preferences every time I either use or build a different computer. Yes, I still play it from time to time. A game for 8 year olds, what am I doing with my life? 😂

[@RetroRecipes]

Nothing wrong with living life young! 👍🕹️

[@marktaylor9509]

I am glad i am not the only one! Keep doing what brings you joy!

[@PaulinesPastimes]

@@marktaylor9509 Doing my best 🙂

[@TralfazConstruction]

This is utterly fascinating and endearing. It all alludes to what I've grown to perceive as simpler, better times.

[@darthnagus5457]

Feeling the presents at Christmas; if its soft and malleable then its clothing......nooooooooo

[@GotMoreCakes]

Both soft and hard = socks with a bar of dairy milk.

[@krashd]

If it starts soft and becomes harder the closer you get to Xmas then it's a hamster.

[@carpii]

if its fairly light and crackles, its a selection box

[@Podbod]

This was my favourite game as a kid and a big reason why I wanted to be a games coder. I've now worked at rocksteady for 13 years. Thanks ghostbusters and David Crane!!

[@gunnergunter9425]

If that's true you must have worked on Batman Arkham City. I beat that game over a dozen times so seriously, thank you!

[@ringbling420]

It's not really your account number so much as it is a hash that would change at the end of each playthrough. You wouldn't get the same number back beating it with a different amount saved.

[@LordSandwichII]

that's what I was thinking. There are a few old Flash games that do the same thing. Paper Minecraft for Scratch also uses this system.

[@cstatic01123]

9 minutes of video content replaced by this guy's 15 second comment.

[@Mirandorl]

I've waited 35 years for this. Awesome!

[@Trusteft]

I barely touched this game as it wasn't released, on the Atari ST. A friend of mine had it on his 6128, but we only played it once in a year or so as he didn't like it or something, I don't remember. For me it was a great thing to not only play as the Ghostbusters but have this open ended kind of open world with some business management in there, etc. I wish someone would make a new Ghostbusters game which is open world, has GTA V and more, quality of a city in it, strategy elements (business), etc.

[@snetmotnosrorb3946]

That would be freakin' awesome!

[@Fender178]

To me the account number system that the Ghostbusters game had reminds me of the classic Password system that alot of 8bit NES and 16 Bit SNES games had in those days. Each of the Password characters represented what items and gear and money you had stored in each byte. Also the account number generator reminds me of the character creator that some one made for Sierra-Online's Quest for Glory you enter your name and your stats etc and bam it created a character ready to use in the game. Also very interesting that a PC game like this had a password save system. Also it reminds me of a Password generator where you pick what items you want to start with and it generates a password based off of that. Simon's Quest comes to mind as an example of this.

[@UKGareth316]

Wow im glad it was resucted the ghostbusters account system. Weird thing was I found an good account by putting in my real name and the account number 11111111.

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

David always was really clever at squeezing data into small areas (he had to: He started on the Atari 2600 that had only 128 bytes of RAM and 2k-4k of ROM). His method for storing 256 screens for Pitfall! on the 2600 is equally clever: Using a reversible polynomial generator and have each byte represent every possible layout a screen can have: trees/no trees, pit/no pit, treasure/no treasure, etc based on which bits were set and unset.

[@suucat]

Dogo should be your co host every time.

[@alextirrellRI]

Pretty much is...

[@Comakino]

Not Lady Fractic? :(

[@VaudacityNetwork]

Great video! That entire program was ahead of its time and innovative. I played it on the Sega Master System and had NO IDEA it was Activision 3rd Party.

[@vpupkoff]

I usually hate dogs. I'm a cat person. But man, this dog is so adorable = )

[@daylightanimation]

​@A W some are, some aren't

[@davedogge2280]

Ray Parker Jr. on Ghostbusters title screen: "Who you gonna call ?". Huey Lewis And The News: "Your lawyers !".

[@theannoyedmrfloyd3998]

And Huey Lewis lost the case.

[@davedogge2280]

@@theannoyedmrfloyd3998 The case said: "It's hip to be square".

[@anakondase]

@@theannoyedmrfloyd3998 No he didn't. They settled and he got a nice sum for it. Then there's been some twists and turns afterwards as well and the story may not have ended even to this day.