Digital Easter Eggs
The annual Easter egg hunt has become a tradition for many families. On Easter Sunday, children will be searching throughout their homes and yards for hidden Easter eggs and other treats. In the digital world, you don't have to wait until Easter to go on an egg hunt. Digital Easter Eggs are hidden in computer programs, operating systems and DVDs, and can be found any time of the year.
Digital Easter Eggs have nothing to do with Easter Sunday, although they are often associated with the creation of something new and are often quite colorful. These cyber Easter Eggs are harmless hidden goodies found by clicking on the right spot, editing the right file, or typing in the correct phrase or word. Then, presto! The digital Easter Egg reveals itself.
No one seems to be able to document when this practice began, but digital Easter Eggs have been cropping up in computer hardware and software for several decades. As a computer programmer in the seventies, I can attest that they were routinely added to many different computer programs. Early cartridges for Atari games contained electronic Easter Eggs. The latest hiding spots for Easter Eggs are in DVDs.
Easter Eggs of the cyber sort are not meant to be found easily. They are discovered only through a combination of keystrokes, clicks, and commands that often have to be executed in a very precise manner. Easter Eggs have to be so well hidden by their creators because many companies will remove them if found during product testing. It's a challenge to keep Easter Eggs hidden, and most programmers and designers love a challenge, which is one reason why the tradition of embedding digital Easter Eggs survives.
The content of these eggs can be messages, graphics, sound effects, or the names of the programmers who created the product. Most often they are used as a kind of joke, but sometimes they promote a political agenda or play a snippet of the programmer's favorite tune. There are even some that are games you can play.
Many versions of the Netscape, Mozilla, and Foxfire browsers have an Easter egg. Click CRL+L to get to the location box, then type in about:mozilla and press the Enter key. You will see a Biblical-sounding quotation, the exact variation of which depends upon the version of the browser you are using. In many versions of Microsoft Word, when you type =rand(200,99) into a Word document and press the Enter key, you'll get 142 pages of "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. " To launch the hidden egg in Microsoft Works 2000, go to the Help menu, select About Microsoft Works 2000, click in the List box and type in the word Phoenix. Even chip designers have been known to hide cute little extras into their work.
This year, after enjoying your holiday meal and helping the children hunt for decorated Easter eggs, you may want to go on your own hunt to fill your basket with some electronic Easter Eggs. That old Easter bunny has thought of something for everyone!
Additional Resources
Hunting Digital Easter Eggs in Movies, Programs on NPR.org
Molecular Expressions, which includes a photo of the image of Daffy Duck on a microprocessor chip
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About the Author
Sandy Berger is a nationally-known author and has written several books on computers.
