Noise as information and information as noise – Unsung

In 1982, the videogame Yars’ Revenge for the Atari 2600 needed to show a “neutral zone” in the middle of the screen. The console was so primitive – an entire great book was written about this – that it didn’t have any video memory. Any cheap effect would do, even random noise… but something as simple as generating noise was also too much for the underpowered system. So the creator of the game decided to do something that in any other situation would mean at the very least trouble, if not a downright security disaster. He crossed the wires and output on screen… the game’s own source code:

The source code looked noisy enough, and the problem was solved. (Somewhat recently, Retro Game Mechanics Explained analyzed it carefully in this YouTube video, to make sure it’s not just a myth.)

A sim…