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A cyber Easter egg hunt
From the Tampa Tribune, Apr. 10, 1998 (Friday Extra)
They're not hard-boiled, colored in beautiful pastels or hidden among plastic grass in a basket.
Computer "Easter eggs," hatched from the strange minds of computer programmers, are
little bonus routines designers hide in their creations for later discovery.
Why? Well, sitting in front of a computer monitor for 14 hours without a break can bring on boredom.
We found two sites that list many of these programming quirks: the Easter Egg page at http://www.htsoft.com/easter/ and CNet's Easter Eggs for Applications at http://www.cnet.com/Content/ Features/Howto/Eggs/.
Many eggs are self-serving. For example, in Windows 95 you can find credits for the development team by doing this:
Create a new folder on the desktop and title it "and now, the moment you've all been waiting for"; then right-click and rename that folder "We proudly present for your viewing pleasure"; then rename it yet again, this time using "The Microsoft Windows 95 Product Team!"
When you open the folder, credits are displayed. Is it worth all that effort? Heck no!
In Norton Utilities for Windows 95, simultaneously press N, U and 9 and you'll get a picture of the development team.
Other eggs are the result of warped or fried brains.
Aty any time in Netscape, press CTRL-ALT-F and it'll take you to the Amazing Fish Cam!, a frequently updated picture of Netscape's fish tank.
Put "zzzz" into Microsoft Word (version 6.0 or higher) and run spell check, and the computer suggests changing "zzzz" to "sex."
In the game "Myst," the file D:/QTW/Channel/holoamth.mov is a clip of a character talking gibberish. Play it backward (do this by selecting "Loop Back and Forth" from the "Movie" pull-down menu on the Movie Player), and he says, "Rush Limbaugh understands," according to the Easter Egg Page. The egg doesn't specify what he allegedly understands.
Excel '95 has a 3-D Hall of the Tortured Souls, which you can explore using this combination: Open a blank worksheet. Click Row 95. Hit the Tab button once to move to column B. Press CTRL-ALT-SHIFT, and while holding them down, click the Tech Support button from the Help and About menu. Use the cursor keys to move around the 3-D maze.
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From the Tampa Tribune, Apr. 10, 1998 (Friday Extra)
They're not hard-boiled, colored in beautiful pastels or hidden among plastic grass in a basket.
Computer "Easter eggs," hatched from the strange minds of computer programmers, are
little bonus routines designers hide in their creations for later discovery.Why? Well, sitting in front of a computer monitor for 14 hours without a break can bring on boredom.
We found two sites that list many of these programming quirks: the Easter Egg page at http://www.htsoft.com/easter/ and CNet's Easter Eggs for Applications at http://www.cnet.com/Content/ Features/Howto/Eggs/.
Many eggs are self-serving. For example, in Windows 95 you can find credits for the development team by doing this:
Create a new folder on the desktop and title it "and now, the moment you've all been waiting for"; then right-click and rename that folder "We proudly present for your viewing pleasure"; then rename it yet again, this time using "The Microsoft Windows 95 Product Team!"
When you open the folder, credits are displayed. Is it worth all that effort? Heck no!
In Norton Utilities for Windows 95, simultaneously press N, U and 9 and you'll get a picture of the development team.
Other eggs are the result of warped or fried brains.
Aty any time in Netscape, press CTRL-ALT-F and it'll take you to the Amazing Fish Cam!, a frequently updated picture of Netscape's fish tank.
Put "zzzz" into Microsoft Word (version 6.0 or higher) and run spell check, and the computer suggests changing "zzzz" to "sex."
In the game "Myst," the file D:/QTW/Channel/holoamth.mov is a clip of a character talking gibberish. Play it backward (do this by selecting "Loop Back and Forth" from the "Movie" pull-down menu on the Movie Player), and he says, "Rush Limbaugh understands," according to the Easter Egg Page. The egg doesn't specify what he allegedly understands.
Excel '95 has a 3-D Hall of the Tortured Souls, which you can explore using this combination: Open a blank worksheet. Click Row 95. Hit the Tab button once to move to column B. Press CTRL-ALT-SHIFT, and while holding them down, click the Tech Support button from the Help and About menu. Use the cursor keys to move around the 3-D maze.