The 5 most epic computer Easter eggs

David M Williams
Monday, 13 April 2009 19:53

Business IT - Technology

The Amiga’s anti-Commodore rant
After the runaway success of the Commodore 64, Commodore Business Machines (CBM) were fortunate enough to acquire the amazing Amiga technology. Hailed as advanced beyond its time with impressive graphics and sound and true multitasking it outshone the IBM PC, on paper at least.

Alas, the Amiga died out – on paper, at least, with the memory still living in the hearts of geeks around the world. The biggest problem was the machine lacked software so for the most part punters stayed away. Consequently, the software houses didn’t see it as a priority platform due to its lack of market share.

Not all in the Amiga team were rapturous about their Commodore ownership and a very early version – 1.2 – of Amiga’s Workbench software contains an Easter egg which really upset the suits.

The ambidextry of an octopus was needed, but if you pressed both Alt keys, both Shift keys, F1 and eject DF0: all at once you’d be presented with the bold message, “We made Amiga, they f**ked it up.”

In “On the Edge: the Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore” Brian Bagnall records that this little insertion caused huge anger and expense. The Amiga team knew who did it. They wouldn’t name names to Bagnall but decades later they’re still annoyed.

Microsoft Excel Flight Simulator ‘97
Microsoft Excel has certainly been known to have its share of Easter eggs, which betrays its possibly stuffy reputation as a tool for nerds and accountants or for the humdrum tasks of balancing one’s own budget.

Yet, despite spreadsheets being one of the most mainstream and crucial business apps ever, Excel’s development team clearly had a sense of fun.

Back when Easter eggs were still a novelty, and back when households only had one computer, Microsoft Excel ’97 surprised us all.

The magic sequence was to create a new worksheet. Press F5. Type X97:L97 and hit enter. Press the tab key. Hold the Ctrl and Shift keys which clicking the Chart Wizard toolbar button.

Woah! Suddenly you’re in a makeshift flight sim. Fortunately, the controls are vastly simpler than genuine flight simulators. Move the mouse to fly around, press the right button to move forward and the left button to reverse.

This feature may have been missed by many. For the full effect you needed Direct Draw installed. Without that you received the message “This would be much more interesting if you were running with DirectDraw. But you’re not, so this will have to suffice.” The credits then appear.

Although other versions of Excel – as well as other products by Microsoft – contained Easter Eggs the Excel flight sim one was the first introduction by many to the genre.

Of course, this Easter Egg was no different from the others I’ve mentioned in that it was dimly viewed. This time, it was the US military and government agencies who complained. They didn’t see the funny side of undocumented and unexpected software on their computers.

Consequently, Microsoft’s official policy now is that it’s an offence for developers to insert Easter eggs in their “serious” apps so don’t expect something similar from Redmond again.

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