Does it really matter though?

Seems like the lost revenue would just be made up through borrowing / deficit spending. Worried this is another whiff of a move. Its not like I have a better solution; and I wish the states doing this the best of luck in addressing their finding issues, but I don't expect this to move the needle significantly.

Appreciate the support. I'll probably plink at it some more tonight. If I figure it out, I'll def be back to make sure the next guy doesn't get lost where I did.

Nope. I'm on Windows which has the file marked as "in use by Retroarch".

The part that has me baffled is where the new save file is coming from. That says to me that save state must be written somewhere else (my instinct says the ROM file itself, but someone else was saying that's patently wrong).

Fwiw, I've also tried playing with the save states (made backup copies first). If you hard exit, it saves off a copy of the current game state ("auto" slot), then attempts to open that up when I boot up the game. My current working theory is that the save file is regenerated from the save states when I try to load into a save state.

Any experiences that agree/disagree with what I'm seeing?

I was thinking like a bear. Big, menacing, kings of the forest. And then they go nap like half the year.

Sounds like the life.

So deleted the corresponding save file....but it just regenerates when i boot up the game. Its the same file I just deleted (even ran some hashes on it).

Right. I've only played till soul silver of the "real' games and I'm pretty sure Soul Silver is the only one that has that "feature"

Its not something the hacker built in. Apparently the instructions were included in the paper booklet that came with the game. Just pulled up a soft copy and the instructions are on page 10.

Pokemon should always allow you to overwrite existing save data. It just asks you to confirm you're sure before you overwrite.

It looks like for a little bit in the Nintendo DS era, they were looking to make that erasure more difficult (I'm not going to postulate as to why). For HG/SS you had to return to title screen and hold up + SELECT + B and that would take you to a hidden menu for deleting save data. (Forum board explaining the steps, as proof)

Obv this won't work in my case since I can't return to game once I hit the title screen.

Also, the save data isn't baked into the ROM. Save files and save states are stored as separate files from the rom itself.

I was not aware of this. Thanks for pointing me in a direction!

I need this in green text format

Yes, this, 1000x this.

God the only thing it needs is multi threading (I acknowledge it's an incredibly difficult thing to implement). But probably the oldest game I still regularly play. I've put at least 8000 almost 6000 hours into it since I first bought on 2016.

New DLC was just announced last month too.

Ninja edit: Just double checked and apparently I'm just short of 6000 hours into the game. Still, incredibly good.

The cat is just good at covert operations.

As a former customer, I can't help but wonder what their catch is.

Article postulates that we're under-reporting, in case anyone doesn't want to read the article.

I just don't think you're applying yourself mate

So you can indicate zero on your left hand by not touching your thumb to your hand at all.

Then you indicate 1 by touching your left thumb to the first section of your left index finger. You count along the sections of your fingers until you reach the end of that finger (should be 3), then moving to the next finger, with the first section of your middle finger being 4. Moving in this way, when you reach the the last section of pinky, you should be at 12.

Then you lift your thumb off your left hand completely as you touch your right thumb to the first section of your right index finger. You have indicated 0 on your left hand and 1 on your right. This is the equivalent to 13.

Continuing this way, you can indicate the multiples of 13 (13, 26, 39, etc) as the sections on your right hand (with 0 indicated on the left hand). When you reach the last section on your pinky with your right hand, you have counted to 156. (And then you can count an additional 12, but that seems to be something we're clear on).

I'm actually unclear how you'd get multiples of 12 out of this? Do you skip a section of a finger? Or, like, as you touch the last section of your first pinky, is that when you touch the first section of your other index finger? That latter option feel redundant, and so I'm not clear why that approach would be advantageous?

Edit: trying clarify by indicating left and right hand (as I count with this method) instead of 'first" and "other" hand (to be more general to how others might do this).

Better just round it to 3 so I can use the π symbol and save space.

And engineering is how you use it in the real world

There's probably a nice graphic online, but I'm too lazy to find it. Lol, so instead I'll try to type out an explanation (apologies if it feels somewhat mansplainy)

So you seem to get how to count to 12 on one hand. Once you reach twelve, your next digit would be 13 (0 on one hand, 1 on the other). Then you count up again in the first hand to twelve (for 13-25), then go to the position of two on the other hand (and zero on the first) for 26.

Continuing in this way, you'd max out the other hand at 156 (12 x 13 = 156, with the other hand pointing at the 12 position). From there, you can count out another 12 on the first hand getting you to 156 + 12 = 168 total (leaving you one short of 169 = 13 x 13, as is typical of these kind of digit counting problems).

Edit: just did it in my own fingers as a proof and yeah, you can get to 168. Not in a good place to take a video or whatever to post, but would if I could.

I've always has difficulty with it, largely since I only learned my times tables to 12 as a kid (American education, amirite?). I so rarely count in my fingers beyond 10 that it hasn't been useful to memorize that next set.

Using your modified Babylonian system, I think you can actually make it to 168.

Using one hand for lower digit and other for higher digit, you can effectively count in base 13 on the higher digit hand to 158 (13 x 12). But you can then count an additional 12 on the lower digit hand leaving you with 158 + 12 => 168.