EDIT 3 (30 April 2013): Awesome job! Thanks!

Original Post: As it was attempted during the TNT stream tonight, I'm curious as to how much progress has been made with the "junk.bin" code hidden in NHL Breakaway 98 that has been "never before seen." At this point I would consider it among the rarest Easter Eggs ever.

I know someone updated a snippet from a dump that hinted on Dave Lang's code but I'm not sure if anyone was able to trace back the hex to any key mappings since everyone involved (Dave Lang and Tom Carbone who even created it) doesn't remember it anymore.

EDIT 1: I messed up and forgot to make it clear that Dave Lang and Tom Carbone might each have written a slightly different version of the code so there may actually be two different codes. Not sure if they're for the same junk.bin or different parts of it, however. Thanks for bringing reminding me to make that clear, @video_game_king.

EDIT 2: Here is the dump snippet for what appears to be Dave Lang's cheat from what was said to be a dumped ROM of NHL Breakout 98 (let me know who to credit):

C-Left, C-Right, C-Down, C-Down START. Enter "jabroni" as a character name. Activate the cheat menu AFTER all this. Source

Not surprised that dude cracked it. Somebody needs to get those images up here post haste!

That almost sounds too fake to be true.

WTF Dave Lang.

Does anybody know what it does yet?

Dave Lang said he stuck in random pictures of himself drinking (amongst other pictures).`

@pazy: Oh, I must've missed when he said that. Somebody needs to break their screen-capping software out.

All we need now is some video confirmation of someone doing it!

EDIT: Images are fine too! (I mean that's all there is to the contents of junk.bin, anyway, right?)

I'll grab a video of it when I get home. (which will be in like 15 minutes btw)

EDIT: FALSE ALARM (but real code incoming soon probably) https://twitter.com/MikeJMika/status/327624041991110658

But didn't David Lang say that there are two codes (one per person)?

@video_game_king: Yes, I believe he stated there was one for him and one for Tom Carbone. Apparently the one that's not his is only slightly different.

any updates?

This is the strangest way to promote a 15 year old hockey game.

I am really interested in seeing the end result of this.

Dave Lang has out-Fezzed Phil Fish with this whole code thing.

@thetheroo: That was a joke

For anyone working on this I found this document very useful in learning about how controller state is read.

http://hcs64.com/files/n64-hw.dox

I really, really hope someone can figure this code out. What a truly bizarre Easter Egg it would be!

Dang, the mystery is still on even after almost a full day?

Finding the code is fine and dandy, but someone better post those pictures to GB when it's all said and done.

Shocked that this community, of all communities, has been unable to get to the bottom of this, over 24 hours later. Comma.

Truly. I came into this thread expecting a Youtube video and some kind of edited remix video already done... I guess this is a tough one. Props to anyone who can crack it.

We should get The Cutting Room Floor on this.

Holy shit. Nice work of even propagating this. Hopefully something gets discovered about this cheat.

Looking forward to a lang pitcher of beer picture.

I guess it's settled. The code will never, ever be found. Ever.

EVER.

Wait, if they've been able to find junk.bin so easily, why can't they just work with that and fuck about with the pictures within? Is there a long technical reason ON TOP of my idiocy?

I was thinking, Dave Lang mentioned that someone on the development team found the junk.bin file and they were having problems with memory so I would imagine that it got deleted to save space and Dave Lang remembers the code when he was developing it not on the proper release. Just my thoughts, the cheat may still be there but not the pictures.

I really want to see those pictures too.

I think he said the guy in charge of the sequel to that game called him.

@pop:

He said it was for the next game. It's still supposed to be in 98. They specifically put it in because the game didn't use enough space.

@yothatlimp@zagzagovich oh okay, I didn't hear that part, SEARCH GOES ON!

What is going on??!!!

@video_game_king said:

They haven't found the junk.bin file. You can't disassemble a rom and just get binary data files that went into it. All that someone found so far is some ASCII coded text that says "DAVES CHEATS" embedded in a pile of bits. Digging through the rom with a hex viewer, or even with an application that can translate that to machine instructions, is a hell of an undertaking.

I really hope someone out there can figure this out.

Do honestly any of us really care about the code or do we really just want to see a fresh out of college Dave Lang chugging a fat pitcher of beer? If the GB crew can procure that pic I'd be cool.

I think the code is what makes it for me. It'd be funny to see the photos, but the idea of anybody with a copy of the game being able to access that is the real appeal for me. Plus, it's kind of a weird piece of video game history that would be preserved. Not expecting anything any time soon though, reverse engineering that stuff would be a hell of a challenge.

So, has the crack team of engineers recovered the code yet?

@ravenlight: I think they forgot.
Like every other thing that seems to be popular it is now lost to the sea of.. some place where we forget, things.

Oh man, I'd love for someone to find this. I'm armed with a CompSci degree but hell naw screw assembly.

I present to you junk.bin:

I started off trying to find my way through the game's assembly, but I got lost almost instantly. I then turned to playing around with editing memory values to try to flip whatever bit caused the slideshow to run. I eventually found where the game was keeping track of the menus, and noticed that one of the values changed depending on which menu you were in. If you edit the value and select a menu on-screen, it would change to the menu corresponding with the memory value, regardless of what you select in the game. After plugging in a bunch of numbers into that address, eventually the slideshow appeared!

It's not as good as getting the code, but it can be accessed by using a gameshark with the code 8013CEBF 0038 and selecting any menu option. I did this with an emulator, so I'm not sure if it works on a N64 hardware.

@gregstorm: Shit, nicely done duder!

Nice. So the pictures have been found, but not the code to access the pictures? Well, halfway there I guess. Junk.bin still has some secrets to give up.

HUZZAH!

@gregstorm: Rad!!!!!!!

That's fantastic.
Was gonna tweet it at Mr Langzone President but Jeff has that covered it seems.

@gregstorm: Hero.

Fantastic. Someone get Lang on the phone. We need live commentary from Dave on this.

@gregstorm: Excellent work! You are the Game Shark!

@chaser324: maybe even a Game Shark Genie since what he did was also magical!