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A Publication Featuring The Information Services Technology of Maine State Government
| Volume V, Issue 4 | April 2002 |
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By Kevin Jones
Do you know what an Easter egg is? I don’t mean the brightly colored eggs found in children’s baskets along with jellybeans, chocolate bunnies and those bizarre yellow marshmallow chicks. I’m referring to secret Easter eggs found in your PC software. There are hundreds of amusing and entertaining tidbits sprinkled in Windows software that can be uncovered if you know the exact sequence of keys to enter.
These hidden treasures aren’t limited to just games but can be found even in major "business class" software. They are undocumented and almost impossible to find unless you know the secret way to activate them. For example if you select the proper sequence of keys at a particular screen in Excel 2000 you will find yourself madly driving a sports car in a game much like "Spy Hunter". Don’t ask me what the keystrokes for this egg are - the latest Office service patch deleted it.
Regrettably there aren’t nearly as many eggs in business software as there were just a few years ago because of the crackdowns by corporate party-poopers; but still a good number of them sneaked past the quality assurance watchdogs. Why do developers put Easter eggs in software? Maybe it’s their way of reaffirming a spirit of independence while working on the huge project teams, or maybe its just revenge of the nerds. I really don’t know, but when I come across a particularly entertaining egg buried deep within the code of a multi-billion dollar piece of software from someone like Microsoft, I find it strangely reassuring.
OK here’s a harmless little egg that should work for most systems, but remember, you didn’t get it from me.
-- Right click on "Properties" on the desktop.
-- Go to the "Screensaver" menu.
-- Select the 3-D Text screensaver option and then the Settings Option
-- In the text box, type "volcano" (without quotes).
-- Select Preview.
Enjoy!
