Old man glitch
The old man glitch (not to be confused with the item duplication glitch) is an infamous glitch in Pokémon Red and Blue. It is one of the ways in which a Trainer can encounter Missingno. and 'M. Its name comes from the old man in Viridian City, who is required to complete the glitch.
Through the development of Pokémon Yellow, which occurred in the two years following the release of Pokémon Red and Green in Japan, the old man glitch was disabled by blanking the data for wild Pokémon before overwriting it, and reprogramming shore tiles to not call any wild Pokémon. However, even before Yellow, this glitch was fixed in some European versions of Red and Blue, such as the Spanish and Italian versions, by making the shore tiles act as water tiles, but still remains in other European versions, such as the German version. In the French version, the glitch is present, but the game freezes every time a Missingno. or 'M appears.
Performing the glitch
To perform the glitch, the player must talk to the old man located in the north of Viridian City and allow him to demonstrate how to catch a Pokémon. After the demonstration, the player should immediately Fly to Cinnabar Island. Here, the player should surf up and down along the east coast of the island where the water is touching the land without leaving Cinnabar Island. Wild Pokémon will appear, based on the player's name.
Effects
The wild Pokémon that appear are based on the player's name. The third, fifth and seventh slots of the players name are the species of Pokémon that will appear (see table below). The second slot of the players name becomes the level of the Pokémon caused to appear by the third slot, the fourth slot for the fifth slot, and the sixth slot for the seventh slot. In addition, 'M will always appear when using this method.
Results
This table demonstrates what Pokémon specific characters in the player's name will cause to appear, or the level of the Pokémon that they will cause to appear.[1][2] Only characters possible to include in the player's name are included. Glitch Trainers are in bold.
Cause
When the game sets up the battle between the old man and a wild Weedle, it needs to temporarily change the player's name to "OLD MAN" so that it will display that name, rather than the player's entered name, during the battle.
The programmers decided to use the space where data for wild Pokémon found in the grass is stored (which is completely blank in Viridian City, as only Surfing and Fishing data is used) to save the player's name temporarily. Normally, this would cause no abnormal activity, as this data is overwritten when the player moves to a different area.
In all cities, however, this data remains blank, and so the data is never overwritten (as there is nothing new to overwrite it with), and thus, the data that was last entered (be it the player's name or the wild Pokémon data from another area) remains in place. This itself still causes no harm; however, an oversight in the programming of the tiles used to denote the shore of Cinnabar Island marks them as equivalent to grass. As all water routes have no real grass on them, likewise, the data is not overwritten, and so whatever data is in the slots for wild Pokémon found in the grass is used, be it the player's name or wild Pokémon found elsewhere, such as the Safari Zone.
The name of the player has six hexadecimal values in it. The game needs only three "slots" of wild Pokémon data to store this.
The species of wild Pokémon the player encounters along the coast are determined by the third, fifth, and seventh characters of the player's name, while their levels are determined by the second, fourth, and sixth characters, respectively. By knowing what letters and symbols correspond to what species and levels, through the use of certain calculators and charts, it is possible to set the name of the player at the start of the game to find specific Pokémon at specific levels.
Due to the fact that Cinnabar Island has no wild Pokémon data but the potential for wild Pokémon to appear, and that wild Pokémon data is not formatted when entering a new area, any location that can be flown from can have its wild Pokémon available on the coast. This includes the Safari Zone, so players can encounter Safari Pokémon under normal battling circumstances.
Trivia
- Although less practical, players can make a trade and then surf on a coast to find the same Pokémon that they would have found otherwise via the old man glitch. This is because name data is stored in the RAM and recalled after performing a trade.
References
- ↑ MissingNo Mystery Solved? (retrieved February 18, 2010)
- ↑ Glitch City Laboratories
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This article is part of Project GlitchDex, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on glitches in the Pokémon games. |
