"How I Found A 55 Year Old Bug In The First Lunar Lander Game" by Martin C. Martin (martincmartin.com)
from paul0207@lemmy.sdf.org to astronomy@mander.xyz on 16 Jun 2024 16:00
https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/18298948

cross-posted from: lemmy.sdf.org/post/18298626

“I recently explored the optimal fuel burn schedule to land as gently as possible and with maximum remaining fuel. Surprisingly, the theoretical best strategy didn’t work. The game falsely thinks the lander doesn’t touch down on the surface when in fact it does. Digging in, I was amazed by the sophisticated physics and numerical computing in the game. Eventually I found a bug: a missing “divide by two” that had seemingly gone unnoticed for nearly 55 years.”

#astronomy