Easter Eggs in Technology

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Published on April 09 2008, HT Horizons Page 10

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TECHTATTLE - Easter eggs All about hidden bits of code that provide unexpected, pleasant and entertaining little surprises

By Ashish Bhatia
For those of you who have never relished an Easter egg before, let's start with an oldie. In Windows XP Go to Start and click on Run. In the box, type TELNET and hit Enter. A new window will open. Here press Enter once. Then type in "o" (without the quotes) and press Enter. Next type "towel.blinkenlights.nl". Remember, no inverted commas or spaces. Now hit Enter and see what you get: The MS-DOS version of Star Wars!

Before I tell you about what all this is about, try another ancient trick. Fire up Microsoft Word. Open a new document. Type "=rand(200,99)" (minus quotes). Hit Enter, and wait with bated breath for a second or two. (You can try typing any variation from (1,1) to (200,99) after "=rand" to see diverse results; the first number being the repetition and the second the number of times in a row.) This works with even the new Microsoft Word.

The Easter eggs you have just tasted are actually hidden bits of code intended to provide unexpected, pleasant and entertaining little surprises. You will find them concealed in operating systems, software apps, browsers, websites, games, and even movie DVDs. Officially they don't exist as they are undocumented applets or events that are implanted by programmers. An Easter egg can be anything from a message, a scroll of names, a sound, an image, unusual program behaviour in a game. They pop up in response to a set of secret, non-intuitive commands, mouse clicks, keystrokes or other analogous stimuli.

Programmers embed Easter eggs into programmes usually as a signature to get credit, or as a tribute to someone, or as a joke, or for plain kicks. They are meant to provide a delightful little burp of thrill when you discover them. Here's another stale one to egg you on: Go to www.google.com, Type "elgoog". Then click on the first link and show the world your white and pearlies!

Google Giggles:

While we are on Google, you might as well take a look at Google's TiSP project (www.google.com/tisp/index.html). This is Google Toilet Internet Service Provider is a self-installed, in-home wireless access by connecting "your commode-based TiSP wireless router to one of thousands of TiSP Access Nodes via fiber-optic cable strung through your local municipal sewage lines." You are meant to flush one end of the fiber-optic cable (provided in the TiSP kit) down the toilet and wait till the line is connected to the Internet via a Plumbing Hardware Dispatch er (PHD). You believe that!
Now try the Google's official Easter egg game at www.google.com/Easter/feature_easter.html. Forget finding eggs, you must try and catch some with your mouse here-all to spell out "Google".
If you have Google Picasa, load it up and press Ctrl+Shift+Y. Again and again and again! And very soon your desktop will look like a virtual zoo, running amok with teddy bears! Since we are onto funny stuff, maybe you should also try Google's other interfaces as well:

Klingon (www.google.com/intl/xx-klingon/)

Elmer Fudd (www.google.com/intl/xx-elmer/)

Pig Latin (www.google.com/intl/xx-piglatin/).
Want to know what Klingon, Elmer Fudd and Pig Latin are all about???
Browser Jollies:

Load Firefox-whichever version. Now in the address bar, key in "about:mozilla". Obviously, without the quotes. What you will generate is page with a pseudo Biblical sounding quote from the mythical Book of Mozilla. Interesting, eh?

And if you want to see more oddities in Firefox, just type "about kitchensink" in the browser's address bar. What you will get is a very animated ASCII art work of a kitchen sink. Here, along with the quote marks, you will need to omit the colon too. Before I forget, this trick only works with Firefox 2 or higher.

Firefoxless? Stop frowning, even if you still don't use what is (arguably, of course) the world's best web browser. And insist browsing only with what the doctor (Bill Gates) ordered with your Windows, i.e. Internet Explorer. If you are up to speed with IE7 (no, not ahead pack with the IE8 beta), try typing:
javascript:window.name="TheWCEE";location.href="res://shdoclc.dll/wcee.htm"
into Internet Explorer's address bar-and with those quote marks as is this time. What do you get? A hidden page of developer credits zipping on and off the screen. Nothing great, but an intriguing nonetheless...

A recipe often sounds delicious until you try it - and then the air is only full of feathers. Before you head for your PC, keep in mind that what worked for me may not work for you. Yet, don't assume it's a rotten egg and this is a lousy article. It's only because the trick was meant for a different software version. And you just managed to scramble the egg...

The author is a part-time publishing consultant and a full-time devotee of all things tech. He can be contacted at ashishone@gmail.com