Infidel goes wild
Source: Hacker News ↗
A critical memory‑corruption bug has been uncovered in Infocom’s 1985 interactive fiction title Infidel, specifically in the Macintosh update (release 22, serial 840522). The flaw lies in the routine that tracks objects dropped in the game’s “ENDLESS‑DESERT” area, where the program stores latitude‑longitude coordinates and object IDs in a fixed‑size array called DESERT‑TABLE. Because of a wild‑pointer error, the routine writes data to the wrong memory locations, overwriting unrelated memory and potentially destabilising the Z‑machine interpreter; the same defect also exists in the original release (serial 830916) with slightly different address offsets.
The bug is especially pernicious because it is virtually invisible during normal play. The desert mechanic, inherited from Enchanter, treats every unmapped location as a single room, shifting dropped items into DESERT‑TABLE and retrieving them when the player returns to the same coordinates. However, the routine’s loop fails to populate the table at all, leaving it empty while objects appear to move correctly, making detection difficult without a low‑level memory debugger. The author, a C programmer, notes that such memory corruption is considered a severe fault, and that the problem originates from a compiler issue in the ZIL code that generates the Z‑machine bytecode.
Because the error resides in the core object‑management system, it could affect any playthrough that involves dropping items in the endless desert, potentially leading to unpredictable behavior or crashes on affected machines. The discovery highlights the challenges of preserving and debugging legacy interactive‑fiction engines, especially when source‑level tools are scarce. It also serves as a reminder that even well‑known classics can harbor deep technical flaws that only surface under detailed inspection, prompting renewed interest in reverse‑engineering and fixing vintage game code.
⚡ Effects Interpreter
🌍World Economylow impact
What this means for you
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🏙️Local Economylow impact
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🌍 Effects for your country
The U.S.'s central bank rate currently stands at 3.75%, so a global rates move like this could feed through to local borrowing costs. The U.S.'s economy is growing at 2.3% with inflation at 3.2%, the backdrop this story's effects play out against locally. Housing-market effects like this are usually felt most where mortgage rates track the U.S.'s own central bank rate closely. With the U.S.'s unemployment at 4.4%, personal-finance effects like this land on a labour market that is currently fairly stable. Health-system effects are harder to localise from economic indicators alone — the real impact in the U.S. depends more on local healthcare capacity than the figures above.
The UK's central bank rate currently stands at 3.75%, so a global rates move like this could feed through to local borrowing costs. The UK's economy is growing at 0.8% with inflation at 3.2%, the backdrop this story's effects play out against locally. Housing-market effects like this are usually felt most where mortgage rates track the UK's own central bank rate closely. With the UK's unemployment at 5.6%, personal-finance effects like this land on a labour market that is currently fairly stable. Health-system effects are harder to localise from economic indicators alone — the real impact in the UK depends more on local healthcare capacity than the figures above.
France's central bank rate currently stands at 2%, so a global rates move like this could feed through to local borrowing costs. France's economy is growing at 0.9% with inflation at 1.8%, the backdrop this story's effects play out against locally. Housing-market effects like this are usually felt most where mortgage rates track France's own central bank rate closely. With France's unemployment at 7.9%, personal-finance effects like this land on a labour market that is already under strain. Health-system effects are harder to localise from economic indicators alone — the real impact in France depends more on local healthcare capacity than the figures above.
Romania's central bank rate currently stands at 6.5%, so a global rates move like this could feed through to local borrowing costs. Romania's economy is growing at 0.7% with inflation at 7.8%, the backdrop this story's effects play out against locally. Housing-market effects like this are usually felt most where mortgage rates track Romania's own central bank rate closely. With Romania's unemployment at 6%, personal-finance effects like this land on a labour market that is currently fairly stable. Health-system effects are harder to localise from economic indicators alone — the real impact in Romania depends more on local healthcare capacity than the figures above.
The UAE's central bank rate currently stands at 3.65%, so a global rates move like this could feed through to local borrowing costs. The UAE's economy is growing at 3.1% with inflation at 2.5%, the backdrop this story's effects play out against locally. Housing-market effects like this are usually felt most where mortgage rates track the UAE's own central bank rate closely. Health-system effects are harder to localise from economic indicators alone — the real impact in the UAE depends more on local healthcare capacity than the figures above.