An Atari poem for you

[Ian Primus]

I came up with this while playing the arcade version of Pac-Man on my MAME machine.

 

There was a programmer for Atari.

He wrote Pac-Man (he said he was sorry)

He wrote it in 4k, but it had to be smaller,

but when trimmed to 2k, it makes us all holler.

 

So, what do you think?

 

Ian Primus

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[Jun Kazama]

thats cute. i like pacman though its influenced the ravers of today

[The Night Phantom]

Stanza in four lines

Ten or more syllables each

Guess it's not haiku

[Ian Primus]

quote:

---

Stanza in four lines

Ten or more syllables each

Guess it's not haiku

---

 

poetic license?

Actually, that's the reason I didn't put it in the haiku one.

 

Ian Primus

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[The Night Phantom]

Upon first reading I thought it was going to be a limerick! But of course it didn't quite fit that form either, plus it didn't have anything naughty to say about Ms. Pac-Man.

 

One interesting thing about the form you chose is the criss-crossing rhyme in lines 3 and 4. Perhaps you could add line 5:

Now how much would you pay? Not even a dollar!

 

As a haiku, it might go something like this:

Pac-Man

in 4K

Suddenly, ROM cut in half

Masses cry in pain

[moycon]

Haha Great one Night Phantom!!

I like it alot.

[slapdash]

But that's not accurate... The game was never cut from 4K to 2K!

 

Tod wrote it in 4K, period. Later he asked to be allowed to bump it up to 8K and rewrite the kernel, but they wouldn't let him. Different thing altogether.

[moycon]

Well it may not be accurate...But dog-gone it...I still like the darn thing.

[Ian Primus]

Sorry about the innacuracy, but I had read that the game was originally written in 4k and was good, but because the ROM would be more expensive, he was told to make it smaller, which was done grudgingly, and it ennded up as the rather lousy version it is now.

 

Ian Primus

[email protected]

[The Night Phantom]

Thanks, Moycon!

 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Russ Perry Jr:

But that's not accurate... The game was never cut from 4K to 2K!

 

Tod wrote it in 4K, period. Later he asked to be allowed to bump it up to 8K and rewrite the kernel, but they wouldn't let him.

---

 

Poetic license is no excuse for an incorrect haiku; so, let's try this again:

Pac-Man

in 4K

Should have been 8; brass: “No way”

Masses cry in pain

 

In case you were wondering: yes, the last line was inspired by Obi-Wan Kenobi.

[slapdash]

Didn't someone else say haiku don't/shouldn't rhyme? Very nice!

 

BTW, Sark, I hope I didn't sound too critical -- I'm just trying to get the facts right, and that wasn't meant to be a knock on your poeting skills, which are just fine. :-)