So basically, the smoking guns are the TV being tilted the wrong way (oops!) and certain frames of video, especially in the transitions between levels, appearing as only MAME would output them, not real hardware (because MAME is framebuffer based, rather than actually simulating the electron beam, which produces some differences in timing). There's also evidence of v-sync tearing, which could only happen in MAME. Fascinating!
King of Kong focused on Billy as the bad guy and Steve as the protagonist. Of course a Wikipedia check shows that all the top scores were taken by new blood to the field and neither Steve nor Billy are in the mix anymore. Kind of reminds me of Tetris, there was the old generation putzing around some imaginary glass ceiling and suddenly after the game received some spotlight the existing records were swept away by young blood
The sad thing is he probably didn't need to cheat but he did. And of course he has only doubled and tripled down on this. It is the same thing that happens a lot in some e-sports. People who are really competitive and able to perform at the top of their game end up using hacks as a crutch, if only to give themselves a mental break. Multiple competitive streamers have been caught on stream accidently alt-tabbing in to their hacks and then have the gall to double down much like Billy Mitchell and say that they weren't and it was just there for some reason and they weren't using it.<p>Like the unwillingness to admit it is where it gets sad. In Billy's case the lawsuits are where it gets <i>gross</i>. The dangers of wrapping your entire identity around one thing I guess. I don't think anyone even cares about Billy Mitchell and his donkey kong score at this point outside of the continued circus. But I guess for him it is actually the only way to keep himself relevant.
This is an incredible technical writeup. Not an EE, but the logic seemed convincing and was quite easy to follow for someone with only a limited understanding of low level computer systems.
Some intelligence agency should hire whoever did this writeup to conduct similarly detailed technical analysis and write reports on things of greater importance than donkey Kong.
It's amazing that any hobby, however trivial, when interrogated and pursued to its deepest extremity, contains a microcosm of the human condition.