Glitch

A glitch is a short-lived fault in a system. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, as well as among players of video games, and circuit bending...although it is applied to all types of systems including human organizations. From the German glitschen, meaning 'to slip.'

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In electronics, a glitch is an electrical pulse of short duration that is usually the result of a fault or design error, particularly in a digital circuit. For example, many electronic components such as flip-flops are triggered by a pulse that must not be shorter than a specified minimum duration, otherwise the component may malfunction. A pulse shorter than the specified minimum is called a glitch. A related concept is the runt pulse, a pulse whose amplitude is smaller than the minimum level specified for correct operation, and a spike, a short pulse similar to glitch but often caused by ringing or crosstalk.

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In video games, a glitch is a term used by players to indicate a bug or programming error of some sort. It may refer to either a helpful or harmful error, but never an intended behavior. A programming error that makes the game freeze is often referred to as a glitch, as is an error that, for example, gives the player 100 lives automatically. The occurrence of some glitches can be replicated deliberately by doing certain tasks in a certain order. For example, the Missingno., 'M, and Glitch City glitches in the Pok?mon series follow this principle.

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The practise of exploiting glitches in video games is known as "glitching." For example, in an online game someone may use an error in the map to get an advantage. This is sometimes considered cheating, but sometimes just considered part of the game. It is often against a games TOS (Terms of Service) and will be punished if discovered.

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Sometimes glitches will be mistaken for hidden features. In the arcade version of Mortal Kombat, a rare glitch occassionally caused two characters to be mixed together. Most often, these were ninja characters, resulting in a semi-red ninja character with the name "ERMAC" (short for "error macro"). Upon discovering this, many players believed they had uncovered a secret character, when in fact they had only uncovered a programming bug. Due to the rumors surrounding the glitch, Midway did eventually include a red ninja character named Ermac as an official character in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and he has subsequently appeared in other Mortal Kombat games, becoming an instant fan favorite.

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Glitch is also a term for a genre of electronic music.

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Computing: Originally, the word computing was synonymous with counting and calculating, and a science that deals with the original sense of computing mathematical calculations....

Electronics: The field of electronics is the study and use of systems that operate by controlling the flow of electrons or other electrically charged particles in devices such as thermionic valves and semiconductors. The design and construction of electronic circuits to solve practical problems is part of the fi...

Video game: A video game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. The word video in video game traditionally referred to a raster display device. However, with the popular use of the term "video game", it now implies any type of display...