What were you doing 26 years ago, on November 13th 1982? I was waiting to be born, personally, but a fifteen-year-old named Scott Safran was slotting a quarter into an ‘Asteroids’ machine. Three days later, Scott staggered away from the machine, having set a high score of 41,336,440.

That was 26 years ago, and the record’s still intact. It’s officially the longest held high score in history. Only one person’s made a serious attempt to break it – Bill Carlton, who hammered away at an elderly machine in 2004, and made it to 15 million points before it broke down. He stands 15th in the global league table.

Where’s Scott today? Sadly, he died in 1989 aged just 22, after he fell off the roof of his LA apartment trying to rescue his cat. His high score lives on.

(via Wired)

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