Mythbusters: Wing Commander I Edition

You've probably heard of the famous 'thank you for playing Wing Commander' story. It claims that a programmer on the original Wing Commander was stuck getting an error message when the game unloaded its memory during a quit. Pressed for time, instead of fixing the issue he simply hex edited the memory manager's error reporting to print 'thank you for playing Wing Commander' instead. A funny and relatable story!

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Wing Commander I fans, meanwhile, have been understandably cautious about the anecdote and particularly the included screenshot. For one thing, Wing Commander I's default install direction isn't c:/wc1 and the game doesn't actually print "Thank You for Playing Wing Commander!" when you quit. Is the story even real?