Render distance is deleted once you go right and it would make the game preform at a better speed and therefore, there was no need to keep it anymore.
Imagine making a program that didn't recall about 75% of its previous information. Your program will run very quickly. However, it doesn't mean whatever was on the left was gone forever because enemies are still able to come your way from the left side. Go to an underwater level and this will give a perfect example of enemies coming from your left side even though you're passed the left side of the screen. So I'm sure there was some technicality of RAM used there.
RAM in the 80s was quite a bit different than modern technology. If you look at the specs of the first Mac computer, you'd probably laugh.
It's just a matter of bits you use for your electronics. The more bits, the more data you can store without causing an overflow or a memory leak. Think of things in binary. If you have a four bit counter, it is impossible to have a number like 16 and instead, it would display that binary number as a negative number within the range of 4 bits.
Because they didn't program the game that way. Could they have programmed the game differently?
Sure. You can probably find other games that are similar side-scrollers that allow such movement on the NES and similar platforms, but the default of the time? One-way advance.
Majority of players are right handed, the most familiar pattern of visual recognition among modern Western Civilization readers is left to right.
It was problalby only in Super Mario Bros. You can't go back once you go right.
I am asking from a programmers point of view, I know that the tech couldn't support it, but why? The data was still on the card, even if it dumped it out of ram, why couldn't it just read it back?
sorry if this is a Noob question, I understand allot about modern day tech, but the way the older stuff worked is still an enigma to me.
