Oups, I misremembered: the game is called Core War. In it, MARS (“Memory Array Redcode Simulator”) is the name of a virtual machine that executes Redcode instructions. As a player, you write small programs (“warriors”) to be loaded on the virtual machine where they try to prevail while klling off (overwriting) opponent programs.
Isn’t that the norm? Like the old joke about hell seeming to be an all-out vacation, and then it turns out that was just the marketing brochure?
I very recently landed a sweet-sounding well-paying job at a large international consulting house. Turns out, on the inside it’s all gaffer tape and leaky abstractions. Not some of it, all of it. After having spent a few months sussing out the scope of the issues I determined that yes, this is unfixable by any one new hire, so I’ve done some interviews and will be starting a new position elsewhere presently.