From the IRC log in question (yes, I save IRC logs), quoting myself, testing an actual Metroid cart on an actual NES (i.e. not PowerPak, not AVS, etc.) (and thanks for giving a date, rainwarrior, that helped immensely):
Quote:
[14:43] > so actual cartridge behaviour is consistent, with power-cycles between each attempt: black screen, console effectively locks up. i also tried on the last attempt hitting reset (which brought me back to the intro) and re-entering the same password, same result as between power-cycles.
The whole log does have rainwarrior, myself, Ulfalizer, and some other folks going over it. It happens with "invalid" or "bogus" passwords (i.e. passwords which are accepted because syntactically or whatever they're permitted, but they trigger bugs as a result). At least in the case of ENGAGE RIDLEY M0THER FUCKER, an MMC1 PRG switch happens (
sta $8000) and the PRG bank it swaps in happens to be "wrong", so the next PC instruction that runs after (or shortly after) the
sta $8000 ends up being an invalid opcode (specifically opcode $02, a.k.a.
kil). There are others like the one Dwedit provided, as well as BBBBBB BBBBBB / BBBBBB IIIIII, and I'm sure several more. I don't know what makes people think that these types of passwords are completely flawless/fail-safe?
On the PowerPak, rainwarrior saw behaviour where ENGAGE RIDLEY M0THER FUCKER would result in you being kicked back to the title screen, but in one case he got a black screen for a short period of time, and *then* got kicked back to the title screen:
Quote:
[14:18] <rainwar> anyhow, inconsistent
[14:18] <rainwar> first time, black for a few seconds then title
[14:18] <rainwar> second time hang on black
[14:19] <rainwar> third time hang on black
The general theory about the behaviour differing in emulators and PowerPak is that whatever's triggering the problem may relate to RAM or ZP variables having different contents vs. an actual cart. This is par for the course/understandable, not too exciting.
The original claim was the following (and it's completely invalid -- there is no "sub-frame timing" or anything else we can't figure out going on):
Quote:
[14:18] <Buddybenj> Well like I said this either relies on sub-fram timing or very low level hardware quirks, so it would be nice if someone could test on a real cartridge at least three times
It's like one of those old wives tales that is completely unfounded, yet it continues to proliferate through social means, commonly by people who don't have any idea what they're talking about, and it'll continue to proliferate until the end of time. The "nude Samus" rumour I'd put in the same category too -- and the debunk is still my most popular YT video, which says something (to me) about the state of people and their "secret NES game rumours/tricks".
Note: the "O" in MOTHER is actually a zero, not a capital-oh. Though I'd mention that.