– How is it that the first Mario Bros. game was about 32kb, but a JPEG of the game is over 300kbs in 2023?

Question

I’ve seen the meme/info-graphic that the original file for Mario Bros. was approx. 32kb, but a picture file would be 10x more.

I’ve googled it and looked, but it seems to have some nebulous answers. Could someone please ELI5?

In: 26

Answer 1

Imagine you build an app with a single line

Calculate 1/9

It’s 0.1111111….

Now try to save this neverending number on a disk.