Peanut

Very Comfy down here?

The precision with which Super Mario Bros. calculates its acceleration on every frame is measured in subsubsubpixels, or 1/4096th of a pixel. Here is a series of images visualizing how small subsubsubpixels actually are.

Top: a view of Small Mario's face, with the grid subdividing the image into subpixels. A subpixel-sized mole was added to his nose.

Middle: zooming into the mole, with the grid subdividing the image into subsubpixels. A red subsubpixel-sized spot was added to the mole.

Bottom: zooming in on the red spot with the grid subdividing the image into subsubsubpixels. The yellow square is the size of a subsubsubpixel.

This is the precision to which the acceleration formulae in the game's code operate (though not to which Mario's position is stored; that is merely in subpixels).

Source: Jdaster64

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Previously, I have posted about how in the prototype version of Mario Artist: Paint Studio for the Japan-only Nintendo 64DD add-on, crashing the game shows a bizarre "You've been DINGLED..." screen with a British school crossing patrol officer, colloquially known as a "lollipop man" (included since the game being mainly developed by Software Creations, a British studio).

Interestingly, this is barely visible in the game itself as the actual "You've been DINGLED..." screen appears for only 2/3 of a second before being replaced with the crash debug information. As such, it appears that even during the prototype phase this was intended to be a sudden moment of surprise that requires viewing it multiple times to fully process the image, and was likely inserted as a prank between the British programmers.

Top: how the crash appears in-game. Bottom: the "You've been DINGLED..." screen, isolated.

Source: Yakumono, Upwader

A video recorded at Nintendo Japan during the creation of Super Mario Bros. shows an early version of Super Mario's idle sprite, which has some differences such as a different color scheme and suspenders.

However, the most noticeable difference is the change to his eye, which despite being only a single pixel, makes his eyes look unnaturally large. No classic Mario sprite would go on to make Mario's pupils 2x2 pixel squares, instead opting for 1x2 pixel rectangles, 1x1 pixel dots, or the finished sprite's L-shape instead.

Source: KrispyBaf